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WINTER 2015 | ENVIRONMENTAL SOLUTIONS IN ACTION ALTERED

A EMERGES IN THE NORTH

PLUS:

Fixing the PALM OIL PROBLEM FOOD PACKAGING that bites artificial photosynthesis, local wisdom & more PERSPECTIVE

ensia director TODD REUBOLD

business as unusual editor in chief MARY HOFF

senior editor DAVID DOODY

creative director Six years ago, sitting in her office on a SARAH KARNAS narrow street in Kings Cross, London, Nature EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS news editor Gaia Vince began to feel a little ANYA MOUCHA & KAYLA WALSH unsettled. More and more, reporters were Design assistant ANNA EGELHOFF bringing word of big changes affecting land, air and water around the world. Clearly contributors ASHLEY BARLOW, something momentous was underway — and BEX GLOVER, Elizabeth Grossman, Vince wanted to know what. Quitting her job, Mark Huxham, Michael Kodas, MATT LINCOLN, GLEN LOWRY, Phil she set out on a journey of unknown destina- McKenna, Katie G. Nelson, Mridu tion and duration to find out what was hap- Khullar Relph, Edward Struzik pening and what people were doing about it. printed by MODERN PRESS Meanwhile, half a world away, Ed Struzik was probably stepping in a puddle. An adven- turer who had been exploring the Arctic for decades, he, too, was sensing uneasy change — in the form of a beloved landscape that was literally melting before his eyes. He decided to dig deeper — and discovered enough to literally fill a book. technology, moving beyond “either-or” Ensia is a print and online magazine showcasing You undoubtedly can add observations thinking to recognize that healthy habitats environmental solutions in action. Powered by the of your own. Whether it’s waves inundating and healthy livelihoods need not be mutually Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, we connect people who can change the America’s Eastern Seaboard or species vanish- exclusive, and acknowledging that some issues world with the ideas and inspiration they need to do ing from tropical forests, we’re clearly living in have no perfect solution. A few even showcase so. Ensia is funded in part by a major grant from the a “Business as Unusual” world. The cumula- the great-granddaddy of innovation — nature Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. To subscribe, tive effects of humans’ past and present actions itself — as a source of ideas worth emulating, change your address or request an alternative format, email [email protected]. To sign up for e-alerts, have catapulted us into a time like no other. from wholesome packaging to biodiversity- go to ensia.com/subscribe. respecting agriculture to novel ensia.com @ensiamedia /ensiamedia The even bigger story — one we’re still ways to harness solar energy for human use. This magazine is printed on environmentally friendly writing — is the sequel: “Now What?” Unusual times paper with 30% postconsumer waste. demand unusual But these changes are just Book One of responses: As Albert Einstein famously said, the trilogy. The even bigger story — one we’re we can’t solve problems by using the same still writing — is the sequel: “Now What?” kind of thinking we used when we created In this issue, you’ll find a multitude of them. The good news is, the same capacity for ways in which innovators and entrepreneurs, innovation that got us into this mess holds collaborators and iconoclasts are answering the power to get us out again — not by going that question. Vince, for her part, revels in backward, but by moving resolutely forward the pockets of human ingenuity she encoun- in a wiser, humbler, more astute and more The views and opinions expressed in Ensia are those tered on what turned out to be a 40-country respectful way. of the authors and not necessarily of the Institute on tour taking her from impoverished Andean Can we? Yes. Will we? That would be Book the Environment or the University of Minnesota. villages to bustling Asian megacities. Struzik Three — the book we have yet to write. The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity makes the case for proactively responding to educator and employer. the changes we’re seeing in the Arctic before MARY HOFF on the cover Based in Bristol, U.K., we add an entire new layer of insult to injury. illustrator Bex Glover specializes in vibrant, Other contributors tell of tapping traditional stylized, nature-inspired art. Her work has been featured in museums, magazines, knowledge for strategies to cope with large- books and more for clients including Ogilvy scale change, boosting environmental account- EDITOR IN CHIEF New York, EDF Energy, Pearson ability with innovative communications [email protected] and TASCHEN. www.severnstudios.co.uk

ENSIA.com WINTER 2015

FEATURES

8 The End and the Beginning of the Arctic A t the top of the world, it’s time to get ready for a new future. by EDWARD STRUZIK

18 Solving the Palm Oil Problem Palm oil pervades our lives and devastates our planet. What can we do about it? 8 by MICHAEL KODAS chrishowey 24 A New Leaf Artificial photosynthesis could power an energy revolution. by PHIL MCKENNA

28 Bad Wrap N ew studies raise disturbing questions about the health and environmental effects of food packaging. by ELIZABETH GROSSMAN

DEPARTMENTS

2 Q&A Gaia Vince on her adventures in the Anthropocene

4 In Focus © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/ BY JEFF MAINA/BRCK | PHOTO | PHOTO BARLOW BY ASHLEY PHOTO 32 8 Local wisdom

6 Notable

32 Snapshot Digital democratization in

34 Connections F arming the best medicine

36 Voices E cosystems are not machines 28 Q&A

SEARCHING FOR SOLUTIONS Gathering news from around the world as an editor for the scientific journal Nature, Gaia Vince had a unique perspective on global events. And, she soon realized, an unsettling one: Many of the reports that crossed her desk seemed to share the common theme that human activity has brought to the brink of a precipice, where things as fundamental to life as we know it as a relatively stable climate and survival of fellow planetary passengers were teetering on the edge. Wanting to better understand the problems — and explore what people might be doing to solve them — Vince quit her job in 2008 and set out on a trip that would extend across more than 40 countries and take four years, covering everything from a pair of Peruvians painting a moun- tain white in hopes of regenerating a lost glacier to construction of an eco-city in China. The resulting book, Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey Into the Heart of the Planet We Made, offers a remarkable firsthand tale of change and response. Ensia caught up with Vince in London to get the story behind the stories she discovered.

INTERVIEW by mary hoff | photo by MATT LINCOLN

2 ENSIA.com hat inspired you to What surprised you? The generosity, H as yOUR perspective on the An- take this journey? I’d the kindness of strangers. I’m not sure if thropocene changed as a result W been working as a science jour- it surprises me, but it’s always so welcome. of your travels? I know a lot more nalist for many years, and during that time, You live in a big, very crowded western city about it because I’ve researched and I’ve my interests moved towards our impact on where exchanges are often brusque, and spoken to people and seen on the ground the planet and how the changes we are mak- then to go somewhere where people really what’s happening around the world. So yes, ing to the planet are impacting us. It just have nothing and yet they will offer to try I have a better intellectual grasp of it — but seemed to be accelerating and affecting so and help you. Human cooperation can also a better emotional grasp of it, because many parts of ordinary life. I thought, well, overcome so many difficulties. a lot of these situations touch you in a I’ve had enough of sitting in an office in certain way. London and just sending other reporters out What did you find the most wor- to have a look at stuff, I actually want to go risome? The damage we’re doing. We H as yOUR hope for the future out there myself and see this extraordinary really are running out of water, and this is a changed? Some things seemed a lot time that we’re living in. really, really big worry. Also the desecration worse looking at them on the ground, and of farmland as it becomes desertified or soil in some ways I’m a lot more hopeful. The How did you decide where to go becomes poorer. Biodiversity loss is sad, espe- state of coral reefs around the world is so and what to cover? I just bought a cially when it’s a big charismatic species like much worse than I could have imagined one-way ticket to Kathmandu. There was a the elephant. There’s a lot that’s worrying. just from reading papers or reports. You sort of vague plan, but it changed. Interest- hear all sorts of terrible things about people ing stories took me to different places, or which solution has the best living in slums, and of course there are huge natural disasters prevented me from going to chance of success? I don’t think challenges there. But at the same time, these certain places, or weather systems changed there’s going to be one solution that saves are some vibrant, intellectually exciting and and I ended up staying in one place longer us from some of the terrible crises we face. unique places. I think we’re going to see a lot or shorter than I intended. There’s not even one solution to one of the more innovation from these areas. Once you’re on the ground, you contact problems. What it’s going to be is people the usual suspects, interesting research facili- using a lot of the different solutions that What do you hope people will do ties, interesting-looking NGOs, interesting they’ve generated. And there are some really after reading your book? I’m hop- village chiefs. You talk to people in cafes. I incredible and inspirational projects out ing to remind people that the Global South set off thinking I’ll rent my place out for there. You can go to a really remote part of is not just some disaster zone you see on the six months and if it works out, I might Africa and people there will have mobile news. Yes, this is where the impacts are be- extend for another six months. I never at all phones that are capable of connecting them ing felt first, but it’s also where some of the intended to be still traveling three years later. to anywhere in the world. It’s helping people solutions to the world’s problems are coming get their produce to market, it’s helping from. We are a global society now, and so Aous y traveled and heard all people manage disease, it’s helping people all of us need to take on some of these chal- these different stories, what with disaster management. There’s also a lenges and work out what we’re going to do common thread emerged for new awareness that some of the problems about them — because they’re not just going you? Human ingenuity is really quite ex- we face need to be tackled at the community to go away. traordinary. In a lot of ways we face a hostile level. This idea we might be entering a new Looking at how we might solve this, I planet. We have to make our own food, we Green Revolution where people are planting think it is really important to look not just have to keep ourselves warm, we’re prey more location-appropriate crops, sharing at species diversity, but at human diversity to the weather, prey to disease. And yet all knowledge, is hopeful. — to include the thoughts and experiences around the world we’ve worked out ways of and viewpoints of women and to include enriching our lives and extending them and Many people believe change is voices from the Global South. They’re not dealing with things as they come up. in the hands of developed na- really featured in a lot of these discussions. I The other thing is just how incred- tions, governments and major think that’s very limiting because you miss ible our planet is. You can still gasp with corporations. What are your out on potential solutions and on under- wonder at something as mundane as the thoughts? There’s not an either-or. standing what people’s experiences are and sun coming up every day. You see it from a Governments do need to change, and they where you need to target solutions and in- different angle in a different place and it’s are. But even within big countries it’s the in- terventions. That’s where we need to spend a just incredible. dividual on the ground making the changes. bit more energy.

