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?
Below is the complete archive of related articles sorted by date.
Algae contains high levels of protein and nutrients. Could it help boost food security in the face of climate change?
Scientists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) believe that algae could be a new type of superfood, thanks to its ...
Here’s how natural biologicals can produce environmentally-friendly fertilizers and pesticides
There are few problems larger than the climate crisis. But one potential solution is so small it cannot be seen ...
Viewpoint: Challenging myths — Organic farming fleeces consumers and does not significantly promote sustainability
As I discussed in Part 1, many Americans have begun to seek “authenticity” in many aspects of their lives. There’s ...
Green pesticides are plagued by fast-developing insect resistance. Here’s how that can be addressed
For more than 70 years, agriculture’s response to pesticide resistance has been to seek new pesticides in an endless race ...
Viewpoint: How genetically-enhanced crops can help chronically food-insecure Africa achieve self-sufficiency
With Africa currently struggling to meet its annual food needs, using genetically engineered (GE) or modified seeds should be an ...
Genetic engineering is not as trivial and straightforward as activists against GM crops try to portray it
Genetic engineering refers to the intentional and direct manipulation of DNA to enhance or modify an organism’s characteristics, for example, ...
Facing food security disruptions from climate change, Indonesia greenlights GM drought-tolerant rice
The Indonesian government has approved a variety of GMO wheat for human consumption designed to better resist drought, leading Argentine ...
Viewpoint: ‘10 billion by 2050’ — How gene editing can increase quantity and quality of calories for a world where 800 million go hungry
“When we talk about food insecurity, we know that over 828 million people worldwide are hungry,” says Sarah Evanega, lead ...
How using solar panels in agriculture can increase yields and fight climate change disruptions
Farms have a lot of open land and that has made them ideal for solar power installations. For example, though ...
How genomic-focused farming can reduce climate and population pressures
Many governments and scientists are now turning to agrigenomics to tackle food sustainability and security. Agrigenomics involves the genome sequencing ...
Viewpoint: ‘Only 60 harvests remaining on Earth’? Environmentalist exaggerations obscure dramatic advances in biotechnology-boosted agriculture
A little over 200 years ago, one of the noted economists and philosophers of the day, Thomas Malthus published an essay ...
Video: NASA data rebuke ‘green wisdom’ on cattle and carbon pollution. With 50+ million heads of cattle, Argentina has net positive carbon balance
Argentina is one of the few countries in the world with a positive carbon balance, according to a study published ...
Great-tasting heirloom wine grape varieties can survive climate change with CRISPR gene-editing
The winters that climate change is bringing — ones that are milder on average, but still experience drops to extreme cold — ...
GLP podcast and video: Low-carb diets cause heart disease? Economic de-growth or ‘green’ growth?
Many people have turned to low-carb diets as a way to shed unwanted body fat, but a new study suggests ...
Misinformation on GM crops and improved seeds hurting Kenyan farmers and hungry citizens
Rose Rono has lived and farmed in Limuru, Kiambu County, in Central Kenya for the last 10 years. In a ...
Deforestation can drive outbreaks as dangerous viruses spread from wildlife to people. Here’s how to minimize the threat of spillovers
Researchers have shown that deforestation can drive outbreaks by bringing people closer to wildlife, which can shed dangerous viruses. Scientists ...
Which cotton is more sustainable: Organic or conventionally-grown and genetically modified? No easy answers
Organic cotton is produced without synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and with non-genetically modified seeds. The use of fewer synthetic pesticides ...
Nearly all soy and corn exporters plant genetically modified seeds. Why, so far, is there a dearth of GM wheat?
Nearly all corn and soybean acres in the world's largest exporting countries are seeded with genetically modified varieties, but that ...
Climate disruptions are eroding the quality of rice. Here is how gene-editing could protect one of the world’s most important staples
A review of gene editing techniques suggests that the CRISPR/Cas (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/Cas) method could be a ...
How the war in Ukraine has derailed the European Union Farm to Fork initiative — and sparked debate about what constitutes sustainable agriculture
In March 2020, the EU, unveiled its Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy, an ambitious policy designed to reduce agriculture’s carbon ...
Leather jacket look-alikes made from shrimp shells? Check out this biomaterial innovation made from ‘chitosan’
TômTex’s model aims to tackle two problems at once: finding biodegradable materials for garment manufacturers and upcycling mountains of marine ...
Viewpoint: Before you blindly endorse a ‘meatless future’ to limit greenhouse gasses and protect the environment, read this
Many activists and reporters claim we should eat little or no meat to prevent climate change. But instead of presenting ...
How might we adapt to fast-changing global temperatures? 2-million year old ‘environmental DNA’ offers clues
The reconstruction of a once-living landscape in northern Greenland from 2 million years ago, deduced from bits of DNA bound ...
Breeding better cattle? Genetic screening becomes widespread
Traditionally animal breeders would select animals based on their physical characteristics, such as body weight, milk production or size. However, ...
Here’s how gene editing could save the beloved Cavendish banana from extinction
US-based Elo Life Systems, a biotech company targeting food sustainability, is tapping into gene-editing to save Cavendish bananas from a ...
$1.25 for a gallon of carbon-neutral gasoline? How sewer sludge and other bio-waste could provide cheap energy
Mark Holtzapple is a professor at Texas A&M University in the Mcferrin Department of Chemical Engineering. He's spent most of ...
Large-scale solution to climate change? Living Carbon plants first genetically modified trees in US forest
Living Carbon’s poplars start their lives in a lab in Hayward, Calif. There, biologists tinker with how the trees conduct ...
