"Who Wants Change" Cartoon

This depicts the very message of yesterday's post:

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Climate Change - It's Happening!

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Climate Change is becoming a big topic for many people, politicians, and government authorities. In truth, it is a big concern for the future of our planet, and the empirical data is undeniable from researchers around the world. And yet, it is becoming such a buzz word, that it's meaning and impending urge for human change is losing it's significance... Climate change is a complex issue, and like it or not, humans are contributing to to it.

The United Nations (UN) formed an international treaty in 1992, "to consider what they could do to limit global temperature increases and the resulting climate change, and to cope with its impacts". In 1995, many of the participating countries realized that emission reductions enforced from the 1992 treaty were inadequate. Two years later, in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted with the intent to legally bind participating countries to emission reduction targets. The first commitment period started eleven years later in 2008, and the second is to start in 2013.

The UN Climate Summit was created to oversee the world's climate negotiations, to prevent climate breakdown by limiting the amount of greenhouse gases that are released. The first offender of climate breakdown is the use of fossil fuels, and the idea was to constrain the use or consumption of these resources. While their efforts are appreciated, what change has really happened since 1992 to decrease emissions that degrade our greenhouse gases?

In the 2014 UN Climate Summit in Lima, there was much talk about utilizing the remaining resources for economic profit. And, last month the UK instated the Infrastructure Act that maximizes the economic recovery of petroleum products, legally binding our future business to squeeze every drop out of the land. Unfortunately, this will become a battle of resources in the future, pushing the largest price on consumers for the gain or benefit of the those in control and in power of the petroleum industry... Is this really leading us towards the mission statement of the UN Climate Summit?

As stated by George Monbiot in his article "Applauding Themselves to Death":

Obama explained that “I don’t always lead with the climate change issue because if you right now are worried about whether you’ve got a job or if you can pay the bills, the first thing you want to hear is how do I meet the immediate problem?”(17)
Money is certainly a problem, but not necessarily for the reasons Obama suggested. The bigger issue is the bankrolling of politics by big oil and big coal(18), and the tremendous lobbying power they purchase. These companies have, in the past, financed wars to protect their position(19); they will not surrender the bulk of their reserves without a monumental fight. This fight would test the very limits of state power; I wonder whether our nominal democracies would survive it. Fossil fuel companies have become glutted on silence: their power has grown as a result of numberless failures to challenge and expose them. It’s no wonder that the manicured negotiators at the UN conferences, so careful never to break a nail, have spent so long avoiding the issue.

And yet, back on 19 March 2015, USA President Obama signed executive orders to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of US agencies. While the US Federal Agencies have decreased their contribution by 17%, most of these changes cost money.

 “For federal agencies who are looking at how to cover their energy needs, this is a very pragmatic dollars-and-cents issue,” said Brian Deese, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. “If they can consume less energy or they can consume renewable energy that is cheaper, more reliable or more sustainable, then they can achieve their environmental goals while they are saving money.” Further information can be read from the New York Times Article: Obama Orders Cuts in Federal Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Video provided by: Newsy Science on YouTube 

From a perspective of food resources, published by Reuters:

ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Global warming could cause an 18 percent drop in world food production by 2050, but investments in irrigation and infrastructure, and moving food output to different regions, could reduce the loss, a study published on Thursday said.

Globally, irrigation systems should be expanded by more than 25 percent to cope with changing rainfall patterns, the study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters said.

Where they should be expanded is difficult to model because of competing scenarios on how rainfall will change, so the majority of irrigation investments should be made after 2030, the study said.

"If you don't carefully plan (where to spend resources), you will get adaptation wrong," David Leclere, one of the study's authors, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Infrastructure and processing chains will need to be built in areas where there was little agriculture before in order to expand production, he said.

International food markets will require closer integration to respond to global warming, as production will become more difficult in some southern regions, but new land further north will become available for growing crops.

Based on the study's models, Leclere expects production to increase in Europe, while much of Africa will remain dependent on imports.

If climate change is managed correctly, food production could even rise 3 percent by 2050, the study said, as a higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has a fertilizing effect on plants.

Managing water resources is expected to be the biggest challenge for farmers steming from climate change.

