Signs From Earth

Fries with that? Study says potato introduction may have been among the most important human advances (via @FP_magazine)

 
 Grumpy potato photo by banger1977/flickr 

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/10/19/hot_potato

"...The importance of potatoes first hit home for co-author Nancy Qian during a trip to rural Rwanda, where she noticed something about her hosts' diet. "All they were eating were potatoes," she says..."

"...Qian, along with Harvard University's Nathan Nunn, decided to see how universal the connection was. Looking at population trends from 1700, when the potato was introduced to the Old World, to 1900, they estimated that 12 percent of the population growth and 47 percent of the urbanization during this period was directly potato-related. ..."

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Was Rothstein FSA picture of cow skull a fake? Errol Morris plumbs history deeply in Zoom (via @nytimes)

 
The bleached skull of a steer on the dry sun-baked earth of the South Dakota Badlands. By Arthur Rothstein, FSA.

http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/the-case-of-the-inappropriate-alarm-clock-part-1/

A deep dive discussion on the origins and political heat resulting from a picture by Arthur Rothstein of the Farm Security Administration. One tiny excerpt:

"...What makes these accusations of photo-fakery utterly perverse is the claim that they unfairly portrayed a drought. The photographs led the viewer to infer that the Dakotas were experiencing a drought. But the Dakotas were experiencing a drought. One of the worst droughts in American history. Was the real issue that the cow had died of old age rather than drought? Or that the cow skull had been moved less than 10 feet, as Rothstein later claimed? Or had been moved at all? Or that multiple photographs had been taken? Or was it merely an attempt to shift the nature of the debate from the agricultural problems facing the country to an argument about photography and propaganda?..."

Library of Congress URL of image above: http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/fsa/8b27000/8b27700/8b27761v.jpg

Bibliography info: http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?fsaall:1:./temp/~ammem_HECK::

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Map: McDonald's Golden Glow in the United States

Stephen Von Worley has produced a golden glowing map (no arches visible) of McDonald's restaurants in the lower 48 United States. He has called this "The Contiguous United States, Visualized by Distance to the Nearest McDonald's," and writes about his inspiration at his blog Weather Sealed, under the heading "Where the Buffalo Roamed." 

"To gauge the creep of cookie-cutter commercialism, there’s no better barometer than McDonald’s – ubiquitous fast food chain and inaugural megacorporate colonizer of small towns nationwide," he writes.

Based on numbers from aggdata, Von Worley says more than 13,000 McDonald's are spread across the land, and 107 miles is the greatest distance or "McFarthest Spot" to a McD's. (I guess that means somewhere in the west a pair of McDonald's is 214 miles apart?) If you live in central Nevada, southeast Oregon, Idaho's Salmon River Wilderness, or northwestern South Dakota it will be a long ride for that burger fix.

For a reality check, see the film Food, Inc. If it hasn't played your town yet, already has, or (likely) never will, this important film will be out on DVD Nov. 3. See it to understand how the American food and farm landscape has been transformed by more than the ubiquitous presence of hamburger shops. Show Food Inc. to your friends. You may want to find that spot 107 miles away and stay there.

After Borlaug: A New Green Revolution?

Wheat near Dalby, Western Australia. Photo by Raeallen/flickr

Norman Borlaug improved wheat harvests and kept starvation at bay. As population keeps rising what will the world do for a second act?

In the early 1970’s when I was studying agriculture at Oregon State, the name of Norman Borlaug was spoken with great reverence, especially in my cereal grains class, where we learned how Borlaug bred short, stocky wheat plants with big heads that could hold more grain than before. His efforts to improve grain production and stave off starvation in places like Latin America and Asia earned Borlaug the Nobel Peace Prize.

Borlaug became known as the father of the “Green Revolution,” a transformation of world grain production that produced better harvests of wheat and rice when irrigation water, nitrogen fertilizers, and weed and insect pesticides were applied to crop fields.

So now Borlaug is gone, but we must continue the hard work of feeding an ever more populous world. World population nears seven billion people, about twice as many as when Borlaug’s Green Revolution began raising grain yields in the 1960s, and it is expected to top nine billion by mid-century.

Rising living standards pressure grain stocks as more people eat meat fed by harvests that otherwise would go to people. We’re also seeing large portions of corn harvests devoted to ethanol as a substitute for gasoline.