WINTER 2015 3 IN FOCUS

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4 ENSIA.com 2 3 OUR PLACE ON EARTH

by ANYA MOUCHA | PHOTOS BY TOM MILLER, pretty good productions

Who knows better how to handle climate change than communities that have been coping with the vicissitudes of nature for centuries? A joint effort launched by policy consultantN uin-Tara Key and filmmakerT om Miller in 2014, Our Place on Earth aims to discover and share adaptation success stories from Finland to Nicaragua. Over the next year OPOE will engage six communities across five countries, filming a documentary on local responses to climate change, creating a tool kit to help others replicate successful strategies they uncover, and empowering community members to continue to tell their stories through low-cost video production workshops.

+ See more images and read project updates: ensia.us/opoe

(1) Vehkasuo, Finland: Vast carbon sinks known as marsh- 5 mires help mitigate climate change in the northern part of the planet. (2) Selkie, Finland: Often overlooked in favor of salmon from the supermarket, roach, perch and whitefish are an abundant and underused resource in the lakes of North Karelia. (3) Bangkukuk, Nicaragua: A local community member prepares to demonstrate ancestral fishing practices. (4) Barbuda, Islands: Hurricane Luis breached this sandbar protecting Codrington Lagoon in 1995. The holes in the sandbar have since been filled in, both naturally and with help from a U.S. Agency for International Development grant to build fences that trap sand and prevent further erosion. (5) Khaka Creek Reserve, Nicaragua: Proyecto Tapir is de- signed to protect the endangered Nicaraguan tapir.

WINTER 2015 5 NOTABLE

AERIAL

I n the bustle of our days, it’s easy to forget just how spec- tacular this planet is. Take a minute to fly over breathtaking Alaska with filmmaker Ben Sturgulewski at ensia.us/alaska. Trust us, you’re going to want to watch this bird’s-eye flight in full-screen mode. 13 126 k dun average number of ingredi- o ents U.S. citizens apply to their skin each day –Environmental Working Group PHOTO © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/g PHOTO SKIN DEEP

E ver wonder what’s really in your shampoo, deodorant or makeup? NOT SUCH A NUTTY IDEA The Environmental Working Long considered an agricultural waste product, coconut husk fibers Group’s Skin Deep website and mobile app rates and reviews are finding a second life as anything from vehicle trunk liners to wall 70,000 products and almost planters. Researchers with Essentium Materials in College Station, 11,500 ingredients. Enter a prod- Texas, estimate that coconut husk products could not only double uct name or scan a barcode and you’ll be able to tell in seconds if the annual incomes of the world’s 10 million coconut farmers, but your hair gel or sunscreen con- cut back on 2 to 4 million barrels of petroleum and reduce carbon tains chemicals associated with dioxide output by 450,000 tons each year. various health concerns. Check it

PHOTO © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/GN_OM PHOTO out at ensia.us/skindeep.

STOP AND SMELL THE CORAL

R esearchers from Georgia Tech have found that when some damaged coral reefs are 4,000 overtaken by seaweed, they give off an number of species of fish odor that deters Pacificfish and coral from supported by coral reefs repopulating them. The finding suggests National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that efforts to restore reefs may need to – start with removing offending vegetation.

VANISHING INVERTEBRATES

Populations of key insects and other invertebrates have plummeted 45 percent in the past four decades, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature — a daunting discovery, since invertebrates serve as pollinators, waste reducers, waterway purifiers and more. Scientists hope the new knowledge will energize new initiatives to conserve these often tiny creatures that play such a mighty role in life processes.

6 ENSIA.com 31 Doyeing t Be Green WATER WEDGES H ow much water does it take One out of three people worldwide percent of Earth’s land area to dye a shirt? By some esti- live in water-stressed . Re- 8,400 covered by forests mates, 25 liters. searchers from Utrecht and number of dams –WWF Using highly McGill universities compressed have compiled in the U.S.

CO , technol- six tactics c 2 n PRESSURE’S OFF ogy manufacturer that together

phicsi Applied Separations could reduce this gra California-based PAX Pure hopes s has developed an proportion 12 percent by 52 ner

to offer a new solution to water m innovative dyeing 2050. The “water-stress u average age in scarcity with its groundbreaking s technique that wedges” include improv- years of dams water purification tool.D eveloped dramatically ing agricultural water by Jay Harman and Tom Gielda, reduces water productivity, increasing in the U.S. PAX Pure technology desalinates and energy use reservoir capacity, ramping –American Society and demineralizes water without and cuts production costs, up desalination and boost- of Civil Engineers

membranes, moving parts or © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/ PHOTO too. Learn more at ensia.us/dye. ing irrigation efficiency. chemicals. Instead, the technol- ogy simply mimics high-altitude conditions. Learn more at ensia.us/paxpure. better off biking Does investing in urban bicycle infrastructure pay off? You bet your spandex. Using a simulation model, researchers in Aukland, Full Disclosure New Zealand, determined that separate bike paths and reduced- Plastic Disclosure Project, an speed, bike-friendly streets can yield benefits 10 to 25 times initiative of the Recovery greater than the cost. Read all about it at ensia.us/biking. Alliance, challenges businesses to tackle their “plastic footprints” by adopting a closed-loop approach to plastics. PDP also provides a platform where companies can share success stories. Check it out at ensia.us/pdp.

ssPa the Crickets!

Eating insects is creating a lot of buzz. But did you know that bil- lions of people around the world are already consuming beetles, caterpillars and mealworms regu- p r t

e larly? High in protein, nutrients, p fiber and fatty acid, insects can also be more environmentally friendly to farm, requiring only a fraction of the water and feed it takes to raise conventional meat.

PHOTO © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/ PHOTO ensia.us/yum PHOTO © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/OLASER PHOTO

FOR MORE NOTABLES, VISIT ENSIA.COM/NOTABLES WINTER 2015 7 At the top of the world, it’s time to get ready for a new future. lenny M hoto.com/ p Photo © iStock Photo

8 ENSIA.com A t the top of the world, it’s time to get ready for a new future.

by Edward Struzik

WINTER 2015 9 In the winter of 2013–14, hundreds of milk-white birds with luminous yellow eyes and wingspans of up to 5 feet descended on beaches, farmers’ fields, city parks and airport runways throughout southern and the United States. Traditionally, snowy owls spend most of Snowy owl irruptions are not in themselves port goods from one to another. The their time in the Arctic and subarctic regions. a sure sign that something extraordinary is question then becomes, how do we understand But every four years or so when populations of happening in an Arctic world that is warming and manage the end of the Arctic as we know it lemmings — among the owls’ favorite foods nearly twice as fast as the global rate. But given so we are prepared to deal with the new Arctic — cycle downward, a small number of young, the rapid-fire fashion in which similar, unex- that is unfolding? inexperienced birds that are less adept than pected events have been unfolding throughout hy

their elders at hunting will fly farther south the circumpolar , it’s clear that the Arctic p a than they might normally rather than starve to we know is coming to an end, and that a new A Picture of Change r death. No one, however, had seen an irruption and very different Arctic is taking over. The past 10 years paint a dramatic picture of as big and as far-reaching as this one, which What happens in the Arctic matters. The climate-related changes at the top of the world. was the second major such event in North ecological, cultural and economic shifts that First there were massive forest fires that torched America in three years. are currently underway will not only alter the a record 4.2 million hectares of trees in the Yu- By the first week of December, the big lives of the Inuit, Gwich’in, Nenets and other kon and Alaska in 2004. Smoke from those hoto.com/RyanVincePhotog birds were spotted from North Dakota to aboriginal people who live there, they are likely fires could be detected all the way to the east p Maine and from Newfoundland to Bermuda. to affect mid-latitude weather patterns, the coast of Canada and throughout many parts of At one point, owls collided with five planes at migrating birds we see, the air we breathe, the the contiguous United States. Parts of the Alas-

Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports. fuel we burn and the way in which we trans- ka Highway were shut down for days at a time. © iStock Photo

10 ENSIA.com Alaskans suffered for 15 days when air quality in cities such as Fairbanks was deemed to be hazardous to health by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards. Then it was the collapse of the 9-mile-long, 3-mile-wide, 120-foot-thick Ayles Ice Shelf off the north coast of in 2005. Scientist Warwick Vincent likened the collapse, the largest recorded in the Canadian Arctic, to a cruise missile hitting the shelf after it regis- tered as a small earthquake at a seismic station 150 miles away. In 2006 we learned of the world’s first wild polar bear–grizzly bear hybrid, of further in- creases in relatively warm Pacific water flowing north through the , of gray whales overwintering in the Beaufort instead of migrating to the California coast and — from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center — news that September was declining 8.6 percent per decade or 23,328 square miles per year. At the time, some scientists scoffed when NSIDC research scientist Julienne Stroeve pre- dicted that the would have no September ice by 2060. But when Arctic sea ice retreated to another record low a year later, many suggested September ice might be gone by 2040. Then came 2007 — the year in which it became crystal clear that winter’s freeze was los- ing its ability to keep up with summer’s melt. A rare, extraordinarily large tundra fire on the north slope of Alaska accounted for 40 percent of the area burned in the state that summer. Avian cholera, a disease that is common in the south but largely absent in the eastern Arctic, killed nearly one-third of the nesting female common eiders at East Bay, home to the larg- est colony of the species in the region. It was so warm that summer that the Inuit of Grise Fiord, the most northerly civilian community on the continent, were forced to stockpile sea ice for drinking water because runoff from a nearby glacier dried up. For the third year in a row, hundreds of beluga whales and narwhal made the mis- take of staying in the Canadian Arctic longer than they should have because there was still Grizzly and polar bear hybrids, like this one shot by Glenn Ferry in Canada’s much open water when summer came to an Northwest Territories in 2006, are icons of the changes taking place as traditional end. In Lancaster Sound alone, Inuit hunters Arctic habitat disappears.