Water "may become dramatically scarcer much earlier than previously thought," Michael Obersteiner, another study co-author, said in a statement. (Reporting By Chris Arsenault; Editing by Tim Pearce)

 Yes, climate change go beyond a nebulous thought of 'someday' - the effects are here, measurable, and impacting our daily lives - and, we have yet to see the change that is truly necessary to make a difference. Let us open our eyes, review our daily habits, and see where we are contributing to the economic mechanism driving this madness.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results." ~ Albert Einstein

Plants Talk via Fungus

Source: http://suttons.s3.amazonaws.com/p/BUANE26900_3.jpg

Well worth reading!! Published by BBC: "Plants Talk to Each Other Using an Internet of Fungus", written by Nic Fleming.

It's an information superhighway that speeds up interactions between a large, diverse population of individuals. It allows individuals who may be widely separated to communicate and help each other out. But it also allows them to commit new forms of crime.
No, we're not talking about the internet, we're talking about fungi. While mushrooms might be the most familiar part of a fungus, most of their bodies are made up of a mass of thin threads, known as a mycelium. We now know that these threads act as a kind of underground internet, linking the roots of different plants. That tree in your garden is probably hooked up to a bush several metres away, thanks to mycelia.
The more we learn about these underground networks, the more our ideas about plants have to change. They aren't just sitting there quietly growing. By linking to the fungal network they can help out their neighbours by sharing nutrients and information – or sabotage unwelcome plants by spreading toxic chemicals through the network. This "wood wide web", it turns out, even has its own version of cybercrime.

Around 90% of land plants are in mutually-beneficial relationships with fungi. The 19th-century German biologist Albert Bernard Frank coined the word "mycorrhiza" to describe these partnerships, in which the fungus colonises the roots of the plant.

Fungi have been called 'Earth's natural internet'

In mycorrhizal associations, plants provide fungi with food in the form of carbohydrates. In exchange, the fungi help the plants suck up water, and provide nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen, via their mycelia. Since the 1960s, it has been clear that mycorrhizae help individual plants to grow.
Fungal networks also boost their host plants' immune systems. That's because, when a fungus colonises the roots of a plant, it triggers the production of defense-related chemicals. These make later immune system responses quicker and more efficient, a phenomenon called "priming". Simply plugging in to mycelial networks makes plants more resistant to disease.
But that's not all. We now know that mycorrhizae also connect plants that may be widely separated. Fungus expert Paul Stamets called them "Earth's natural internet" in a 2008 TED talk. He first had the idea in the 1970s when he was studying fungi using an electron microscope. Stamets noticed similarities between mycelia and ARPANET, the US Department of Defense's early version of the internet.
Film fans might be reminded of James Cameron's 2009 blockbuster Avatar. On the forest moon where the movie takes place, all the organisms are connected. They can communicate and collectively manage resources, thanks to "some kind of electrochemical communication between the roots of trees". Back in the real world, it seems there is some truth to this.

Avatar: surprisingly accurate when it comes to trees (Credit: Photos 12 / Alamy)

It has taken decades to piece together what the fungal internet can do. Back in 1997, Suzanne Simard of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver found one of the first pieces of evidence. She showed that Douglas fir and paper birch trees can transfer carbon between them via mycelia. Others have since shown that plants can exchange nitrogen and phosphorus as well, by the same route.

These plants are not really individuals

Simard now believes large trees help out small, younger ones using the fungal internet. Without this help, she thinks many seedlings wouldn't survive. In the 1997 study, seedlings in the shade – which are likely to be short of food - got more carbon from donor trees.
"These plants are not really individuals in the sense that Darwin thought they were individuals competing for survival of the fittest," says Simard in the 2011 documentary Do Trees Communicate? "In fact they are interacting with each other, trying to help each other survive."
However, it is controversial how useful these nutrient transfers really are. "We certainly know it happens, but what is less clear is the extent to which it happens," says Lynne Boddy of Cardiff University in the UK.

Tomato plants can receive signals from their neighbours (Credit: Tracy Gunn / Alamy)

While that argument rages on, other researchers have found evidence that plants can go one better, and communicate through the mycelia. In 2010, Ren Sen Zeng of South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou found that when plants are attached by harmful fungi, they release chemical signals into the mycelia that warn their neighbours.

