Archive for the 'Newsletter' Category

Cassava varieties of the same Yanesha were systematically sampled in 1983–86 and in 1999, 15 years later. Here, the same woman is photographed in her cassava field during the first survey (inset photo) and second survey (larger outer photo), when she is noticeably 15 years older. Photo by Salick et al. 1997 and Salick 2012)

From ScienceDaily

Humans are frequently blamed for deforestation and the destruction of environments, yet there are also examples of peoples and cultures around the world that have learned to manage and conserve the precious resources around them. The Yanesha of the upper Peruvian Amazon and the Tibetans of the Himalayas are two groups of indigenous peoples carrying on traditional ways of life, even in the face of rapid environmental changes. Over the last 40 years, Dr. Jan Salick, senior curator and ethnobotanist with the William L. Brown Center of the Missouri Botanical Garden has worked with these two cultures.

he explains how their traditional knowledge and practices hold the key to conserving, managing and even creating new biodiversity in a paper released in the new text, “Biodiversity in Agriculture: Domestication, Evolution, and Sustainability,” published by Cambridge University Press.

The Yanesha and Tibetans are dramatically different peoples living in radically dissimilar environments, but both cultures utilize and highly value plant biodiversity for their food, shelters, clothing and medicines.

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Heartland indoctrination documents (via Think Progress)

From the Daily Kos

Brad Johnson has come into possession of internal documents of the Heartland Institute. These show that the organization “is planning to develop a ‘global warming curriculum’ for elementary schoolchildren that presents climate science as ‘a major scientific controversy.’ This effort, at a cost of $100,000 a year, will be developed by Dr. David E. Wojick, a coal-industry consultant.”

Wojick will, the documents say, put together various teaching “modules” on climate issues, focusing on skepticism about whether CO₂ emissions contribute to climate change and the “major controversy over whether or not humans are changing the weather.”

In an email to Johnson, James M. Taylor, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, explained why it is developing the curriculum denying climate change:

We are concerned that schools are teaching climate change issues in a manner that is not consistent with sound science and that is designed to lead students to the erroneous belief that humans are causing a global warming crisis. We hope that our efforts will restore sound science to climate change education and discourage the political propaganda that too often passes as “education”.

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Photo by study author Pascal Geraghty, New South Wales Department of Primary Industry

By WhySharksMatters from Southern Fried Science

Last week, a team of 10 Australian scientists announced that they had found the world’s first “shark hybrids”, offspring of individuals from two different shark species which had interbred. During a routine survey of Australian marine life, 57 sharks were found that physically resembled one species of shark, but had genetic markers inconsistent with that species. Subsequent genetic investigation revealed that these 57 animals were hybrids between common blacktip sharks (Carcharhinus limbatus) and Australian blacktip sharks (C. tilstoni).

Some of these hybrids were “F1?, meaning that one parents was a common blacktip and one was an Australian blacktip. Others were “B+”(backcrossed), which means that one parent was a common blacktip/Australian blacktip hybrid, and the other was a “purebreed” of one of those two species. According to the study’s lead author, Dr. Jess Morgan of the University of Queensland, ”our genetic marker tells us that these hybrids are ‘at least’ F1, and that these animals are reproductively viable and can produce an F2…the hybrids may be generations past F2 but the existing genetic markers can’t distinguish how many generations past the second cross have occurred.”

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A coal-fired power plant in Changchun, China. Many environmental officials say all countries should be bound by the same rules. Photo from the Associated Press

By John M. Broder from The New York Times

For 17 years, officials from nearly 200 countries have gathered under the auspices of the United Nations to try to deal with one of the most vexing questions of our era — how to slow the heating of the planet.

Every year they leave a trail of disillusion and discontent, particularly among the poorest nations and those most vulnerable to rising seas and spreading deserts. Every year they fail to significantly advance their own stated goal of keeping the average global temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius, or about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels.

That was the case again this year. The event, the 17th conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, wrapped up early Sunday morning with modest accomplishments: the promise to work toward a new global treaty in coming years and the establishment of a new climate fund.

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