photo by troy maben, ap by troy photo shot more than 600 belugas that would have

WINTER 2015 11 otherwise drowned as the small pools of open Extraordinary as the events of 2007 were, It wasn’t just sea ice that was being churned water they were trapped in shrank to nothing the changes that have been brought on by a up and melted more quickly by these in- over a 10-day period. rapidly warming Arctic have not let up since creasingly powerful storms. In the Yukon- But what really made the big melt of 2007 then. In 2010 and 2012, 100 square miles and Kuskokwim delta in Alaska, which is already an eye-popping one was the absence of ice in 46 square miles, respectively, broke away from vulnerable to rising sea levels, storm surges areas where it almost never sent waves of saltwater more than thaws. The so-called “mor- 30 kilometers inland on three oc- tuary” of old ice that peren- What really made the big melt of 2007 an casions between 2005 and 2011. nially chokes M’Clintock eye-popping one was the absence of ice in This doesn’t bode well for the mil- Channel in the High Arc- areas where it almost never thaws. lion birds that nest in the delta nor tic of Canada virtually dis- for the Chinook (king) salmon, appeared that August. The which have been in steep decline “birthplace” of a great deal of new ice that is the Petermann Glacier in . The pres- in the region for more than a decade. This manufactured in Viscount Melville Sound to ence of so much warm open water in 2012 — year’s run of between 71,000 and 117,000 was the north was down to half of its normal ice when another record low for sea ice cover was expected to be as poor as last year’s, which es- cover. “The ice is no longer growing or getting established — fueled an unusually powerful tablished a record low. old,” said John Falkingham, chief forecaster for summer cyclone that tore through the Arctic Even among all this, one of the most re- the Canadian Ice Service. for nearly two weeks. cent signs of change has been especially alarm- ory t a bserv O rth Ea A S

Massive chunks of ice broke from the warming Petermann Glacier in Greenland in the summer of 2012. Photo courtesy of NA Photo

12 ENSIA.com ing. All across the Arctic, scientists have been NAO a detecting abnormally high concentrations of Y methane seeping out of the thawing perma- frost. In one spectacular example discovered along ’s Yamal Peninsula in 2014, con- centrations of the greenhouse gas 50,000 times higher than the atmospheric average were ress service of the Governor service of the Governor ress found to be rising from a 200-foot-deep cra- p ter that was formed when a massive sheet of permafrost thawed and collapsed. In another case in Canada’s western Arctic, three of many seeps found in the area were found to be emit- ting as much greenhouse gases in a year as are emitted by 9,000 average-size cars. Zulinova, by Marya Photo We are already seeing the effects of some of these changes ripple through various eco- systems. Capelin, not Arctic cod, is now the In an ominous positive feedback loop, a recently discovered crater in the dominant fish in . Killer whales, thawing Siberian permafrost is spewing methane, a potent greenhouse gas, once stopped by sea ice, are now preying on into the atmosphere. narwhals and beluga whales throughout the Arctic Ocean. Pacific salmon of all types are moving into many parts of the Canadian SUMMER 2014 Arctic where they have never been seen be- Flash Forward And summer storms in the Arctic will fore. Polar bears at the southern end of their If the past tells us anything about the future, continue to pick up steam as melting ice and range are getting thinner and producing fewer it’s that there will be many more changes that warming waters contribute to further rises in cubs than they have in the past. were not anticipated. A few things, however, sea levels. The pounding these storms inflict walrus are hauling out on land by the tens of we know with some degree of confidence. on frozen shorelines will accelerate the thawing thousands, as 35,000 of them did in Septem- First, temperatures will continue to rise, of permafrost, which currently traps massive ber 2014 when there was no more sea ice to resulting in the Arctic Ocean being seasonally amounts of methane. The Arctic Ocean will use as platforms. ice-free by 2040 or possibly earlier. Two-thirds continue to acidify as its upper surface absorbs The changes that are occurring are circum- of the world’s polar bears will be gone a decade the greenhouse gases emitted from both the polar. In the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, later, as will one-third of the 45,000 lakes in ground and from the burning of fossil fuels. fjords on the west coast have not been frozen the Mackenzie, one of the largest deltas in the for several years. Tundra there is being overtak- Arctic. The future is not necessarily all doom and en by shrubs, just as it is in Siberia, Chukotka, In 2100, when trees and shrubs overtake gloom, however. There is compelling evidence Arctic Canada and the north slope of Alaska much of the grasses and sedges on the tun- to suggest that some subarctic and Arctic ani- where barren-ground caribou — fixtures on the summer tundra — are dramatically declin- ing. According to the CircumArctic Rangifer If the past tells us anything about the future, Monitoring and Assessment Network, which it’s that there will be many more changes that is run on a voluntary basis by veteran biolo- gists Don Russell, Anne Gunn and others, half were not anticipated. of the world’s 23 barren-ground caribou herds that are routinely counted are in decline. Only dra, what we think of as traditional habitat for mals — such as the bowhead whale, the musk three, maybe four, are increasing, and they are barren-ground caribou will have shrunk by as ox and the barren-ground grizzly bear — will doing so only modestly. Measured another way much as 89 percent. Coniferous forests will likely thrive in this warmer world. So, too, may by biologists Liv Vors and Mark Boyce, who be replaced by deciduous ones in many places. the wood bison, which emerged from the 19th included the fate of boreal forest and moun- Some trees will have begun to take root on the century greatly diminished in the subarctic due tain caribou in their survey, 34 of the 43 major south end of the . Most of to habitat loss and overhunting before animals herds scientists have studied worldwide in the the polar ice caps on Melville Island will have were reintroduced to parts of the Northwest past decade are in a free fall. melted away. Territories, the Yukon, Siberia and Alaska.

WINTER 2015 13 A A

O Receding sea ice, for example, is revealing 22 percent of the undiscovered, technically re-

rdo, AP/N rdo, coverable hydrocarbon resources in the world, cca as well as the potential for a commercial fishing industry. It is opening up shipping lanes that are far shorter and more economical than exist- ing routes that must pass through the Panama Photo by Corey A Photo and Suez canals. This will prove to be challenging. Most of the Arctic currently belongs to the five coastal Arctic states — the United States, Canada, Rus- sia, Norway, and Greenland. But a big part of it — the so-called 1.2 million-square- mile “donut hole” in the central Arctic Ocean — does not fall under any country’s jurisdiction. Until recently, security issues, search and rescue protocols, indigenous rights, climate Unable to find sufficient sea ice to lie on, thousands of walrus took to the change, and other environmental priorities shores of the Chukchi Sea in September 2014. were the main concerns of the Arctic Coun- cil, an intergovernmental forum that includes the eight voting states bordering the Arctic There are even signs that cougars could stage As much as we know — and as much as and several indigenous organizations that have a comeback in a land in which the maneless we think we know — about what the future participant status. But the recent admission of Beringian lion once preyed on animals such as Arctic might look like, it’s what we don’t know China and other major Asian economic powers the saiga antelope. that worries scientists like Henry Huntington, as observer states is yet another strong sign that the economic development of an increasingly On the positive side, the current process of dividing ice-free Arctic is becoming a top priority of na- tions in the region and beyond. up the unclaimed territory in the Arctic may well be As this interest in the Arctic’s future wealth resolved by protocols set forth by the United Nations grows, willingness to cooperate and compro- mise may shrink. Convention of the Law of the Sea. The United States, for example, continues to challenge Canada’s claim that the Northwest Still, as daunting as the future Arctic looks co-chair of the National Research Council Passage is part of its inland waters and not an to be, it may in fact be much worse. What we committee that recently examined emerging international strait. Nor does the United States think we know about the future of the region research questions in the Arctic. “Many of the recognize Canada’s claim to a small, resource- may be grossly underestimated because scien- questions we’ve been asking are ones we’ve rich region in the . In the mean- tists are uncomfortable talking about or put- been asking for some time,” says Huntington. time, Canada and Denmark have agreed to ting pen to predictions that are not backed by “But more and more, there are new questions disagree over the ownership of in 95 percent certainty. arising from insights that have been made only the eastern Arctic as they continue to work out Benjamin Abbott and University of Florida in recent years, or phenomena that have only a tentative agreement on the maritime bound- researcher Edward Schuur anonymously sur- begun to occur.” ary in the Lincoln Sea. And Russia continues veyed climate and fire experts in 2013, ask- to flex its military might in the Arctic in a way ing them how much boreal forest and tundra that has NATO allies concerned. will burn in the future. Nearly all respondents Growing Wealth, On the positive side, the current process painted a picture that is much worse than of dividing up the unclaimed territory in what most experts had publicly claimed. In a Shrinking Cooperation the Arctic may well be resolved by protocols “business-as-usual” scenario, they predicted that All together, the changes past and present in set forth by the United Nations Convention emissions from boreal forest fires will increase the Arctic paint a picture of a future unfolding of the Law of the Sea. The five coastal Arctic 16 to 90 percent by 2040. Emissions from tun- with potentially large economic and geopoliti- states have been spending hundreds of mil- dra fires will grow even more rapidly. cal ramifications. lions of dollars mapping the Arctic Ocean floor

14 ENSIA.com to make a case for extending their territories heavily, if not outright control, the awarding of tivity giving rise to the change — fossil fuel northward. But the recommendations that will select Arctic energy and fishing-related conces- consumption and the release of methane gas eventually be put forth are likely to come in the distant future, and they are not legally binding. Alternatively, there may be some hope, be- One of the biggest challenges in planning for the cause headway has been made in the develop- future is to figure out what the new Arctic might ment of an international fisheries agreement look like. Against a backdrop of boreal forest, that would protect the waters of the central Arctic Ocean. tundra, permafrost, polar deserts, glaciers, ice The dark horse in all this is China, which caps, mountains, rivers, deltas, sea ice, polynyas, as an exporting nation and major energy con- sumer stands to gain from shorter trade routes gyres and open ocean, that won’t be easy to do. through the Arctic and from the energy resourc- es there that remain largely unexploited. It may sions as well as the rules and political arrange- as permafrost thaws and sea ice melts. Given or may not play along with the ’s ments governing the use of strategic waterways the pace of change and the long lag time, how- current efforts to focus on sustainable economic now gradually opening due to melting ice.” ever, there is very little that can be done to stop development and environmental protection the Arctic from warming in the short term. in the Arctic. A Canadian think-tank — the Humans have already released so much green- Macdonald-Laurier Institute — recently sug- Now What? house gas that even if we stop right now, it will gested that China’s true intentions in the Arctic With all of this in mind, what should be done? take centuries to halt or reverse the decline of may amount to “positioning itself to influence One clear course of action is to halt the ac- sea ice cover, the thawing of permafrost, the hoto.com/vice_and_virtue p