Tomato plants can 'eavesdrop' on defense responses

Zeng's team grew pairs of tomato plants in pots. Some of the plants were allowed to form mycorrhizae.
Once the fungal networks had formed, the leaves of one plant in each pair were sprayed with Alternaria solani, a fungus that causes early blight disease. Air-tight plastic bags were used to prevent any above-ground chemical signalling between the plants.
After 65 hours, Zeng tried to infect the second plant in each pair. He found they were much less likely to get blight, and had significantly lower levels of damage when they did, if they had mycelia.
"We suggest that tomato plants can 'eavesdrop' on defense responses and increase their disease resistance against potential pathogen," Zeng and his colleagues wrote. So not only do the mycorrhizae allow plants to share food, they help them defend themselves.

Pea aphids eat broad bean plants (Credit: Bildagentur-online / McPhoto-Weber / Alamy)

It's not just tomatoes that do this. In 2013 David Johnson of the University of Aberdeen and his colleagues showed that broad beans also use fungal networks to pick up on impending threats – in this case, hungry aphids.
Johnson found that broad bean seedlings that were not themselves under attack by aphids, but were connected to those that were via fungal mycelia, activated their anti-aphid chemical defenses. Those without mycelia did not.
"Some form of signalling was going on between these plants about herbivory by aphids, and those signals were being transported through mycorrhizal mycelial networks," says Johnson.

The internet is also a haven for criminals and pirates (Credit: shotstock / Alamy)

But just like the human internet, the fungal internet has a dark side. Our internet undermines privacy and facilitates serious crime – and frequently, allows computer viruses to spread. In the same way, plants' fungal connections mean they are never truly alone, and that malevolent neighbours can harm them.
For one thing, some plants steal from each other using the internet. There are plants that don't have chlorophyll, so unlike most plants they cannot produce their own energy through photosynthesis. Some of these plants, such as the phantom orchid, get the carbon they need from nearby trees, via the mycelia of fungi that both are connected to.
Other orchids only steal when it suits them. These "mixotrophs" can carry out photosynthesis, but they also "steal" carbon from other plants using the fungal network that links them.
That might not sound too bad. However, plant cybercrime can be much more sinister than a bit of petty theft.

A phantom orchid (Cephalanthera austiniae) (Credit: Tom Hilton, CC by 2.0)

Plants have to compete with their neighbours for resources like water and light. As part of that battle, some release chemicals that harm their rivals.
This "allelopathy" is quite common in trees, including acacias, sugarberries, American sycamores and several species of Eucalyptus. They release substances that either reduce the chances of other plants becoming established nearby, or reduce the spread of microbes around their roots.
Sceptical scientists doubt that allelopathy helps these unfriendly plants much. Surely, they say, the harmful chemicals would be absorbed by soil, or broken down by microbes, before they could travel far.
But maybe plants can get around this problem, by harnessing underground fungal networks that cover greater distances. In 2011, chemical ecologist Kathryn Morris and her colleagues set out to test this theory.

Marigolds are distinctly unfriendly to their neighbours (Credit: blickwinkel / Alamy)

Morris, formerly Barto, grew golden marigolds in containers with mycorrhizal fungi. The pots contained cylinders surrounded by a mesh, with holes small enough to keep roots out but large enough to let in mycelia. Half of these cylinders were turned regularly to stop fungal networks growing in them.
The team tested the soil in the cylinders for two compounds made by the marigolds, which can slow the growth of other plants and kill nematode worms. In the cylinders where the fungi were allowed to grow, levels of the two compounds were 179% and 278% higher than in cylinders without fungi. That suggests the mycelia really did transport the toxins.
The team then grew lettuce seedlings in the soil from both sets of containers. After 25 days, those grown in the more toxin-rich soil weighed 40% less than those in soil isolated from the mycelia. "These experiments show the fungal networks can transport these chemicals in high enough concentrations to affect plant growth,” says Morris, who is now based at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.
In response, some have argued that the chemicals might not work as well outside the lab. So Michaela Achatz of the Berlin Free University in Germany and her colleagues looked for a similar effect in the wild.

