May 18, 2016 3:48 PM EDT
Spoiler alert: It’s more than just packing an umbrella.
As a kid I remember repeating the phrase in the spring “April showers bring May flowers.” Now, in my adult life as a weather-conscious agricultural scientist, I cannot help but think about how spring rain brings with it not just the promise of pretty flowers, but also the damage of floods. Read more >
May 12, 2016 12:00 PM EDT
Are there agricultural practices that might offer more potential than the ones commonly discussed in the “carbon farming” conversation? In a companion post, I wrote about what the science tells us about cover cropping and reduced tillage, two practices getting a lot of attention in what I’ve called the “carbon farming” rage. Read more >
May 11, 2016 4:45 PM EDT
“Carbon farming,” in my world as a scientist who studies soils and crop production, seems to be all the rage these days in the media. The idea is to build up carbon in soil while drawing down carbon in the atmosphere through improved soil management. Read more >
May 4, 2016 11:40 AM EDT
On Earth Day two weeks ago, 171 countries officially signed the Paris Agreement on climate change. In doing so, they agreed to the long term goal of ending humanity’s damage to the climate—that is, reducing our emissions of global warming pollution to zero—in the second half of this century. One encouraging part of the ongoing scientific discussion about how to achieve this ambitious goal, is that we’re finally starting to take seriously the impact of what people eat. Three recent studies show that it makes a big difference, to the climate as well as to our health.
April 20, 2016 4:25 PM EDT
For me, the thought of Earth Day at first conjures up visions of the great outdoors: teeming rainforests, rushing waterways, golden valleys, golden eagles, great pandas, and so on. As a child of the 80s, while the special day was just in its early teens, I listened avidly to conversations about planting trees, saving water, turning out lights, recycling, protecting parks, and not being a litterbug. Read more >