As shipping lanes open in the Arctic, cargo ships will become more common sights. Photo © iStock Photo

WINTER 2015 15 meltdown of glaciers and the acidification of is, therefore, a need to develop technologies to like. Against a backdrop of boreal forest, tun- the Arctic Ocean, which is directly attributable increase safety of oil and gas extraction before dra, permafrost, polar deserts, glaciers, ice caps, to the increase in emissions. exploration and extraction proceeds. There is mountains, rivers, deltas, sea ice, polynyas, gyres New economic opportunities may arise also a need to identify and protect biological and open ocean, that won’t be easy to do. There from oil and gas develop- are thousands of pieces to this ments and commercial What the Arctic really needs, in addition puzzle. They include the 21,000 shipping, but those eco- cold-climate mammals, birds, fish, nomic benefits could be to these and other small-scale initiatives, invertebrates, plants and fungi we offset by a blowout or is international cooperation either through know a lot about. They also include shipping accident that an overarching treaty or through a series countless microbes and endopara- could prove to be even sites that remain largely a mystery. more catastrophic than the of binding agreements. Further discoveries of microscopic Exxon Valdez disaster and creatures new to science, such as BP’s Deep Water Horizon. Unlike Prince Wil- hot spots that are vulnerable to this kind of hu- the picobiliphytes found in the Arctic in 2006, liam Sound or the , there is ice man activity. are inevitable. in the Arctic and no ports and few runways One of the biggest challenges in planning A rigorous assessment of what the future from which to stage a cleanup. There is also no for the future is to figure out what the new might look like could help decision-makers practical way of separating oil from ice. There Arctic (including the subarctic) might look understand who the winners and losers will be 9 s hoto.com/dhughe p

New expanses of open water mean new opportunities for commercial fishing in theA rctic. Photo © iStock Photo

16 ENSIA.com in a future Arctic and what other surprises we can expect. This will help identify which low- lying Arctic communities need to be shored up, moved or made fire safe. It could guide decision-makers in designing better rules and regulations for pipelines and resource develop- ment and for commercial shipping. It could also help decision-makers better understand, predict, mitigate and adapt to both changes in the Arctic itself and trickle-down effects to temperate regions. This is already being done with some suc- cess on a small scale. A program in Old Crow, the most northerly community in the Yukon, for example, successfully paired scientists with community leaders to address the issue of food security in a quickly changing climate. Similarly, in Alaska, the Landscape Conservation Cooper- atives have facilitated partnerships between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies, states, tribes, non-governmental orga- nizations, universities and stakeholders within a number of ecologically defined areas. What the Arctic really needs, in addition to these and other small-scale initiatives, is in- ternational cooperation either through an over- arching treaty or through a series of binding agreements. The issues are too big, too com- plex and in many cases too overlapping to be left to individual countries to address. In order for this to happen, the role of the Arctic Coun- cil needs to be strengthened. Science needs to be funded much better than it has been, the indigenous people of the Arctic must be equal partners in the decision-making process and non-Arctic countries such as China must be included in the conversation. The future of the Arctic is not necessarily completely bleak. But if we continue to ignore or underestimate the changes that are taking place in this part of the world, it will, as cli- matologist Mark Serreze bluntly said in 2009, “bite us [and] bite hard.”

Edward Struzik has lived in, and spent the better part of the past 35 years exploring and writing about the circumpolar Arctic. He is currently a fellow at the School of Policy Studies, Queen’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy Receding ice in the Arctic is revealing new technically recoverable hydrocarbon at Queen University in Canada. His next book, resources. But offshore oil and gas development bring environmental risks. Future Arctic: Field Notes from a World on the Edge,

Photo by Edward Struzik by Edward Photo will be published by Island Press in February 2015.

WINTER 2015 17 Solving the Palm Oil

18 ProblemENSIA.com Solving

Palm oil pervades our lives and devastates our planet. What can we do about it? r

Palm Oil ge n B y Michael Kodas i tr PHOTO BY MOHD RASFAN / S BY MOHD RASFAN PHOTO Problem WINTER 2015 19 Last August, from the window of a jet high into palm plantations came from peatlands, a Then, within days of taking office in Oc- over Sumatra, I counted nearly a dozen plumes 75 percent increase over their portion of emis- tober 2014, Indonesia’s new president, Joko of smoke rising from the vast jungles and plan- sions in the 1990s and an indication that palm Widodo, proposed merging the country’s Min- tations below. Some more than a half-mile is increasingly expanding into peat. istry of Environment and Ministry of Forestry.

wide, they looked like pillars holding up the And it’s not just CO2. In 2013, Sumatran That reform could help the nation meet its sky. That week the Indonesian Disaster Mitiga- fires caused record air pollution in neighboring ambitious forest protection and emissions re- tion Agency detected 143 new wildfires in Riau nations, filled hospitals with tens of thousands ductions goals if the Ministry of Environment, Province, the area beneath my flight. All of the of smoke-sickened patients and forced officials which negotiates with the U.N. and determines fires were almost certainly related to deforesta- to close schools. The fires also burn thousands how the nation will meet its emissions goals, tion for timber operations and agriculture — of Indonesians out of their homes and destroy gains some authority over the nation’s forests predominantly oil palm cultivation. the habitat of endangered elephants, rhinos, ti- and peatlands. On the other hand, the power- Palm oil — which appears in a dizzying gers and orangutans. ful and territorial Ministry of Forestry could amount of food and cosmetic products, and is usurp some of the Ministry of Environment’s a feedstock for biofuel — poses many environ- authority. mental problems. It’s the largest driver of In- Getting Serious donesian deforestation, which destroys habitat In the past, Indonesia and the world paid lip and contributes to climate change. And ponds service to stopping the palm oil industry’s de- Palm Oil Boom of wastewater at palm oil refineries release im- struction of Indonesian forests and warming of Ultimately, however, laws, treaties, government mense amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas the global climate, but more recently they have agencies and incentives will have little impact 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide. appeared to get serious. without fundamental changes to how palm oil LSolutions to the environmental problems In 2010 Norway promised $1 billion to is produced and consumed. And unfortunately, posed by palm production are complicated, Indonesia to keep its forests standing, and the there are few viable alternatives to palm. partly because of palm oil’s ubiquity, but also next year Indonesia’s then-president Susilo “There are benefits to palm oil which can- because alternatives lack many of the benefits Bambang Yudhoyono pledged that by 2020, not be ignored,” Alan Townsend, dean of the of the versatile oil. But they are out there. with international assistance, the nation would Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 41 per- University, told me before I traveled to Indone- cent from its “business-as-usual” trajectory. sia. “Palm is one of the most productive crops Burning Below Last August, Singapore began imposing fines of on the planet, with the ability to grow in a A few days after I arrived in Riau, as I marched up to $2 million on local and foreign compa- remarkable range of places. Couple that with to the jungle to see one of the fires, I looked nies that contribute to the haze from fires. The large profit margins, an incredible diversity of back at where my footprints sank some 12 following month, Indonesia, after years of stall- uses for palm oil and a lack of economically inches into the peat and saw smoke rising from ing, became the last of the 10 members of the competitive substitutes, and you can quickly my tracks. Association of Southeast Asian Nations to ratify see why the industry has grown so rapidly.” It’s here, in the peat burning below the for- ests, where the greatest climate impact from palm production can be seen. When forests are cleared to make way for oil palm planta- In 2013 the world consumed 55 million metric tons of tions, the area is usually burned, and most of Riau’s massive fires burn on peat — swampy palm oil, nearly four times what it used 20 years earlier. layers of partially decayed vegetation that spreads up to 60 feet deep beneath most of the province’s forests. Peatlands hold up to 28 times as much a treaty intended to reduce the smoke that has In 2013 the world consumed 55 million carbon as rainforests growing on mineral soil, become a perennial strain on its relations with metric tons of palm oil, nearly four times what and a single hectare of peatland rainforest can its Southeast Asian neighbors. Shortly after- it used 20 years earlier. Indonesia and Malaysia release 6,000 metric tons of planet-warming ward, at the U.N. Climate Summit in New satisfy 85 percent of the demand for the carbon dioxide when it’s converted into a York, 150 companies — including McDonalds, world’s most popular food oil. In 1985, Indo- plantation. Researchers estimated that in 2012 Nestlé, and Procter and Gamble — pledged to nesia had less than 2,500 square miles of palm nearly 70 percent of the carbon released dur- cut deforestation worldwide in half by 2020 oil plantations. Twenty years later, plantations ing the transformation of Sumatran rainforests and to eliminate it altogether by 2030. covered 21,621 square miles, and by 2025 the

20 ENSIA.com Indonesian government projects plantations physician Dr. Oz promoted palm oil’s benefits But such actions increase the demand for oil will cover at least 100,000 square miles. to the heart and brain, helping drive a sixfold crops that are even more destructive to forests A month before my arrival in Riau a paper increase in consumption in the United States and the climate. in the journal Nature Climate Change report- since 2000. “There presently aren’t great alternatives to ed that in 2012 Indonesia deforested nearly In , efforts to avoid genetically mod- palm oil,” Rhett Butler, the founder of the twice as much land as Brazil, which until re- ified foods pushed palm, which is so bountiful rainforest reporting and research site Mong- cently was destroying its forests faster than any it hasn’t yet drawn much interest from genetic abay, wrote in an email. “If the goal is to meet other nation. tinkerers. In China and India, the growing growing global demand for edible oils, palm oil The exponential growth of palm oil planta- middle classes’ hunger for high-grade food oils provides the most oil volume for a given patch tions is to a large degree an unintended con- can currently be satisfied only by palm. of land. If one were to instead grow coconut sequence of economics, and food and energy The boom is fueled by what we drive, too. or rapeseed, more land would be required to policies elsewhere in the world. The increasing interest in biofuels is replacing produce the same amount of oil.” In 2006 U.S. food labels, under mandate the environmental damage associated with from the Food and Drug Administration, be- crude oil with the devastation palm produc- gan listing “trans fats” because they increase tion inflicts on tropical forests and the climate. Promising Alternative risk of heart disease. That led to a rapid in- Some of the consequences of palm oil pro- As demand for alternatives grows, however, crease in the use of tropical oils that aren’t duction, including deforestation and habitat that could change. In fact, one promising alter- trans fats, particularly palm. The television destruction, have led to consumer boycotts. native oil to palm requires no land at all. h c r ea s Re stry stry e or F l a tion a rn e nt I r for e nt e for C a ngg a