A black walnut tree (Juglans nigra) (Credit: foto-zone / Alamy)

One of the best-studied examples of allelopathy is the American black walnut tree. It inhibits the growth of many plants, including staples like potatoes and cucumbers, by releasing a chemical called jugalone from its leaves and roots.
Achatz and her team placed pots around walnut trees, some of which fungal networks could penetrate. Those pots contained almost four times more jugalone than pots that were rotated to keep out fungal connections. The roots of tomato seedlings planted in the jugalone-rich soil weighed on average 36% less.
Some especially crafty plants might even alter the make-up of nearby fungal communities. Studies have shown that spotted knapweed, slender wild oat and soft brome can all change the fungal make-up of soils. According to Morris, this might allow them to better target rival species with toxic chemicals, by favouring the growth of fungi to which they can both connect.
Animals might also exploit the fungal internet. Some plants produce compounds to attract friendly bacteria and fungi to their roots, but these signals can be picked up by insects and worms looking for tasty roots to eat. In 2012, Morris suggested that the movement of these signalling chemicals through fungal mycelia may inadvertently advertise the plants presence to these animals. However, she says this has not been demonstrated in an experiment.

Trees and other plants are linked underground (Credit: All Canada Photos / Alamy)

As a result of this growing body of evidence, many biologists have started using the term "wood wide web" to describe the communications services that fungi provide to plants and other organisms.
"These fungal networks make communication between plants, including those of different species, faster, and more effective," says Morris. "We don't think about it because we can usually only see what is above ground. But most of the plants you can see are connected below ground, not directly through their roots but via their mycelial connections."
The fungal internet exemplifies one of the great lessons of ecology: seemingly separate organisms are often connected, and may depend on each other. "Ecologists have known for some time that organisms are more interconnected and interdependent," says Boddy. The wood wide web seems to be a crucial part of how these connections form.

Immune Systems Shaped by Environment

Not that it is really "news" that different environmental exposure impact a persons' immune system, a study at Stanford University details of how it relates to genetics, finding that even amongst the closest genetically related people (i.e. twins), the immune system is shaped by the environment. Perhaps our grandparents had a point when they said that children playing in the dirt "builds the immune system"!!

Source: http://www.thehoopsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/not-Genes-Environment-Influences-Immune-System.jpg

Found on Environmental News Network:

Why did you get the flu this winter, but your co-workers didn’t? The answer, according to a new study of twins, may have less to do with your genes and more to do with your environment—including your past exposure to pathogens and vaccines.
Our immune system is incredibly complex, with diverse armies of white blood cells and signal-sending proteins coursing through our veins, ready to mount an attack on would-be invaders. Everyone’s immune system is slightly different—a unique mixture of hundreds of these cells and proteins. But the main driver of this variation is unclear. Although scientists know that our immune system can adapt to our environment—that’s why vaccines work, for instance—it is also built by our genes.
To unravel the competing influences of nature and nurture, researchers led by immunologist Mark Davis of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, turned to the gold standard test: a twin study. Identical twins are nearly the same genetically, whereas fraternal twins share only about half of their genes. If a trait is hereditary, identical twins will be more likely to share it than fraternal twins, allowing scientists to tease out the genetic component.
After recruiting 210 identical and fraternal twins between 8 and 82 years old, Davis and colleagues took blood samples and measured more than 200 parameters of their immune systems. For example, they measured the numbers of 95 kinds of immune cells and 51 kinds of proteins. Today, the researchers report online in Cell that identical twins’ immune systems were too different for the variation to boil down to genetics. Indeed, environment overshadowed inheritance in three-quarters of the measurements, and half showed no measurable genetic influence. Moreover, younger twins were more similar than were older twins, evidence that as the twins aged and were exposed to different environments, their immune systems diverged over time.
The researchers also looked for genetic influence in the twins’ responses to flu vaccines. Some people react more strongly to vaccines than others, producing more antibodies: proteins that our bodies manufacture to identify and protect us from invading microbes. If this trait were genetic, identical twins would have similar responses. Instead, the variation in responses was almost entirely the result of environmental differences—presumably, what strains of flu the twins had previously been exposed to.