In late 2008 we saw severe price spikes for cereal grains and food. Supplies and prices of oil and natural gas have become volatile. Many analysts say we have seen the end of cheap oil. The Green Revolution would not have been green had it not been for cheap oil, and inexpensive natural gas used to produce synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.

Then there are the droughts, floods, and heat waves from climate change beginning to affect farm productivity in food growing regions worldwide. We’re seeing soil erosion, aquifer depletion, and loss of glaciers that feed farm irrigation. Nearly half of the world’s people live in tropical and sub-tropical subsistence agriculture regions, increasingly vulnerable to crop loss as rainfall and temperature patterns are disrupted.

So Borlaug's work must continue with even higher stakes. Just as when Borlaug worked to feed the earth, whether we achieve food security ahead remains a daunting challenge, as National Geographic reported this June in its article Global Food Crisis: The End of Plenty.

Human Footprint: Aral Sea Keeps Shrinking

 Central Asia's Aral Sea has been drained of its lifeblood water to slake our thirst. Photo: NASA

Formerly the world's fourth largest lake, the Aral Sea in central Asia has become a dustbowl of its former self after more than 40 years of irrigation that has sucked water from the rivers that feed it. These upstream diversions irrigate cotton and other farms in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan in central Asia, arid countries surrounding the Aral Sea that use more water per person than any other nations on earth. 

The August 2009 image above from NASA Earth Observatory highlights the Aral Sea's former shorelines and the few areas on its western and northern shores where water remains. A 10-year sequence of the lake's deteriorating condition also has been posted.

Shoreline of desiccated Aral Sea in Uzbekistan, Sept. 5, 2009. Photo: kvitlauk/flickr

Energy Sprawl: Renewables' Achilles Heel

Corn ethanol and wind are two renewable energy sources being pursued in the United States. A research paper on "Energy Sprawl" released in August 2009 indicates that energy efficiency is as important a strategy in energy policy as pursuing land-intensive renewable energy sources like biofuels. Photo: brooklyn/flickr

A key challenge for renewable energy like biofuels, solar, and wind becomes the large amount of land needed to produce electricity and liquid fuels at large scale.

Fossil fuels coal, oil, and natural gas are energy dense because they contain concentrated ancient sunlight. Created from carbon-rich plant residues laid down millions of years ago, fossil fuels carry via those plants the energy of millions of years of sunlight densely packed into energy-rich rocks, liquid, and gas. 

On the other hand, renewables depend on current sunlight -- today’s sun and wind, this year’s growing season -- to produce their power. Consequently the energy density of renewables is much lower than fossil fuels.

Groundwater Disappearing in Northern India

Map showing depletion of groundwater in northern India. The water table in northern regions, in red, is dropping rapidly due to irrigation, according to new research.. Groundwater supplies are increasing in the blue areas due to above-average rainfall. Image: Velicogna/UC Irvine

New research published in the journals Nature and Geophysical Research Letters based on satellite studies indicate that groundwater in northern India is being severely depleted by heavy pumping for agriculture. Like loss of fish in the sea from overfishing, groundwater loss also is a hidden crisis, a tragedy of the commons. 

Groundwater serves as a primary source of freshwater in many parts of the world, and some regions are becoming heavily dependent on it. As a result, groundwater supplies are being depleted as we pump water out faster than aquifers replenish. This begins to create social unrest.

Tasmania in Hot Water

Winter is a time when temperatures cool down, apparently not so much this winter in the ocean waters off Tasmania. This 15-day composite thermal satellite image showing the Leeuwin Current around Tasmania, the southern hemisphere island southeast of Australia, shows winter sea surface temperatures running at record levels, up to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F.) above normal for this time of year. Scientists at CSIRO in Australia say this is due to changes in ocean currents north of Australia.

Warm Winters Threaten California Tree Crops

Cold winter fogs that chill California fruit trees are disappearing. Photo: flickr/junmon603

Cold winter temperatures that fruit and nut trees need for proper spring flowering are disappearing from California's Central Valley. These warmer winters are beginning to adversely affect tree crops like walnuts that depend on this winter "chill" to reset themselves each year.