Erl Fires associated with clearing land for oil palm plantations in the Indonesian province of Riau release a massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and spread health-harming haze across the landscape. Photo by Auli Photo

WINTER 2015 21 Solazyme, a California company, uses mi- chains. Cellulosic feeds such as switchgrass also and has done extensive research in the tropics, croalgae to produce oils for biodiesel that have minimize environmental impacts. The compa- says most palm plantations don’t produce the already powered United Airlines jets and U.S. ny just opened a 100,000-metric-ton plant in yields they are capable of. Navy ships. It’s expanded into oils for soaps, Brazil that uses sugarcane. “Right now the average yield in Malaysia cosmetics and foods, which have higher profit “Our technology is capable of ramping up and Indonesia is 18½ tons of fresh fruit bunch- margins than fuels. Last year consumer prod- very quickly,” Kauffman Johnson says. es per hectare,” he says. “In places with the best ucts powerhouse Unilever announced plans Nonetheless, consumer tastes and agricul- management practices, they’re already getting to use 3 million gallons of Solazyme’s algal oil tural economics are slow to embrace algae- 30 tons per hectare.” instead of palm in an effort to lower its envi- based oils, so it will likely take years for these Yields of palm fruit, Taylor notes, have ronmental impact. oils to replace more than a few drops in the been stagnant since 1975, while in that same “We can make a heart-healthy high oleic flood of palm oil. time, soy productivity has improved almost oil. The next day you put in a different strain 100 percent. and you can produce a sustainable alternative “Some of it is knowledge based,” he says. to palm or palm kernel oil,” Jill Kauffman Doing Palm Better “The right seeds in the right places, the right Johnson, the company’s director of sustainabil- A more immediate solution, Butler says, is fertilizer at the right time.” ity, says. “It’s got the lowest level of polyunsatu- cleaning up the palm industry. Incentivizing the transfer of productivity- rated fats of any oil on the market, no trans fats “Establishing policies and best practices that boosting knowledge among palm producers and (grows) in a matter of days, not months, avoid conversion of forests is something that could make each hectare of plantation as pro- in the field.” companies can get behind,” he says. “There ductive as possible. But the Union of Con- The microalgae’s versatility makes them a has been a groundswell of zero-deforestation cerned Scientists, in its report Recipes for Success, good competitor with palm as a source of oil. commitments from buyers and producers in notes that the increased profits that accompany Since they grow wherever Solazyme places its recent months.” improved yields can spur further expansion of tanks, the company can site its plants where Philip Taylor, a postdoctoral scholar at the plantations. Additionally, researchers from the they are most convenient to customers, part- University of Colorado’s Institute of Arctic and U.K. and Singapore noted in a recent essay in ners and feedstocks, thus shortening supply Alpine Research who works with Townsend the journal Science that increased yields and palm crops more suitable for growing in difficult con- ditions could lead to more land in Africa and Latin Victims of habitat destruction driven in part by palm oil production, Sumatran America being devoted to elephants are now considered critically endangered by the International Union palm — both of which for Conservation of Nature. have yet to see the explosive planting that has occurred in Southeast . There- fore, improved yields must be accompanied by stricter protections of forests. In- donesia has had a ban on deforestation since 2011, but it’s riddled with loop- ommons) C e

holes. The Roundtable on v Sustainable Palm Oil started reati certifying palm oil that met C environmental standards 10 years ago, but many of its members continued to cut down forests. Last sum- mer’s promises to stop the destruction of forests from

government, palm produc- (Flickr/ by Vincent Poulissen Photo

22 ENSIA.com ers and companies that use the oil show those efforts are strengthening. “You have to have a moratorium on deforesta- tion,” Taylor says, noting that recent commitments by companies like Wilmar and Golden Agri to end defores- tation are significant steps in the right direction. “These guys are a huge share of the palm industry,” he says. At the other end of the production chain, Taylor pointed to more low-hanging Microalgae cultivated by fruit for reducing palm oil’s California-based toll. Taylor’s and Townsend’s Solazyme show

olazyme research shows that the meth-

S promise as a ane released from palm oil source of palm refineries accounts for more oil substitutes. than one-third of the palm in- dustry’s climate impact, and a Photo courtesy of Photo single pond of palm refinery wastewater annually puts out climate-warming gases equivalent to 22,000 cars. “That’s being done by New Britain Palm and readily available fuel that would provide That methane could be used to make electricity and Musim Mas,” Taylor says. additional income to palm processors and mit- by simply covering the pond and placing a bio- Indonesia’s Sustainable Palm Oil initiative igate their climate impacts. gas generator beside it. If all of the more than requires palm operations to begin developing “It’s going to happen in the next couple of 1,000 palm oil refineries worldwide turned their biogas capture, which should speed more com- years,” Taylor says. methane into electricity, it would reduce the cli- panies’ adoption of the technology. But the coming years will also bring an in- mate impacts of the operations 34-fold. Yet only And the hundreds of vehicles involved in creasingly ravenous hunger for palm oil. One 5 percent of the facilities do so. the nation’s palm supply chain could burn producer, Asian Plantations, estimates that global demand for edible oils will more than quadruple by 2050. Palm will supply nearly 60 percent of that demand. If all of the more than 1,000 palm oil refineries world- So perhaps the most important develop- ment in the search for palm oil alternatives is wide turned their methane into electricity, it would the sense of urgency.

reduce the climate impacts of the operations 34-fold. Michael Kodas is associate director in the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder and an award-winning photo- journalist, writer and picture editor. He is the au- In Indonesia, palm mills and refineries al- liquefied natural gas — a transportation fuel thor of the bestselling book High Crimes: The Fate ready generate their own electricity by burning that’s seeing rapid development elsewhere in of Everest in an Age of Greed and is currently work- the fruit’s solid waste. They’re usually far from Asia. In Riau Province, I passed neither a road ing on the book Megafire, which will be published the grid, and lack policies and infrastructures nor an hour that wasn’t filled with bright yel- by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2015. Kodas was to feed the electricity into it. But they could low trucks loaded with scarlet bunches of palm part of a team at The Hartford Courant awarded send power to nearby villages. fruit. All of those vehicles could run on a cheap the Pulitzer Prize in 1999.

WINTER 2015 23 ILLUSTRATION BY ANNA EGELHOFF ILLUSTRATION

If we can get the economics ironed out, artificial photosynthesis could soon be a reality.

BY PHIL MCKENNA

24 ENSIA.com andwiched between rows of bottled Like conventional photovoltaics, the artifi- trial conglomerate Tata Group, partnered with chemicals and racks of drying glass- cial leaf used common semiconducting materi- Nocera, saying the technology could soon ware on the third floor of Harvard als (in this case, amorphous silicon) to absorb bring power to billions of people in developing University’s Mallinckrodt labora- sunlight and emit electrons. But then it went countries. tory,S four thumbnail-size bits of pinstriped sili- one step further. When dipped into a beaker The hype, however, turned out to be ahead con hang from a thin metal wire like T-shirts of water, instead of producing electricity, the of reality. Nocera’s initial device began to de- on a clothesline. For something with the po- leaf harnessed the electrons to break the chemi- grade after just 10 hours underwater and Sun tential to transform our energy infrastructure, cal bonds of water and release hydrogen gas — Catalytix, a company he founded, quietly this technology could not look less unassum- a fuel that can store energy at a significantly shelved plans to develop a larger prototype. ing. But in the short history of the pursuit higher density and lower cost than electricity. Fast forward three short years. Nocera, now of artificial photosynthesis — the conversion And it did so in a remarkably efficient way, at Harvard University, as well as scores of other of sunlight into fuel rather than electricity — converting 5 percent of the energy in sunlight researchers around the world, are on the verge looks have all too often been deceiving. that hit it into hydrogen fuel, compared to a of turning the promise of artificial photosyn- In 2011 Daniel Nocera, then a professor 1 percent sunlight-to-chemical-energy conver- thesis into reality. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sion efficiency in plants. made headlines around the world with some- At the time, Nocera noted that water from thing he called the “artificial leaf.” The device, a an Olympic-size swimming pool could meet Conquering Corrosion solar cell the size of a small Post-it note, prom- the energy needs of every person on Earth. Natural photosynthesis has been around for ised to revolutionize solar energy. Ratan Tata, then head of the Indian indus- billions of years, but it’s not very efficient at turning sunlight into energy-dense chemicals we can use for fuel. “It tends to make carbo- hydrates — which are great for feeding us, but they aren’t very good at powering a car,” says Carl Koval, director of the Joint Center for Ar- tificial Photosynthesis. Formed in 2010, JCAP is a $122 million federally funded initiative based at the Califor- nia Institute of Technology. Its assignment was to develop a viable artificial photosynthesis de- vice by 2015. The prototype had to be durable, be made from commonly available materials and convert sunlight to fuel at an efficiency of 10 percent. “Four years ago you would have said this would not be possible,” Koval says. One of the biggest hurdles JCAP had to overcome, and one that plagued Nocera’s ini- tial device, was corrosion of the light-absorbing components. For artificial photosynthesis to work, semiconductors such as those found in conventional solar cells must absorb incom- ing light and convert it to electricity. Then a “The science is ready,” says Harvard University chemist Daniel Nocera. pair of catalysts, typically on opposite sides of