The original article can be found from the Science Magazine with a concluding statement:

“There’s nothing here that is revolutionary or requires rethinking of our assumptions about how the immune system functions,” says David Baltimore, a biologist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. But, he says, “I found it very impressive … that as we age, our immune systems become molded in increasingly individual ways.”

Worlds Within Worlds - Bacteria "Talk"

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Below is a TED Talk by Bonnie Bassler on how bacteria "talk". It's an interesting lecture and is spoken in plain terms - a great 18 minutes of time and well worth viewing. Now, how does bacteria "talking" relate to Environmental Perception? Well, admittedly it may seem as a single point of interest, but only if it is taken at face value... If we start to think about communication and what we think of as "intelligence", perhaps this TED Talk could stimulate a new way of looking at our world and environment.

For anyone who has read or watched the Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who" - there are worlds within worlds! Just as Horton could hear a community of "Whos" in a seeding dandelion, there are communities of organisms beyond what we can see or hear! So the next time you look at a drop of water running from your gutters when it rains, and think it's just H2O and devoid of life, think again. There is a whole community of organisms in that single drop, having a "conversation". Now, think about the natural environment: water from the oceans, fields of grass, leaves in a forest, sand on a beach, the skin on your body... the list goes on. And yes, there are communities of organisms there too!! But don't fret - these are not all "bad" organisms. In fact, there are many organisms that live symbiotically (i.e. mutually beneficial relationship) that help us!! This is how our multifaceted immune system functions. How COOL is that?!?

Now, taking it a step further into a hypothetical... what about our world? Surely, if there are worlds within our world, might there be worlds above our worlds? There isn't a "right" answer here - but is something for you to consider - and is not intended to challenge anyone's personal, spiritual, or religious beliefs. Nonetheless, it is an interesting thought!

Interesting thoughts on how we view the natural world is just one of Environmental Perception's goals: to get people thinking.

Further reading:

    Miller, Melissa B., and Bonnie L. Bassler. "Quorum sensing in bacteria." Annual Reviews in Microbiology 55.1 (2001): 165-199.

    Irvine, Karen. "Worlds Within Worlds." Catalogue Essay (Conner Contemporary Art, Washington, DC) (2009).

    Ley, Ruth E., et al. "Worlds within worlds: evolution of the vertebrate gut microbiota." Nature Reviews Microbiology 6.10 (2008): 776-788.

    http://www.davidpratt.info/worlds.htm

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse 
    Bernard Carr, ed. (2007) Universe or Multiverse? Cambridge Univ. Press.
    Ellis, George F.R.; William R. Stoeger; Stoeger, W. R. (2004). "Multiverses and physical cosmology". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 347 (3): 921–936. arXiv:astro-ph/0305292. Bibcode:2004MNRAS.347..921E. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.07261.x.

Geometry in Nature

In nature, there are some of the most beautiful patters, designs, and structures from the most miniscule particles and organisms, such as phytoplankton, to large expressions of life in the greater cosmos. Many of these structures are geometrical - symmetrical by design - and were used by humans in the early Greek, Egyptian, Roman and ancient Indians for architecture construction. Most humans used the Pythagorean Theorem by measurements of the human body, but this is only one of nature's form of geometrical archetypes. There are many other forms of archetypal expressions in nature, including vibrational resonance. However, an underlying law of nature is the inseparable relationship of the part to the whole, and thus brings a sense of interconnectedness and inseparability for all things created. Some people call this the "Golden Ratio" that is related to "Sacred Geometry".

Source: http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/2b/54/dd/2b54ddc1258231e27a61414f2e5eb5ea.jpg

According to Wikipedia:

"Sacred geometry is used as a religious, philosophical, and spiritual term to explain the fundamental laws of the universe covering Pythagorean geometry and the perceived relationships between geometrical laws and quantum mechanical laws of the universe that create the geometrical patterns in nature. Many Gothic cathedrals were built using proportions derived from the geometry inherent in the cube and double-cube; this tradition continues in modern Christian churches to the present time.[4] churches, temples, mosques, religious monuments, altars, tabernacles; as well as for sacred spaces such as temenoi, sacred groves, village greens and holy wells, and the creation of religious art.

