By Professor David Zilberman, Agricultural and Resource Economics
As the world is preparing for a big environmental summit in Copenhagen, knowing that an agreement is very unlikely, it’s become apparent how difficult it is to reach an environmental agreement that can stick and change the course of history. People that can bring about such agreement are really rare, and last week we lost one of them, Tom Graff.
Tom was an environmental lawyer who opened the west coast office of the Environmental Defense.
Water is the most precious resource of the west. The west was built by the diversion of water from wild lands to mine gold, build cities, and irrigate farmland. Some were cheering these activities that “make the desert bloom,” but in the meantime many regions, like Owens Valley, were ravaged. The legal establishment provided tools, like the prior appropriation doctrine, that enabled these diversions. This legal doctrine allowed diversions as long as the water provides “beneficial use,” was based on the principles of “first in time, first in right,” and “use it or lose it,” and restricted trading in water.
Alum's Project is a Finalist for the BBC World Challenge
Andaman Discoveries, a non-profit organization founded by CNR alumnus Bodhi Garrett, is among twelve finalists in the 2009 BBC World Challenge. The BBC World Challenge recognizes "innovative business projects that increase investment into the local community and take a responsible approach to the environment in which they are operating." Andaman Discoveries was chosen by a jury of high-level executives from Shell, BBC World, the World Bank, IUCN, and Newsweek. The World Challenge winner, selected from among the twelve finalists by BBC viewers and readers via online voting, receives a $20,000 grant.
"Our connection to the villages comes from rebuilding our lives together, and our projects focus on the big picture, empowering people to define their own future. This means that, along with responsible tourism, we also support scholarships for 120 kids, reforestation, [and] a community development network," says Garrett.
Are you choosing products that are safe and environmentally-friendly?
What is the lifecycle of your sunscreen? How about the environmental impact of buying a laptop? Professor Dara O'Rourke discusses how he came up with the idea for The Good Guide, a consumer reference that helps people make informed decisions about products based on safety and environmental concerns.
Global forces are challenging the ability of develop ing countries to feed themselves. A number of countries have organized their economies around a competitive export-oriented agricultural sector, based mainly on monocultures.
It may be argued that agricultural exports of crops such as soybeans from Brazil make significant contributions to the national economies by bringing in hard currency that can be used to purchase other goods from abroad.
However, this type of industrial agriculture also brings a variety of economic, environmental, and social problems, including negative impacts on public health, ecosystem integrity, food quality, and in many cases disruption of traditional rural livelihoods, while accelerating indebtedness among thousands of farmers...
Gordon Frankie is a UC Berkeley professor and a native bee expert. Bees are his unmitigated passion. But before you walk out the door to talk to him, drop anything you think you know about honey-making hive-dwellers. For him, the most important bees are the ones you probably see every day--but have never heard of.
Turns out that none of the 1,600 known species of native California bees are anything like these transplants from across the Atlantic. Our homegrown bees can be green, black, or even red. They range in size from giant bumblebees to some that are barely visible to the naked eye. Some are as furry as a Sasquatch. Others are smooth and metallic. They mostly live alone or in small groups, sleeping in burrows or bivouacking on flowers at night. They are roughly split between male and female, they don't have queens, their stingers don't get stuck in your skin, and, lastly, they don't make honey....
Prof. John Harte: Understanding the Global Environmental Crisis
Professor John Harte discusses what environmental science teaches us about the potentially catastrophic consequences of a failure to address the current environmental crisis. His intellectual odyssey from physics to environmental studies offers important insight into how scientists have come to understand the relationship between humanity and nature and the necessary conditions for providing a balance that insures the well being of future generations. The conversation concludes with a discussion of how the present moment can be seized to meet the challenge of global warming.
In a recent conversation with Green Technology magazine, Professor David Roland-Holst, co-author of two key reports on green economic policies, discussed workforce creation, federal stimulus money and governmental policymaking.
Video: Honey Bee Pollination Crisis - Professor Claire Kremen at the Commonwealth Club
Monoculture farming leaves us highly dependent on honey bees, whose pollination affects 75 percent of fruits and vegetables and 30 percent of all food production. However, managed hives are being wiped out by colony collapse disorder at an alarming rate.
Professor Claire Kremen discusses how wild bees can boost the effectiveness of managed hives and play a critical role in pollinating the crops that keep California's economy humming.
From the New York Times: "California’s energy-efficiency policies created nearly 1.5 million jobs from 1977 to 2007, while eliminating fewer than 25,000, according to a study to be released Monday."
The study, conducted by David Roland-Holst, an economist at the Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley, found that while the state’s policies lowered employee compensation in the electric power industry by an estimated $1.6 billion over that period, it improved compensation in the state over all by $44.6 billion.
On Biofuels: CNR Professors from the Energy Bioscience Institute
Above, Chris Somerville, professor of plant and microbial biology and director of the Energy Biosciences Institute, discusses the future of cellulosic biofuels.
In addition, ABC 7 News recently featured Somerville and David Zilberman, professor of agricultural and resource economics, in an excellent piece on Responsibly creating new plant biofuels (video).
Professor's startup company empowers consumers to see through "greenwashing"
Even when it was just an idea, Professor Dara O'Rourke's plan to deliver environmental, social responsibility, and public health information about consumer products directly to shoppers was making headlines.