the semiconductors, need to use that electric- BY DEANNE FITZMAURICE PHOTO

WINTER 2015 25 ity to split water to produce oxygen and hy- ducting materials. The process created an effec- with little degradation at efficiencies exceeding drogen. To protect the semiconductor from tive barrier against water, yet allowed sunlight 10 percent. corrosion, the catalysts have to form a protec- and electrons to pass. When a small amount “Now you can put this on a bench top and tive coating while simultaneously driving the of nickel oxide catalyst was added on top of show people an artificial photosynthesis de- water-splitting reactions. This, it turns out, is incredibly difficult. The coatings have to be JCAP has since assembled lab-scale prototypes thick enough to keep corrosion-inducing wa- ter out, but, depending on the architecture of that have run for thousands of hours with little the device, one of them typically has to be thin degradation at efficiencies exceeding 10 percent. enough to allow sunlight to pass through. “People were thinking we had to develop new [semiconductor] materials that are inher- ently stable,” Koval says. It took researchers the titanium dioxide, the combined coating fa- vice that, with additional development, can be decades to develop the semiconductors we use cilitated a sunlight-to-hydrogen conversion at turned into a deployable technology,” Koval says. for conventional solar power, so having to start efficiencies approaching those of conventional JCAP is currently seeking additional funds over with new materials would likely have de- photovoltaics. to solve a key related challenge: How to trans- railed any near-term commercial prospects for “When I first saw those results they sounded form hydrogen gas produced by artificial pho- artificial photosynthesis. too good to be true,” Koval says. “It just really tosynthesis into a more useful fuel. As Koval Then, in May 2014, JCAP researchers at opens up a whole toolbox of material combina- points out, even though use of hydrogen in Caltech used a process called atomic layer depo- tions that no one could have used before.” fuel cells is growing, the biggest need is for liq- sition to form a thin protective coat of titanium JCAP has since assembled lab-scale pro- uid fuel to run cars, trucks, trains and planes. dioxide over a number of common semicon- totypes that have run for thousands of hours To covert hydrogen to fuels such as gaso- line, carbon dioxide has to be added in a high- temperature, energy-intensive process. Finding When sun shines on an artificial leaf, the catalyst- a more efficient method of conversion will

semiconductor sandwich turns water — H2O — into likely prove challenging. The prospect of be-

oxygen and hydrogen gas, which can be siphoned off ing able to use CO2 as an ingredient in fuel for use as fuel. is a huge motivator, however. Nowhere is the

potential use of CO2 more appealing than in China, now the world’s largest emitter of the greenhouse gas. hydrogen “We try to use this waste material as a use- ful feedstock,” says Can Li, director of the gas oxygen Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy in Dalian, China. Li heads a team of more gas than 50 researchers working on artificial pho- tosynthesis and hydrogen-to-liquid-fuel con- version, one of more than half a dozen such teams around the world. “I think industry people are starting to get interested because they can make money while doing waste re- duction,” he says.

Economic Challenge In his laboratory at Harvard, Nocera alternates between pacing excitedly and staring listlessly out the window. He seems energized by recent technical achievements, yet daunted by the challenges of bringing the technology to mar-

ket during the current gas and oil boom. BY ANNA EGELHOFF ILLUSTRATION

26 catalyst semiconductor catalyst n o rick T. Fall rick T. t erg/Pa b m oo

Researchers at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis are homing in on a deployable technology. PHOTO BY Bl PHOTO

Since he introduced the artificial leaf most efficient semiconducting material; re- carbon, none of these technologies are going to in 2011, Nocera developed his own stable, searchers at the National Renewable Energy get a foothold.” oxygen-producing catalyst that, like JCAP’s en- Laboratory in Golden, Colo., have achieved Nevertheless, given how quickly the tech- capsulating material, works well with a number more than 16 percent sunlight-to-hydrogen nology is developing and how quickly semi- of existing light-absorbing semiconductors. Is- conversion efficiency using gallium, indium conducting material prices are falling, Nocera’s sues of cell durability with the new catalyst have and arsenide. But it is relatively inexpensive own lab mates may yet prevail upon him to been worked out to the point that he doesn’t — and getting cheaper. With this low-cost find a way toward commercialization. even bother testing each new device in water. material Nocera estimates he could produce a “I think it’s time to start looking at how to “The science is ready,” he says. kilogram of hydrogen, the fuel equivalent of a scale it up,” Cox says. What remains a challenge is the economics. gallon of gasoline, for approximately $2. The bits hanging from a wire on his bench today But even that price, which does not include Phil McKenna is a freelance writer interested in are made of crystalline silicon, a semiconduct- the cost of the fuel cell that would be needed to the convergence of fascinating individuals and ing material commonly used in conventional convert hydrogen back to electricity, is not low intriguing ideas. He primarily writes about en- solar cells. In August, Nocera and postdoctoral enough to displace existing energy infrastruc- ergy and the environment. His work appears in fellow Casandra Cox demonstrated a 10 per- ture, Nocera says. The New York Times, Smithsonian, WIRED, Audubon, cent solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency “It’s still not good enough, because we have New Scientist, Technology Review, MATTER and using the material. Crystalline silicon isn’t the fracking,” he says. “Until you put a price on NOVA, where he is a contributing editor.

WINTER 2015 27 New studies raise disturbing questions about the health and environmental effects of food packaging.

by elizabeth grossman

illustration/photography by ashley barlow

28 ENSIA.com It’s almost impossible to imagine life do we know about how these materials may in- vidual basis, with approval granted to a specific without flexible, transparent and water-resis- teract with the food they touch, or their potential company for a particular intended use — de- tant food packaging, without plastic sandwich effects on human health and the environment? pends on how much of a substance is expected bags, cling film or shelves filled with plastic jars, to migrate into food. This is assessed based on tubs and tubes, and durable bags and boxes. information a company submits to the FDA;

While storing food in containers dates back Coatings, Colors, Glues the FDA can ask follow-up questions and do millennia, and food has been sold in bottles In the U.S., the FDA regulates food contact its own literature search, but doesn’t send sub- since the 1700s and cans since the 1800s, what materials, classifying them as “indirect food stances out for laboratory testing as part of the might be considered the modern age of food additives.” These materials fall under the ju- approval process. The higher the level of migra- packaging began in the 1890s when crackers risdiction of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act. tion, the more extensive toxicological testing were first sold in sealed waxed paper bags in- They include polymers that make up plastics, the FDA requires. side a paperboard box. Plastics and other syn- resins and coatings used in can linings and “We’re talking parts per billion,” explains thetics began appearing in the 1920s and ’30s, jar lids, pigments, adhesives, biocides and George Misko, partner at Keller & Heck- shortly after chemical companies started exper- what the FDA charmingly calls “slimicides.” man, a Washington, D.C.–based imenting with petroleum-based compounds, The FDA distinguishes these substances from law firm that specializes pioneering new materials that could be used “direct food additives,” explaining that food in regulation. for both household and industrial applications. contact materials are “not intended to have Fast forward to 2014: There are now up- a technical effect in such food,” meaning wards of 6,000 different manufactured sub- they are not supposed to change stances listed and approved by various gov- the food they touch. ernment agencies in the U.S. and Europe for This categorization ex- use in food contact materials — products that empts such substances include consumer food packaging, household from food ingredient label- and commercial food containers, and food pro- ing requirements, explains cessing equipment. Dennis Keefe, director of Recent analyses have revealed substantial the FDA’s Office of Food “ Fodo packaging gaps in information about the health and en- Additive Safety. In other words, chemicals are not vironmental effects of many of these materials food packaging need not carry and raised questions about the safety of others. any information about what it’s disclosed, and in A study published this past July found that 175 made of. Any such disclosure is many cases we don’t chemicals used in food contact materials are also voluntary, often geared toward recognized by scientists and government agen- facilitating recycling or marketing have toxicology or cies as substances that have adverse health effects. campaigns declaring a product “free exposure data.” Another published in December 2013 found of” a substance of concern. that just over 50 percent of food contact materi- “Food packaging chemicals are not –Maricel Maffini als in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration disclosed, and in many cases we don’t database of such substances had filed with the have toxicology or exposure data,” ex- FDA accompanying toxicology information plains Maricel Maffini, an independent about the amount people can safely eat. While scientist and consultant who specializes in this database is publicly available, it doesn’t in- food additives research. Yet a core compo- clude toxicology information or details about nent of the FDA’s food contact materials reg- products in which these chemicals are used. ulation is based on the assumption that these Presumably, food packaging is intended to substances may migrate and be present in food. keep food safe to eat. But what do we know In fact the FDA’s system for approving food about the stuff that surrounds our food? What contact materials — which it does on an indi-

WINTER 2015 29 But that’s a level at which some chemicals used ments, explains Maffini. Chemical regulations in food contact products — now a focal point in food packaging have been found to be bio- typically consider chemicals individually, when in the public debate over food contact materi- logically active. in reality we’re exposed to multiple chemicals als’ safety. concurrently, including those present in food. So the individual chemical assessments that de- beyond the container termine food contact material approvals may chemicals of concern But there’s “more than the threshold of migra- not completely capture how a single substance “The last 20 years has seen more innovation tion” to be considered when assessing food may affect food, human bodies or the environ- in packaging than almost anything else,” says contact material safety, says Jane Muncke, ment. The list of chemicals measured by the Misko. So where are scientists who scrutinize managing director and chief scientific officer U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preven- food packaging and contact materials looking of the Zurich-based nonprofit Food Packaging tion’s National Health and Nutrition Examina- to better understand potential exposure effects? Forum. Muncke explains that materials’ chem- tion biomonitoring survey offers a snapshot They are looking at materials used widely ical breakdown and by-products also need to of this issue. In addition to whole chemicals, in consumer packaging and those used com- be considered. Many more chemicals may it includes numerous compounds that occur mercially to store and process food. While thus end up touching food — and therefore only after these chemicals are metabolized by research into BPA’s health effects continues, be detectable in food — than those present in the human body. another long-used category of chemicals — the packaging as formulated. For polymers — As Muncke and other scientists point out, phthalates — also associated with adverse hor- large molecules that typically make up plastics while food contact materials are not intended monal effects, is receiving additional attention. — these breakdown and by-products “can be to alter food, they are not necessarily inert or One use of phthalates — of which there are significant,” says Muncke. biologically inactive. This is where the parts- many different types — is as plasticizers with These breakdown and by-product chemi- per-billion levels in the FDA’s food contact ma- polyvinyl chloride. Numerous studies, includ- cals also complicate chemical safety assess- terials testing criteria quickly gets complicated. ing those conducted by scientists at the U.S. In the 1950s when the U.S. government National Institutes of Health and Environ- laid the groundwork for current food addi- mental Protection Agency, have linked various tive regulations, the scientific phthalate exposures to adverse male reproduc- assumption was that tive hormone effects and to childhood asthma. the higher the expo- While the American Chemistry Council says sure level, the greater that “phthalates do not easily migrate,” the a chemical’s biologi- U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission cal effect. The focus of Chronic Hazard Advisory Panel on Phthalates’ concern then was acute final report, released in July, found food to be effects: birth defects, a significant source of phthalate exposure. Re- genetic mutations and cent studies, including those by researchers at cancers. Since the mid- the National Institutes of Health, New York 1980s and particularly in University, University of Texas, University of the last 10 to 15 years, sci- Washington and EPA, have also found food to entific evidence indicating be a consistent source of phthalates. ileW h food contact that low levels of exposure “Food packaging is a big issue,” says Robin (particularly to chemicals Whyatt, professor of environmental health materials are not that can affect hormones) sciences at Columbia University Mailman intended to alter have potentially significant School of Public Health’s Center for Children’s biological effects has grown Environmental Health. Whyatt’s latest research food, they are not rapidly. So has evidence that examines the potential association between necessarily inert or such exposures can lead to prenatal phthalate exposure and childhood biologically inactive. chronic effects on metabolic, asthma. The positive links found in her first- reproductive, neurological, of-a-kind human epidemiological study need cardiovascular and other body to be replicated to be confirmed, but when systems and health disorders considered in conjunction with other research, that may take years to become particularly pointing to food as a phthalate apparent. Yet from an FDA exposure source, Whyatt says this indicates a regulatory perspective, such “need for FDA to conduct a total dietary study” low-dose effects are still under re- for at least one phthalate. Muncke notes that view as they are, for example, for commercial and industrial food processing and bisphenol A, a building block of other equipment often includes plastics made polycarbonate plastic used widely with phthalates.