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Source: http://hoffnermath.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/pythagoreansnail2.jpg

According to Stephen Skinner, the study of sacred geometry has its roots in the study of nature, and the mathematical principles at work therein.^[3] Many forms observed in nature can be related to geometry, for example, the chambered nautilus grows at a constant rate and so its shell forms a logarithmic spiral to accommodate that growth without changing shape. Also, honeybees construct hexagonal cells to hold their honey. These and other correspondences are sometimes interpreted in terms of sacred geometry and considered to be further proof of the natural significance of geometric forms."

The image below is a diatom... a phytoplankton that displays it's natural geometric form in a delicate, yet robust structure.  How fascinating it is, that life is surrounded by geometry; nature is geometry!

Source: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/73-diatom-sem-steve-gschmeissner.html

Organic Farming Competes with Conventional

Source: http://images.sciencedaily.com/2013/03/130326121732-large.jpg

By in large, the public viewpoint is in agreement that organic food is safer, healthier, and tastier than the conventional food 1 2 3. However, depending on where you live, organic food may or may not be available or economically feasible. So, what's going on with organic farming - will more become available in greater areas? Here is a report from the Environmental News Network:

"A systematic overview of more than 100 studies comparing organic and conventional farming finds that the crop yields of organic agriculture are higher than previously thought. The study, conducted by UC Berkeley researchers, also found that certain practices could further shrink the productivity gap between organic crops and conventional farming.
The study, to be published online Wednesday, Dec. 10, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, tackles the lingering perception that organic farming, while offering an environmentally sustainable alternative to chemically intensive agriculture, cannot produce enough food to satisfy the world’s appetite.
“In terms of comparing productivity among the two techniques, this paper sets the record straight on the comparison between organic and conventional agriculture,” said the study’s senior author, Claire Kremen, professor of environmental science, policy and management and co-director of the Berkeley Food Institute. “With global food needs predicted to greatly increase in the next 50 years, it’s critical to look more closely at organic farming, because aside from the environmental impacts of industrial agriculture, the ability of synthetic fertilizers to increase crop yields has been declining.”
The researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 115 studies — a dataset three times greater than previously published work — comparing organic and conventional agriculture. They found that organic yields are about 19.2 percent lower than conventional ones, a smaller difference than in previous estimates.
The researchers pointed out that the available studies comparing farming methods were often biased in favor of conventional agriculture, so this estimate of the yield gap is likely overestimated. They also found that taking into account methods that optimize the productivity of organic agriculture could minimize the yield gap. They specifically highlighted two agricultural practices, multi-cropping (growing several crops together on the same field) and crop rotation, that would substantially reduce the organic-to-conventional yield gap to 9 percent and 8 percent, respectively.
The yields also depended upon the type of crop grown, the researchers found. There were no significant differences in organic and conventional yields for leguminous crops, such as beans, peas and lentils, for instance.
Continue reading at UC Berkeley."

REFERENCES
1 White, Kim Kennedy; Duram, Leslie A (2013). America Goes Green: An Encyclopedia of Eco-friendly Culture in the United States. California: ABC-CLIO. p. 180. ISBN 978-1-59884-657-7.
2 Dan Flynn for Food Safety News. April 22, 2014. Report: Organic Industry Achieved 25 Years of Fast Growth Through Fear and Deception
3 Joanna Schroeder for Academics Review. Organic Marketing Report 

Pharmaceuticals Affect Plants, Crops, & Our Oceans

Many of us take some form of pharmaceutical at some point in our lives - sometimes for acute pain such as a headache, and other times for chronic conditions or situations such as high blood pressure, or even for the intent of parent planning - but have you ever wondered what happens to the chemicals that your body doesn't metabolize?