In a study published July 22 in PLoS One, researchers from the University of California-Davis report that the number of hours of "chill" temperatures have declined about 30 percent in the Central Valley since 1950. Apples, cherries, and pears used to grow in about half the valley's orchards but now only about four percent of the valley's orchard land is cool enough in winter to support these crops.

These rising winter temperatures will force California farmers to find new tree varieties that produce crops without this "winter chill," which trees need to trigger dormancy. 

Other studies already have shown that rising temperature and heat in California are causing changes in the type of wine grapes that can be grown there. Rising temperatures are driving a variety of changes in plant and animal behavior, and these trends for the United States are the focus of Ecological Impacts of Climate Change from the National Academy of Sciences.

Severe Drought Across African Sahel

The green line at lower right shows the level of rainfall measured this year at Masinga Dam in in Kenya, which is less than half of the long term average. Kenya has closed down hydropower generation at the dam for lack of water. Source: NASA Earth Observatory

With drought comes famine and in the Sahel region of Africa the lack of rainfall has been particularly severe this year. NASA Earth Observatory has posted charts and maps showing how scant Sahel rains this year are affecting vegetation growth (below). Those who depend on rain for growing crops are vulnerable to famine as crops fail from lack of rainfall.

The BBC has reported that Masinga Dam in Kenya has stopped generating electric power because too little water is available to turn the dam's generating turbines, and some power blackouts are resulting. The Daily Nation reports that Kenya's cities are running short of water.

Young Ice Dominates Arctic Ocean

Credit: From the National Snow and Ice Data Center, courtesy J. Maslanik and C. Fowler, University of Colorado

Data released April 6 from the National Snow and Ice Data Center shows that the age of ice in the Arctic Ocean is declining. Ice less than a year old dominates the Arctic ice cap as the melt season begins. 

The deep red color in the top right map shows the extent of multi-year ice, which has fallen to about 10 percent of the ice total according to NSIDC. The red color in the map at top left shows the average extent of multi-year ice for the period 1981-2000, when multi-year ice made up about 30 percent of the total. 

There has been a small uptick in the volume of ice 1-2 years old (orange color) and it is possible some of this juvenile ice and ice less than a year old could survive the summer melt season, thereby slowly adding to the stock of more hardy multi-year ice. Or it could not survive.

The melting of Arctic Ocean ice has increased in recent years. In the period from 1979 to 2005 about 20 percent of the ice cap melted in summer, but in summer of 2007 another 20 percent disappeared. Ice cap melting in 2008 was not as severe as in 2007, but last summer's melt still left the ocean with the second-lowest sea ice extent on record.

Implications from loss of Arctic Ocean ice in summer revolve around potential changes in wind patterns and ocean circulation. As the white-colored heat reflecting sea ice disappears, more dark heat-absorbing water dominates the ocean, causing even further water temperature increases. 

This unfolding change in Arctic Ocean ice cover could impact wind, weather, and precipitation patterns in northern hemisphere mid-latitudes, where hundreds of millions of people live and depend on reliable supplies and timing of rainfall for drinking and the growing of food crops.

Washington Post: New Data Show Rapid Arctic Ice Decline

Wall Street Journal: Polar Ice Cap Shrinks Further and Thins

Drought Shrivels China's Wheat Region

The New York Times reports on a worsening drought in China's wheat growing region: 

Worst Drought in Half Century Shrivels the Wheat Belt of China

"Northern China is dry in the best of times. But a long rainless stretch has underscored the urgency of water problems in a region that grows three-fifths of China’s crops and houses more than two-fifths of its people — but gets only one-fifth as much rain as the rest of the country.

"The current drought, considered the worst in Northern China in at least half a century, is crippling not only the country’s best wheat farmland, but also the wells that provide clean water to industry and to millions of people..."

Long-term droughts already are underway in Australia and California, both major agricultural producers. Now with China potentially running short of cereal grains, this all bears watching.

Scenes from a Drying California

Feb. 3, 2009 view of Lake Oroville northeast of Sacramento, California, in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Photo from CA Dept. of Water Resources.

Time runs out for California to receive its annual quota of winter snow and rain. The state is now in the third year of a drought.

Recent snowpack and reservoir measurements indicate that parts of the state now face the most severe water shortage since a major drought in 1991. More than 9 million people have since moved to the state.