30 ENSIA.com package deal

Just as chemicals used in food packaging can raise concerns for human health, they can also raise concerns for health of the environment. the knottiest issue Meanwhile, at least one company is work- Some forms of packaging pose Yet BPA and phthalates are just the tip of the ing to commercialize food packaging that is physical hazards. Plastic bags iceberg. Other materials being scrutinized, says safe enough to eat. WikiPearl, an invention (or parts thereof) can clog drains, Natural Resources Defense Council senior at- of Cambridge, Mass.–based WikiFoods and become entangled with aquatic torney Tom Neltner, include greaseproof papers Harvard University bioengineering professor organisms or disrupt birds’ and that use what are called perfluorinated com- David Edwards, packages ice cream, yogurt other animals’ digestive tracts. pounds, environmentally persistent chemicals and cheese in edible shells durable enough Polystyrene — often used for associated in both animal and human studies to protect the food from contaminants and take-out food and beverage with various adverse health effects. While some moisture loss. Inspired by fruit skins, the containers — can present similar such compounds have been phased out in the packaging is “designed to eliminate plastics,” physical hazards for marine U.S. and EU, Neltner says their use appears to explains WikiFoods senior vice president for and aquatic life. Such materials be ongoing — even increasing — in Asia. marketing and sales Eric Freedman. But ex- degrade slowly and so can persist Substances the Food Packaging Forum is in- actly what the edible shell is made of is pro- in the environment, including in vestigating include printing inks that can become prietary information. landfills. Large quantities of this mixed into recycled papers used in food packag- Which points to perhaps the knottiest issue long-lasting debris end up being ing. “This is a big issue in Europe,” says Muncke, of all: how to provide the information needed washed out to sea, where its explaining that thousands of different chemicals to fully inform the public about the health and hazards to the world’s are can be used in these inks. Other substances that environmental impacts of the materials they’re now well documented. are part of chemical formulations in FDA-listed exposed to, while providing companies with food contact materials — or that can be released information protection they need to succeed If not properly disposed of, vari- from those materials — include formaldehyde in a competitive market. ous types of plastics and other and organotins, a category of chemicals found In its 2013 assessment of food additive food packaging can also create to have adverse hormonal effects. Again, because chemicals — including those used in food chemical contamination hazards. the FDA grants approval for food contact mate- packaging — the Pew Charitable Trusts found For example, PVC plastics can rials on a use-by-use basis, the database of these the FDA’s method of assessing the safety of release dioxins and furans — both substances doesn’t indicate for which products these materials, “fraught with systemic prob- persistent carcinogens — if sub- the FDA has OK’d these chemicals’ use. lems,” largely because it lacks adequate infor- jected to incomplete combustion, mation. In the absence of labeling require- as can happen in environmentally ments and accessible health, safety and life substandard landfills or places t ip of the iceberg cycle information, what consumers need to where garbage is routinely burned Given the vast number of chemicals that may know about food contact materials will likely to reduce volume. Other additives be used in food contact materials and so lit- continue to be anything but transparent. used in plastics, such as plasticiz- tle readily available information about them, ers, stabilizers and flame retar- what’s a consumer to do? “We don’t want to Elizabeth Grossman is an independent journalist dants, can also be released to the scare consumers,” says Muncke. At the same and writer specializing in environment and sci- environment during disposal. time, she says, consumers who want to play ence. She is the author of Chasing Molecules, High it safe can follow some basic practices. Don’t Tech Trash, Watershed and other books. Her work microwave plastic. Minimize purchase of pro- has also appeared in Scientific American, Yale e360, cessed food, and reduce home contact of food Environmental Health Perspectives, the Washing- and beverages with plastic at home. ton Post, Civil Eats, Salon, The Nation and more.

WINTER 2015 31 SNAPSHOT

BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE Tech guru Erik Hersman aims to change the world by shifting information flow from “top down” to “all around.”

by Katie G. Nelson | PHOTO by Jon Shuler

Putting power into the hands of users around the world to create interactive, techies gather to talk innovation and collabo- the people is, quite literally, Erik Hersman’s crowd-sourced maps about issues such as ration in Africa. With initial backing from life’s work. water availability in Tanzania, illegal land Ushahidi, iHub quickly became self-sufficient With the help of mobile phone technology, seizures in India and polluted waterways in enough to “spin out on its own,” Hersman open-source software and a team of socially Louisiana. All told, Ushahidi has served as says — a goal he strives for with all his proj- conscious entrepreneurs, the Kenyan-raised the tech backbone for more than 60,000 ects — incubating some 150 start-ups and tech guru has emerged as one of the foremost maps detailing environmental issues, elec- generating more than 1,000 jobs to date. leaders in Africa’s growing digital democratiza- tions and human rights abuses in 159 coun- Hersman is also a partner of Savannah tion movement. His mission is to change the tries and 31 languages. Fund, a venture capital firm that invests seed way information flows from the current top- Those user-generated maps are often part money in promising technology companies down structure, led by government and media, of a larger advocacy effort, giving eyewitnesses, in sub-Saharan Africa, thereby fostering new to a collaborative community-curated system stakeholders and media outlets the oppor- entrepreneurial talent across the continent. using accessible software, affordable devices tunity to provide input and catalyze change. Backed by well-known investors like Dave and unique cross-sector collaborations. For example, the environmental organization McClure of 500 Startups and Russel Simmons Six years ago Hersman was managing Louisiana Bucket Brigade creates Ushahidi of Yelp, the Savannah Fund has raised over $8 tech blogs about African ingenuity when he maps to track reports of chemical accidents million since 2012 and launched 15 busi- co-founded Ushahidi, a nonprofit company and oil spills in the Gulf Coast. The maps are nesses, including a company that develops that developed geo-mapping software to then used to pressure environmental pollution mobile phone–based tools for small farmers in pinpoint violence during Kenya’s disputed control agencies, and oil and gas companies Kenya and a start-up that helps travelers find 2007–08 presidential elections. Prompted such as BP to increase pollution monitoring off-the-grid vacations abroad. by government-mandated media restrictions and reduce the likelihood of future industrial Despite the abundant progress in empow- during that period, Hersman and colleagues accidents and spills. ering citizens and bolstering Nairobi’s emerg- began brainstorming new ways to get around The success of Ushahidi was originally a ing role as a technology talent hub, Hersman the media blackout and communicate about shock for Hersman. “When people started says there’s much more work to be done — the chaos. making a lot of noise about it, we were a though likely not in a linear path. In just three days, the team created a little surprised because there was nothing “It’s really hard to define what’s happen- software program that gave ordinary Kenyans new about the technology,” he says. He soon ing in the next six months, much less three the ability to text message reports of violence recognized it wasn’t the technology that made years, so don’t pretend that you can,” he says. to a central digital location where they were Ushahidi special, but rather “the use of tech- “Instead, know your vision and mission, and made into crowd-sourced maps. Those user- nology in a different way,” he says. Building know where you’re going. Use a compass, not submitted reports painted a clear picture of on that theme, the nonprofit has expanded a map.” what was happening and provided a level of to offer tools such as CrisisNET — which For his part, Hersman continues to be accuracy and timeliness the local media and Hersman calls “the equivalent of the ticker- guided by one core mantra. the Kenyan government could not. Within tape in Wall Street, but for crisis data” — and “It’s not enough to live a normal life,” two months, hundreds of thousands local BRCK — a “do anything, self-powered Inter- he says. “What we’re about … is that just residents, expats, nonprofit organizations and net device” that can establish a Wi-Fi signal surviving isn’t enough, that succeeding isn’t journalists logged onto Ushahidi’s website to anywhere from New York to New Delhi. even enough. We have a mission beyond that, contribute to the creation of detailed crowd- But Hersman’s mission goes beyond which is to really change something in this sourced maps of the violence in Kenya. open-source software and mobile technology. world.” Since then, Ushahidi — which means Motivated by the need for a space to host “testimony” in Swahili — has morphed into like-minded tech innovators as well as a desire Katie G. Nelson is a journalist and photographer a sophisticated nonprofit software provider. to give back to his own community, in 2010 in Minneapolis. She specializes in global public Today it hosts not only its signature soft- Hersman established Nairobi’s Innovation health and international development issues, ware program, but others as well that allow Hub, where local hackers, programmers and particularly on the African continent.

