Sustainability & Climate Change
Food production needs are expected to roughly double over the next 35 years as the world population grows and people in under developed countries become more affluent and demand more calories. Healthy ecosystems are vital to the survival of all organisms. How can we grow crops without harming the environment? How can we balance technology and global food security? What is the right balance of organic and conventional farming? What role can genetics and biotechnology play without compromising the needs of tomorrow?
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Darwinian survival guide: Evolutionary biologist gives his advice in the face of disruptive climate change
Adaption of humanity: An evolutionary biologist and a science fiction writer walk into a bar... and mull over survival ...
With climate change exacerbating threats to growing coffee, expensive no-bean alternatives hit the markets
Your morning cup of joe might be missing a key ingredient in the future: coffee beans. Coffee is so popular ...
How mushroom-based mycelium could replace some of the world’s most polluting products
Netherlands-based Loop Biotech says it is helping people enrich nature upon their death rather than increase their carbon footprint through ...
Vermont’s Republican governor vetoes bill severely restricting use of neonicotinoid insecticides
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott has vetoed a proposal to restrict the use of toxic pesticides for agriculture, saying it would ...
‘Only hope left’: Is it too late for gene editing to rescue Australia’s endangered marsupial northern quoll?
In a laboratory in the University of Melbourne earlier this year, PhD student Pierre Ibri was running an experiment that ...
Organically-grown genetically modified crops? Scientists unveil plan to bridge the ideological gap
Highlights Current regulations do not permit GM food be labeled organic or GM content be used in certified organic products ...
‘Tool of major corporations’? CRISPR gene editing and other new breeding techniques are improving yields and climate resiliency, but opposition from environmental advocacy groups slows adoption
While genetically modified crops may still provoke fear and uncertainty, some scientists argue that not only can they help to ...
Viewpoint: Innovative Amazon basin companies are replacing cattle grazing land with new forests. Will their ‘green scheme’ help limit the impact of climate change?
Re.green's aim, along with a handful of other companies, is to create a whole new industry that can make standing ...
Viewpoint: ‘Environmentalists are wrong on opposing technological tweaks to agriculture’: How activists undermine society’s need for more climate-adaptive sustainable farming
Public concern about the environment has not always been part of the social conscience in North America. After all, European ...
Bumble bees under increasing threat from climate change
The decline of the bumblebees is highly concerning as they are vital for ecosystems. They pollinate flowers and crops. If ...
Podcast: Indigenous people have been using biochar to fertilize soil for centuries. Could renewing this practice be a lasting solution for carbon sequestration?
Reducing emissions from farming will be key to meeting this country's climate goals. Agriculture is the fifth largest source of ...
Agricultural science and organic farming: Time to change our trajectory
When the term organic farming was first used (ca. 1941; Paull, 2014), it was as a response to the introduction ...
Viewpoint: Uncomfortable truth — ‘Organic farming takes too much land to have any chance to feed the world in a climate-changed environment’
Science for Sustainable Agriculture (SSA) was recently asked by the farming media to comment on a policy paper issued by the ...
Cement has major environmental impacts. This new process could provide plentiful, energy-efficient carbon-negative building materials
An abundant mineral called olivine can help make carbon-negative cement. This process could help tackle cement’s large carbon footprint – ...
‘My identity was tied to veganism’: Why this restaurant owner decided to swap plant-based cuisine for regeneratively-grown meat
Mollie Engelhart, owner of Sage Vegan Bistro, a Los Angeles staple known for its plant-based menu, calls herself a “card-carrying” ...
Meat from wood? Newest alternative protein is made from paper manufacturing waste
What if, instead of eating crickets or cell-cultured meat, we relied on an everyday raw material to put food on ...
Terraforming Mars? How cultivating symbiotic soil bacteria could transform ‘inhospitable’ Martian dust into fertile soil
Martian soil differs significantly from Earth’s—it lacks essential nutrients, contains perchlorates (a toxic chemical), and is highly alkaline. These factors ...
Want to buy the most sustainable foods? Here’s why most food labeling regulations mislead consumers
Bringing together researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the University of São Paulo in Brazil, we evaluated ...
Microbe-made food: Solein pulls climate-friendly protein out of thin air — and they’re scaling up production
The world's first commercial-scale factory for making nutrient-rich and versatile protein from air and sustainable energy has opened its doors ...
Are paper cups better for the environment than plastic cups? The answer may surprise you
Paper cups are no alternatives to plastic cups to avoid toxic chemicals, as the latte coffee you take with you ...
AI-engineered materials could absorb CO2 faster than trees — and speed up carbon cleanup initiatives
Scientists have hailed the “exciting” discovery of a type of porous material that can store carbon dioxide ...
Viewpoint: The EPA’s current regulatory regime restricts farmers’ ability to fight pests and climate change
Plant pests and disease have a massive global impact, causing the loss of 20–40% of crop production and costing over USD 220 ...
Case study: Norwegians are not about to cut meat consumption to reduce the impact of climate change
Norwegians are not going to cut their meat consumption enough even if they believe the climate impact is important, says ...
Viewpoint: America now has a record number of honeybees. How did we get from ‘beepocalypse’ to bee abundance?
You can relax, everyone: The honeybees are back. As Andrew Van Dorn of the Washington Post reported recently, America suddenly now has ...
Counterintuitive agricultural science: Organic farming can lead to increased use of pesticides in neighboring conventional fields
New research adds to the increasingly nuanced picture of organic farming and how well it can meet both our food and ecological ...
Mascara and eyeliner are mostly made from crude oil or mined minerals. This algae-based alternative could reduce the carbon impact of many cosmetics
Black pigment solutions are often derived from petroleum-based sources like crude oil, natural gas or coal. Each year, 8.1 million ...
Cows of the future: Bill Gates predicts that genetically modifying beef cows, with the help of AI, could help fight climate change
In a recent episode of his podcast “Unconfuse Me With Bill Gates,” the Microsoft founder offered the prediction that AI ...