State authorities Friday called for statewide 20 percent water use reductions. Federal and state water authorities notified irrigators and other users of federal water in the Central Valley that deliveries would be from zero to 10 percent of normal. 

This means if you are a farmer counting on irrigation water to grow your crops, you will be have enough water to grow crops on 10 percent of your acres, or to put 10 percent of needed water on all your acres. Neither choice appeals.

Graphic published in Sacramento Bee, Sat. Feb 22, 2009

Lake Oroville, above, a reservoir on the Feather River that produces hydropower and water for irrigation, is among lowest in the state. Projections are that Oroville will fill only about one-third this year. 

California's Central Valley farms, dependent on irrigation water from reservoirs like Oroville and Lake Shasta, produce major portions of the nation's lettuce and vegetable supply.

Western states must confront the reality of declining snowpacks due to long-term increases in temperatures from human-induced climate change. This while regional population increases stress what water supplies remain.

CA Dept. of Water Resources: Executive Update 

CA Dept. of Water Resources: Photos of Lake Oroville 2009 and 1991

New York Times: Severe Drought Adds to Hardships in California

Sacramento Bee: California urges all to cut water use by 20 percent 

Signs From Earth: California Keeps Drying Out

Signs From Earth: Western Water Worries Intensify

Washington Post: Decline in Snowpack is Blamed on Warming

Rebuilding America From City to Farm

 

Map from The Atlantic showing "Top 30" city population across the United States in 2007. A related article contemplates which cities and regions will benefit or wither once, if, the country pulls out of this current economic tailspin.

What will America's inhabited landscape look like, where and how will people live and move about, which cities and surrounding regions will thrive or wither after the clouds clear from our housing and economic collapse? (If they clear?)

Some ponder this post-crisis reshaped landscape, while others like small farmers already invent an emerging future that differs from the recent past.

In an Atlantic article How the Crash Will Reshape America, Richard Florida assesses regions and cities that will likely "win or lose." He thinks that some "mega-regions" with educated and creative classes will prosper, but old-line manufacturing and sunbelt regions that built false prosperity on debt-laden housing "booms" will implode. Suburbia and its housing bubble spawn, exurbia, likely will shrink.

An accompanying interactive map The Shaping of America examines trends in patent, income, and population across America to give a geographical sense of our stocks of past and current intellectual and human capital. In a related Q&A Florida ponders whether the recent "stimulus" package will just throw money after places doomed to collapse instead of focusing on building forward-looking infrastructure like intracity passenger railways that can create regional strength. 

Earlier this month the U.S. Department of Agriculture released the 2007 census of agriculture, and within the data are harbingers that the "get big or get out" conventional wisdom espoused by Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz in the 1970s is being challenged by new farmers on the ground.

The number of farms is up, and the face of farming grows diverse as the number of women running farms has risen about 30 percent. For sure very big farms dominate in terms of overall production, and mid-size farms are being sucked up by the very big. But within we see a boom in very small farms, where people also hold down a day job. 

Map from NYT, Farm Living 

People are moving back to the land and reclaiming a connection to the food in their lives. Perhaps what goes around comes around, and as the bloom is off suburbia we will see a reshaping of the suburban landscape and continued growth in "subfarmia," more small-scale farms near cities that grow the food city people eat. 

In the interim perhaps it is time to grow your own garden, if you have not already started.

California Keeps Drying Out

Australia isn't the only place suffering from drought. Areas of the Western United States continue to dry out as normal winter rains and mountain snowpacks fail to arrive. The Wall Street Journal reports on the multi-year drought in California threatening farm crops: Shrinking Water Supplies Imperil Farmers

California gets most of its moisture in the winter, and the California Department of Water Resources reports that rainfall is less than 70 percent of normal. Snowpacks that keep reservoirs and streams filled throughout the year are anywhere from 50 to 70 percent of normal.

Reduced water availability for irrigation is causing a reduction in acres planted. This decline in farm production compounds financial stress in Califonia's Central Valley, which already has been suffering from the fallout caused by the banking system collapse.

Los Angeles Times: California farms, vineyards in peril from warming, U.S. energy secretary warns

Signs From Earth: Western Water Worries Intensify