32 ENSIA.com “Know your vision and mission, and know where you’re going. Use a compass, not a map.”

winter 2015 33 CONNECTIONS

plant herbs, save communities N epali farmers partner with a U.S.–based nonprofit to cultivate medicinal plants — and the environmental and economic benefits they offer.

by MRIDU KHULLAR RELPH | PHOTOs courtesy of the mountain institute

Farmers cultivate chiraito, a valuable herb that has been depleted in its native habitat.

On a trip to their childhood home in eastern Nepal in the “It was a very clear indication that in the wild, these plants were early 2000s, Nepalese staff members of the Mountain Institute — a being depleted and there was much overharvesting,” explains Meeta S. Washington, D.C.–based organization that works to protect mountain Pradhan, director of the institute’s Himalaya Program. environments and mountain communities — made a discouraging The need for conservation became apparent and an idea was born: discovery. In talking to their families, they learned that local people If the Mountain Institute staff could collaborate with local people to were now walking three to four hours to get access to the herbs and develop ways to cultivate these plants, they might not only spare the medicinal plants from the forest for use in traditional healing, a trip native forest from overharvest but also boost supply and provide a valu- that had taken the staff members an hour or less when they were kids. able source of income for the community.

34 ENSIA.com Photo by Rankesh Gurung (opposite) | photo by peter gill | photo by Karma Bhutia “They’ve beenabletochangethe roofs oftheirhomes,andthey’re Today, some16,000 highland farmers insixdistricts 12 speciesofplantsonmore than2,000hectares with theMountain Mountain Institute hadsetupintheirown fields. Institute’s help—10percent oftheNepali production ofmedicinal with the Mountain Institute’s help. as twotothree years. Encouraged, theyworked withlocalcommunity- andsoldinaslittle and ailments,couldbecomeready tobeharvested a bitter-tastingchemicalusedtotreat over twodozen diseases,disorders as thechiraito(alsoknown aschiretta), amedicinalherbthatcontains ed landinthemountainsofNepal. Theyfoundthatsomeplants,such dicinal plants,Pradhan says.“In our lastannualreport, we talkabout and intothemiddleclassasadirect result ofcultivating theseme- plants, according totheMountain Institute’s estimates. how farmersare now puttingtheirkidsinprivate schools,” shesays. based organizationstoteachfarmersgrow theplants.Thefarmersthen set upsmallnurseries,transplantingplantsfrom smallgreenhouses the species, working withnative peopletogrow themonprivate anddegrad- spending abitmore moneyonfoodandclothing. Because otherwise are cultivating 12speciesof plants onover 2,000 hectares Anecdotal evidencesuggeststhat farmersare moving outofpoverty Today, some16,000highland farmersinsixdistrictsare cultivating Mountain Institute withtwoorthree staffmembersstarted different H ighland residents have domesticated adozen wild plant species with the helpof Mountain I nstitute advisors. and others. income ofmore than$800,000. ing, let’s goaheadwiththis.” publications suchasTime, The New York Times, The Christian ScienceMonitor nesses for national magazines and newspapers. reports regularly on the environment, women’s issuesand eco-friendly busi- environmental. “Ithinkthewholeissueneedsalotmore attentionand land issusceptibletofloodswhenitrainsanddroughts duringthedry helping with that, she explains, starting withaslittle$300ayearhelping withthat,sheexplains,starting have hard cashcomingintotheirhands.” But themedicinalplantsare has thepotentialtoyieldalotmore benefit—economic, social and highlands andotherregions, Pradhan saysmedicinal plantcultivation told, in2013,thefamiliesinstituteworks withearnedacombined these farmersare mostlydependentonsubsistencefarming,theydon’t these medicinalplants,thefarmerscanhelpprevent erosion. support,” shesays.“Idon’t seewhypeoplearen’t jumpingupandsay- andlivelihood.season, causingdamagetolife,property By cultivating for somefarmersandgoingupto,inacoupleofcases,$35,000.All Mridu Khullar Relph isajournalist andeditor basedin Though shedoesn’t have concrete data, Pradhan suspectsthatin While there’s alotofgoodwork happeningintheHimalayan

cultivated medicinalplantsboostsoilnutritionand addition toreducing overharvest ofwildplants,the

water retention onthebarren landfarmers cultivate. This is crucial, becauseinterrain cultivate. This iscrucial, like theHimalayan highlands, deforested

ested andsold, farm-raised medicinal H arv plants provide much-neededincome. H er work hasappeared in WINTER 2015 N e w D elhi, I ndia. S he 35 VOICES

ECOSYSTEMS ARE NOT MACHINES If we want to save the world, we need to treat nature more as an organism and less as disposable and replaceable technology.

by MARK HUXHAM | illustration by glen lowry

“The child is father of the man,” said William Wordsworth. We advocate a mosaic approach to farming, replacing large-scale We now know that a whole microbial menagerie also contributes to the monocultures supported by intensive inputs with managed landscapes parentage. In fact, “the man” (or any person) is less a single individual in which much smaller areas of intensive, more diverse production are than a fuzzy-edged, mobile ecosystem. supported by and integrated with contiguous areas providing waste We are at the beginning of a new understanding of the impor- retention, pollination, climate regulation and other services. Mosaics tance of the hundreds of species of bacteria, virus, fungi, archaea and may operate over a range of scales, from less than an acre to many eukaryotes that live in and on us all. Recent research reveals how they square kilometers, but they exclude the zoning of entire regions or provide us with critical services. For example, they feed us by produc- countries into mono-functional units. And they can — and should — ing enzymes that help break down the carbohydrates we consume for be applied to managing seascapes as well as landscapes. energy. They communicate with our immune system and prime it in This approach will, we believe, enable a modest growth in global early life for healthy function later. They help fight off pathogens and food production. And it will be more resilient than the techno-centric prevent disease. intensive approach, which we believe will lead to production booms So our bodies are not elaborate machines. We might be able to fit and busts and further ecosystem degradation. So our approach could impressive prosthetics, transplant organs and develop smart drugs. But meet the challenges of feeding the world in 2050, given reasonable pre- we can’t do without our ecosystems, dictions about population growth and we can’t replace them. A sophis- and demands for food and fiber. ticated understanding of our interde- What the mosaic approach pendence on other living things can could not do is provide a meat- lead to better health and less reliance heavy diet for 10 billion people. on expensive, short-term correctives. Thus, it is absolutely critical that This is as true for the ecosystems lower-meat, healthy diets are outside our bodies as for those within. promoted and adopted, and that It is a perspective that informs the the long-standing demands for critique of the dominant worldview reproductive rights and education of ecosystems as machines that Jules are met to help world population Pretty, Sue Hartley, Paul Tett and I stabilize at the low end of United published in 2014 for “Big Ideas Change the World,” a project of Nations projections. The techno-centric dominant narrative fails to Friends of the Earth. We suggest an alternative way forward that rec- recognize the importance of this demand management, instead hoping ognizes human ingenuity while respecting the need to treat ecosystems that technology and the market will supply solutions. more as organisms than as technology, and that emphasizes the impor- Human ingenuity has produced amazing technological develop- tance of ecosystem health in ensuring food and environmental security. ments and will continue to do so. Without technology, many of us The dominant narrative focuses on technological advance combined would not be alive. But natural processes still sustain ecosystems, both with market solutions. It envisions a future in which humans success- inside and outside us. Disruptions to our internal ecosystems are fully use technology to make nature succumb to our will. Yet, as is thought to contribute to diseases ranging from autoimmune disorders the case for our own bodies, many of the ecosystem services nature to heart disease, and may play a role in psychological conditions such provides for us cannot be replaced by technology. Where technological as anxiety and insomnia. Further degrading external ecosystems and replacements do exist — for example, for water purification — nature continuing to treat them as replaceable machines will lead to even big- usually performs the function more effectively and at a far lower cost. ger problems, ushering in a brittle and dangerous future. The alterna- We are not saying it is possible to meet the world’s food and tive involves moderating our impacts and working with ecosystems for bioenergy needs through organic means alone. For example, rapid ad- a healthier world. vances in genetics will help us produce crop varieties suited to the more extreme weather resulting from climate change. In many cases this will Mark Huxham is professor of teaching and research in environmental biol- include speeded-up conventional breeding. The careful application of ogy at Edinburgh Napier University. He combines research in marine ecology technology is essential, but only in the context of a broader respect for and ecosystem services with finding new ways to teach the importance and healthy ecosystems. excitement of science.

36 ENSIA.COMENSIA.com HIGHLIGHTS

ONLINE AT ENSIA.COM Ensia publishes feature stories, interviews, multimedia and more online several times each week. Check ensia.com often for fresh ideas, information and inspiration for solving Earth’s biggest environmental challenges. Here’s a sampling of what you’ll find: hoto by Phil’s 1stPix (flickr/creative commons) | illustration by erin dunn commons) | illustration 1stPix (flickr/creative by Phil’s hoto p ensia.us/coral hoto.com/alvinge | hoto.com/alvinge p Photo © istock Photo

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It’s time to talk about How we can save Cities are the greatest the price of wateR coral reefs (and why hope for our planet R ecent woes have drawn unprece- we should want to) If we “emulate life’s genius” and dented attention to the worth of fresh, As oceans grow warmer and more design cities like ecosystems, they clean water. Can it change the way we acidic, scientists are developing new would have the potential to address pay for the world’s most undervalued strategies to rescue the “rainforests many of our most pressing issues. resource? BY CYNTHIA BARNETT of the sea.” BY JENNIFER WEEKS BY DENIS HAYES

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WINTER 2015 37 Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Twin Cities, MN Institute on the Environment Permit No. 90155 University of Minnesota 1954 Buford Avenue, Suite 325 St. Paul, MN 55108

of people live in conditions that Net Zero Energy Homes will help the U.S. reach its goal of % harm their health, 25 safety, prosperity REDUCING GREENHOUSE EMISSIONS and opportunities 17% by 2020

in Minnesota homes lack adequate insulation

Housing is costly. Tens of thousands of energy-ine cient homes strain family pocketbooks and take a toll on the environment. So we set out to 2 BILLION architect a new reality. Working with low-income neighborhoods and people throughout the world Habitat for Humanity, the University of Minnesota is designing aordable live in slum housing homes that produce as much energy as they use — drastically reducing utility bills, harmful greenhouse gases and the hurdles to home ownership. It’s one more way the future is being Made in Minnesota.

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M A I N T N E S O

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