Source: http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/drugs-water.jpg

The following article was released from  Drugs Released in Environment Affect Plants

"The drugs we release into the environment are likely to have a significant impact on plant growth, finds a new study led by the University of Exeter Medical School and Plymouth University.
By assessing the impacts of a range of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, the research has shown that the growth of edible crops can be affected by these chemicals – even at the very low concentrations found in the environment.
Published in the Journal of Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, the research focused its analysis on lettuce and radish plants and tested the effects of several commonly prescribed drugs, including diclofenac and ibuprofen. These drugs are among the most common and widely used group of pharmaceuticals, with more than 30 million prescribed across the world every day.
The potential for these chemicals to influence plants is becoming increasingly relevant, particularly as waste management systems are unable to remove many compounds from our sewage. Drugs for human use make their way into soil through a number of routes, including the use of sewage sludge as fertiliser and waste water for irrigation.
This study looked for a number of changes in edible plants, assessing factors such as water content, root and shoot length, overall size and how effectively the plants photosynthesised.
Each drug was shown to affect the plants in very specific ways, with marked differences between drugs that are closely related. For example, drugs from the fenamic acid class affected the growth of radish roots, whilst ibuprofen had a significant influence on the early root development of lettuce plants.
Dr Clare Redshaw, one of the scientists leading the project at the Medical School’s European Centre for Environment & Human Health, said: “The huge amounts of pharmaceuticals we use ultimately end up in the environment, yet we know very little about their effects on flora and fauna. As populations age and generic medicines become readily available, pharmaceutical use will rise dramatically and it’s essential we take steps towards limiting environmental contamination. We haven’t considered the impact on human health in this study, but we need to improve our understanding quickly so that appropriate testing and controls can be put in place.”
There have been growing concerns about the presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment, particularly as evidence emerges of the effects they can have on the development of animals and antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Yet their ability to affect plant growth is poorly understood.
Continue reading at the University of Exeter."

... A similar article can be found from ScienceDaily

Trophic Cascade: Interconnection

How Wolves Change Rivers from Sustainable Man on Vimeo.

Source: http://vimeo.com/86466357


This video is a reminder of the complexity of our environment.  Far too often, we are told that a whole is the sum of all it's parts; that 2 + 2 = 4; everything can be broken down into an equation.  Well, if that were true, and a whole is the sum of all it's parts, then why can humans not take bits and pieces of a body, laser it together, fill it with blood, and zap it to life??  All the pieces are there, yes?  So, why doesn't Frankenstein exist, why did the theory not work?  In my own opinion, and one I will own, is because there is an element that lies outside of the equation.  Something that humans have yet to quantify, but has been qualified and understood by Earthen people for eons.  Call it whatever you like, but there is something more to life than the pieces we see or can calculate.

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." - John Muir

There are many people who have spent their life trying to understand the complexities of ecological communities, but none are quite as influential as John Muir. Born in 1838 in Dunbar, Scotland, John Muir spent his life advocating the preservation of the wilderness in the United States after moving there with his family in 1849.  He was a naturalist that paved the way for current-day ecologists, and was an activist for the preservation of Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia National Park, and in 1892 he co-founded the Sierra Club. Mr. Muir is known as the "Father of the National Parks" in the United States... THANK YOU MR. MUIR!!!

It is of utmost importance that we start to understand the cause and effect of our actions, choices, and every-day habits.  Life on Earth is far more interconnected than we often give credence.  The future of our children, and the planet, is our responsibility.  Choosing to turn a blind eye is choosing death - maybe not for you right at this moment - for the next generation.

"You would have thought that our first priority would be to ask what the ecologists are finding out, because we have to live within the conditions and principles they define.  Instead, we've elevated the economy above ecology." - David Suzuki 

http://akellyphoto.com/html/wildlife/mammals/wolf/wolf-in-river.jpg

Let us not forget how wolves can influence a river!!!

As a challenge, let's start (or continue) asking these questions: 

- FOOD: Where does it come from, and is it sustainable?
     Money speaks and what we buy we financially support; "vote" with your money.

- CONSUMABLES: Can I recycle this?  
     Recycle!!  Electronics, cardboard, paper, plastic, food...  if your local legislation does not offer this, start to demand it!

- TRANSPORTATION: Can I take a bus, train, or cycle? 
     Taking the bus rather than driving your own car decreases carbon emissions. This isn't about social class, it's about putting the environment before your image.

- ENERGY: How much does this task cost Earth?
     Let's not waste energy and increase pollution.