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leaf on, leaf off
By Suzanne Jacobson 3 Mar 2015commentsShare
Climate change is a lot like Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid. Or rather, it is like an evil, disembodied Mr. Miyagi looming over the globe, whispering “Leaf on. Leaf off. Leaf on. Leaf off. Don’t forget to breathe.”
Basically, a new study published yesterday in the journal Nature Climate Change shows that vegetation patterns around the world are shifting thanks to climate change. Between 1981 and 2012, the timing of leaf emergence (“leaf-on”) and death (“leaf-off) apparently “changed severely” on 54 percent of the planet’s land surface. That means leaf life-cycles around the world are changing — which could, in turn, mean more changes to the global climate.
The specific forces behind these shifts could be a variety of things — local precipitation changes, temperature changes, shifts in atmospheric CO2, etc. — but one thing’s for sure: As much as climate change can mess with vegetation, vegetation can mess right back. Among climate-altering capabilities, plants have the power to tweak cloud formation, to change the amount of sunlight reflected away from the earth, and to alter heat exchange between the land and the atmosphere. Plus, subtle changes in vegetation can also mess with ecosystems: Some bird and insect species have already felt the effects of these changes as their life-cycles have fallen out of sync with the plants around them, according to Steven Higgins, one of the researchers behind the study.
Higgins and his colleagues point out that previous studies analyzing the effects of climate change on global vegetation have focused on net plant productivity, rather than life-cycle changes. And while net productivity is a useful measure of carbon sequestration capabilities, it “masks important details of the nature of change.”
That’s why, using satellite images, the researchers decided to take a look at those more subtle changes. Overall, the changes were widespread but inconsistent. Some places saw longer growing seasons with earlier “leaf-on” times, others saw later “leaf-off” dates. Parts of northeastern Argentina experienced earlier growing seasons and longer wet seasons. Savannas in some parts of the world behaved differently than savannas in other parts of the world. You get the idea. Overall, 95 percent of land surface experienced some change.
So damn you, evil Mr. Miyagi, with your calm, knowing voice and your cryptic ways. Stop toying with us!
Source:
Severe changes in world’s leaf growth patterns over past several decades revealed
, University of Otago.
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Climate change is messing with leaves, and leaves are messing back
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Mother Jones
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From Kevin Hassett, a conservative economist who’s advised both John McCain and Mitt Romney, explaining what Hillary Clinton’s economic message should be in the 2016 presidential campaign:
The Republicans gave us a crappy economy twice, and we fixed it twice. Why would you ever trust them again?
Not bad, Kevin! Thanks. This comes via Ed Kilgore, who’s similarly impressed: “Wow, no kidding. Hillary Clinton should say that. It would almost fit on a bumper sticker, and with a few photos would make killer text for a 30-second ad.”
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Quote of the Day: Who Would Be Dumb Enough to Trust Republicans With the Economy Yet Again?
Mother Jones
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Ed Kilgore notes that Latino approval of the Republican Party—already low in 2013—plummeted even further in 2014 when they spent all year pandering to their base and blocking any chance at some kind of comprehensive immigration reform. And it’s gotten even worse since then:
The marginally improved performance of the GOP among Latinos in the 2014 midterms probably tempted some to think disgruntlement with Obama would trump estrangement from the elephant party. But since then, of course, the president’s executive action on immigration provided fresh impetus to “deport ’em all” messaging, and the jockeying for position during the Invisible Primary for 2016 is not going to help.
I don’t have any big point to make here. I just wanted to highlight the passage above. In the same way that, say, Osama bin Laden wanted two things on 9/11—to attack the US and to provoke an insane counterreaction—President Obama wanted to accomplish two things with his immigration actions. Obviously he thought it was the right thing to do. Beyond that, though, he wanted to gain Latino support for Democrats and provoke an insane counterreaction from Republicans. He succeeded brilliantly on both counts. Republicans fell swiftly into his trap, and they show all signs of falling even further as primary season heats up. By the time 2016 rolls around, even a moderate guy like Jeb Bush is going to be so tainted by Republican craziness on immigration that he’ll get virtually no support from the Latino community.
It didn’t have to be this way. Republicans could have responded in a more measured way that would have blunted Obama’s actions. Instead they let themselves get suckered. Obama must be laughing his ass off right about now.
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Obama Suckered Republicans Into an Immigration Trap—And They Charged Right In
Mother Jones
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My fatigue level is off the charts today. I have no idea what’s causing this. But there are always plenty of catblogging pictures available, and you can hardly go wrong with Hilbert in a bag, can you? Enjoy.
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It’s the worst nightmare of activists opposed to genetically modified crops: An errant GMO seed blows out of a wheat or corn field and breeds with a species in the wild or on a neighboring farm. The modified gene proliferates and spreads through the population, and pretty soon the line between engineered crops and their “natural” counterparts begins to disappear, with unpredictable consequences for ecosystems.
This happened in 2010 in North Dakota, when scientists discovered that genes from genetically engineered canola—grown commercially for its oil across the state—were appearing in nearly every sample of canola taken in the wild. In that case, the “escape” of GMO canola turned out to be no big deal.
But it raised eyebrows with plant scientists about how quickly modified genes can spread. Some warned that plants engineered to be especially hardy—for example, the drought- and heat-tolerant plants that agribusiness giants like Monsanto are pushing as a remedy to climate change—could drive out native breeds, taking with them a precious store of genetic diversity.
Since the late 1970s, when genetically engineered crops began to arrive on US farms, federal and state agencies have applied a smattering of rules and regulations to prevent this from happening. But on Wednesday, a pair of new studies published in Nature offered, for the first time, a protection that comes straight from an organism’s DNA.
After several years of painstaking research, bioengineers at Yale and Harvard have developed a method to ensure organisms with engineered DNA could survive only in designated environments, and not in the wild. Their research was on the bacteria E. coli, but the scientists said the same basic steps could be applied to genetically modified crops, as well as to bacteria used to process dairy products, probiotics for health applications, and even the microorganisms sometimes used to clean up oil spills.
“Endowing safeguards now is important to allow the field of biotechnology to go forward,” said geneticist Farren Isaacs, a co-author of the Yale study.
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