Now, after an extended leave from campus to pursue the project as an entrepreneur, O'Rourke and his colleagues have publicly launched GoodGuide.com.
"I think there's a burgeoning awareness that there is a global supply chain behind a product," Dara O'Rourke, GoodGuide's founder and a Berkeley professor, told Wired.com. "People are seeing that there are real costs to these everyday low prices. The question is, can we deliver this information in a way that is simple and easy and helps people make decisions?"
This summer, 40 environmental professionals from around the world once again converged in Berkeley to attend the Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program (ELP). This certificate program in sustainable environmental management links participants to state-of-the-art environmental and natural resource science and policy training.
Participant Liliya Smialkova, of Belarus and Italy, sums up the ELP this way: "They say that in order to make a change, one doesn't need to change the circumstances but to change his or her point of view. I feel that I have new eyes now."
Nature reserves attract humans, but at a cost to biodiversity, says study
BERKELEY – Rather than suppressing local communities in developing nations, nature reserves attract human settlement, according to a new study by researchers.
In an analysis of 306 rural protected areas in 45 countries in Africa and Latin America, the researchers found that, on average, the rate of human population growth along the borders of protected areas was nearly twice that of neighboring rural areas.
Addressing Global Hunger & Poverty through Agricultural Development
Dr. Rajiv Shah, director of Agricultural Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, delivers an overview of the Foundation’s programs that addressing global poverty and hunger, and a panel of experts from the College of Natural Resources responds by discussing the challenges and opportunities to improving the lives of smallholder farmers and their families through philanthropy, technology, and policy. With questions from the audience.
After the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman tsunami, hundred of thousands of survivors struggled to put their lives back together. "After The Wave" looks into the lives of villagers in Phang Nga province in Thailand, almost three years after the tsunami. The documentary also focuses on the efforts of a grassroots non-profit organization led by CNR alumnus Bodhi Garrett, which has helped the local population move forward in practical ways to rebuild their local communities.
Frozen pipes never concern San Francisco residents, but Minnesotans insulate the pipes around their homes every winter. The West Nile virus scares many Californians but doesn't alarm Scandinavians at all. Where you are in the world goes a long way toward determining the things you worry about.
Some Californians shy away from using wood for fear of contributing to the deforestation so frequently associated with global warming. But relying on imported goods means burning fossil fuels to bring those goods to market, which increases greenhouse gas emissions. The arguments to promote "locally grown" are no more or less valid when considering one's consumption of lumber and other forest products.
What you can do to fight global warming and spark a movement
A new book co-edited by a CNR alumna attempts to answer a question familiar to anyone concerned with climate change:
"What can I do?"
Ignition: What You Can Do to Fight Global Warming and Spark a Movement, co-edited by Sissel Waage, ESPM Ph.D. '00, features a wide array of authors ranging from activists to scholars to students, who each discuss what the average person can do to turn their private concerns into public action.
From The San Francisco Chronicle [original URL]
By Alison Rood
When Professor Gordon Frankie wants to impress schoolchildren with the importance of bees, he lays out an array of foods such as berries, grapes, pears and chocolate alongside a couple of dried-out tortillas and rice cakes and asks them which foods they prefer.
"Invariably the kids go for the fruits and chocolate," he said. "Then I tell them: In a world without bees, the only choice they'd have would be the dried-out tortillas or rice cakes, since wheat and rice are self-pollinated. Even chocolate, from the cacao plant, depends on the pollination of bees. That gets their attention."
Frankie, an entomologist at UC Berkeley and a specialist in the behavior of native bees, has been the leader of a decadelong urban bee research project. By documenting bee diversity and populations in urban gardens throughout California, he's discovering which flowering plants attract native bees and determining whether urban gardens can support bees. He said the declining native bee population is comparable to global warming in terms of a potential ecological catastrophe.
Relying on Berkeley research, California establishes groundbreaking carbon standard for fuels
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued an executive order calling for California to establish the world's first carbon standard for transportation fuels. (Read about it in the Governor's op-ed here.)
The University of California estimates our greenhouse gas emissions goals will increase our gross state product by $60 billion and create more than 20,000 new jobs. The time is now for America to transition to a clean-energy economy.... I am very pleased to be able to announce that California is leading the way.
The perception that fruits and vegetables are too expensive helps explain why Fresno County farmworkers eat too few of these foods, according to Christy Getz, a UC Berkeley specialist who focuses on natural resource-dependent workers and communities.
Four Cal students living in a new "Green Apartment" demonstrate sustainable living. The apartment is the latest addition to an expanding effort by the Green Room Committee to educate the campus community about recycling, water and energy conservation and about purchasing decisions.
The apartment in the Channing-Bowditch student housing complex is the latest addition to an expanding UC Berkeley effort by the Green Room Committee to educate the campus community about recycling, water and energy conservation and about purchasing decisions.
"We wanted to give the room a holistic concept, connecting the dots between the things students learn in the classroom and the choices they make in their everyday lives, said Desirae Early, a junior majoring in environmental economics and policy, a Green Campus Program coordinator and a Green Room Committee member.
A new book co-edited by a CNR alumna attempts to answer a question familiar to anyone concerned with climate change:
