A project proposal submitted by IGC graduate student, Tony Timpano, to the Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining has been successful! This funding will support one full-time research associate for 12 months and one graduate student for two semesters to continue research on salt pollution (salinization) and selenium in headwater streams affected by coal mining in VA and WVA. Congratulations, Tony!
TITLE:
Stream Ecosystem Response to Mining-Induced Salinization in Appalachia
PROJECT GOALS
Assess long-term temporal patterns of chemical and biological changes in salinized Appalachian headwater streams.
Determine influences of mining-induced salinity on leaf breakdown, a key carbon-processing function in Appalachian headwater streams.
Investigate trophic transfer and bioaccumulation of selenium and other trace elements as a potential mechanism for aquatic-life effects that are commonly observed in headwater streams salinized by coal mining.
The Earth has entered a new period of extinction, a study by three US universities has concluded, and humans could be among the first casualties. The report, led by the universities of Stanford, Princeton and Berkeley, said vertebrates were disappearing at a rate 114 times faster than normal. The findings echo those in a report published by Duke University last year.
One of the new study‘s authors said: “We are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event.” The last such event was 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs were wiped out, in all likelihood by a large meteor hitting Earth.
“If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover and our species itself would likely disappear early on,” said the lead author, Gerardo Ceballos. The scientists looked at historic rates of extinction for vertebrates – animals with backbones – by assessing fossil records. They found that the current extinction rate was more than 100 times higher than in periods when Earth was not going through a mass extinction event.
Since 1900, the report says, more than 400 more vertebrates had disappeared. Such a loss would normally be seen over a period of up to 10,000 years, the scientists say. The study – published in the Science Advances journal – cites causes such as climate change, pollution and deforestation.
Given the knock-on effect of ecosystems being destroyed, the report says benefits such as pollination by bees could be lost within three human generations.
Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich said: “There are examples of species all over the world that are essentially the walking dead. “We are sawing off the limb that we are sitting on.”
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Thursday called for a radical transformation of politics, economics and individual lifestyles to confront environmental degradation and climate change, as his much-awaited papal encyclical blended a biting critique of consumerism and irresponsible development with a plea for swift and unified global action.
The vision that Francis outlined in the 184-page encyclical is sweeping in ambition and scope: He described a relentless exploitation and destruction of the environment, for which he blamed apathy, the reckless pursuit of profits, excessive faith in technology and political shortsightedness. The most vulnerable victims are the world’s poorest people, he declared, who are being dislocated and disregarded.
The first pope from the developing world, Francis, an Argentine, used the encyclical — titled “Laudato Si’,” or “Praise Be to You” — to highlight the crisis posed by climate change. He placed most of the blame on fossil fuels and human activity while warning of an “unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequence for all of us” if swift action is not taken. Developed, industrialized countries were mostly responsible, he said, and were obligated to help poorer nations confront the crisis.
“Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods,” he wrote. “It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.”
The job interviewer scrutinized the young American geology student sitting across from him. She was about to graduate from the Royal School of Mines in London, and was trying to break into a field long unwelcoming to women.
What, he wanted to know, might she have to contribute to the geology of mining? Naomi Oreskes had a simple answer: “I want to find an ore deposit!”
She wound up in the Australian outback in the early 1980s — not to search for deposits, exactly, but to help work out the complex geology of one that had just been found. It would eventually become one of the world’s largest uranium mines.
Yet, in time, prospecting for ores could not hold her interest. Today, from a professorship at Harvard University, Dr. Oreskes is still in the mining business. But rather than digging for minerals, she tunnels into historical archives, and she is still finding radioactive nuggets.
Dr. Naomi Oreskes
Dr. Oreskes is fast becoming one of the biggest names in climate science — not as a climatologist, but as a defender who uses the tools of historical scholarship to counter what she sees as ideologically motivated attacks on the field.
Formally, she is a historian of science. Informally, this diminutive woman has become a boxer, throwing herself into a messy public arena that many career-minded climate scientists try to avoid.
She helps raise money to defend researchers targeted for criticism by climate change denialists. She has become a heroine to activist college students, supporting their demand that universities and other institutions divest from fossil fuels. Climatologists, though often reluctant themselves to get into fights, have showered her with praise for being willing to do it.
“Her courage and persistence in communicating climate science to the wider public have made her a living legend among her colleagues,” two climate researchers, Benjamin D. Santer and John Abraham, wrote in a prize-nomination letter in 2011.
Dr. Oreskes’s approach has been to dig deeply into the history of climate change denial, documenting its links to other episodes in which critics challenged a developing scientific consensus.
Her core discovery, made with a co-author, Erik M. Conway, was twofold. They reported that dubious tactics had been used over decades to cast doubt on scientific findings relating to subjects like acid rain, the ozone shield, tobacco smoke and climate change. And most surprisingly, in each case, the tactics were employed by the same group of people.
The central players were serious scientists who had major career triumphs during the Cold War, but in subsequent years apparently came to equate environmentalism with socialism, and government regulation with tyranny.
In a 2010 book, Dr. Oreskes and Dr. Conway called these men “Merchants of Doubt,” and this spring the book became a documentary film, by Robert Kenner. At the heart of both works is a description of methods that were honed by the tobacco industry in the 1960s and have since been employed to cast doubt on just about any science being cited to support new government regulations.
This spring, Blacksburg High School students peeked into wooden nest boxes and found one of three things: an empty nest, powder blue eggs, or best of all, a feathery baby bird.
As part of a partnership with Virginia Tech, approximately 50 wooden bird boxes were placed on a natural stretch of the high school’s property so that students can learn about bird biology, the scientific method, and environmental problems like climate change.
Dr. Michelle Beck peeks into a bluebird box with students at Blacksburg High
“The project has been a perfect hands-on, real life experience for my students,” said Steve Hulburt, teacher and science department chair at Blacksburg High School, who incorporated the boxes into his Biology I and Biology II courses. “They have been able to be outside interacting with nature, with the understanding that the work they are doing is contributing data to long term monitoring at the school. This experience is likely the one thing about high school science that they will remember for the rest of their lives.”
The students have developed data sets based on observations about the year-to-year breeding patterns of Eastern bluebirds, Carolina wrens, tree swallows, and Carolina chickadees with guidance of Virginia Tech researchers, who include Bill Hopkins, professor of fish and wildlife conservation in the College of Natural Resources and Environment and director of the Global Change Center at Virginia Tech, Glenda Gillaspy, professor of biochemistry in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and David Lally, project associate in plant pathology, physiology, and weed science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. All are affiliated with Virginia Tech’s Fralin Life Science Institute.
The group came together two years ago to develop the project, and Hopkins’ former postdoctoral research associate Michelle Beck was the ‘feet on the ground’ in the school system. She is now assisted by Grace Wilde, a recent Virginia Tech graduate in biological sciences in the College of Science who worked in Gillaspy’s lab. Wilde plans to pursue a master’s in education at Virginia Tech this fall, and the outreach project was perfect training ground for her teaching pursuits. Phil Beever, the high school’s shop teacher, and his students made the boxes.
Beck said that while it may take at least five years for the students to compile significant data, the team is off to a good start and have already made several observations about differences in bird breeding patterns between the first and second years.
“This project allowed the students to act as citizen scientists and hopefully they will carry that with them in the future,” Beck said. “Second, I think it provided a nice avenue to show students how changes in climate are associated with observable changes in animals that are in their backyard, not just high latitude species like polar bears and in general helped make them more aware of the challenges climate change poses for humans and animals alike.”
Initial funding for the project came from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, with the goal of investment in a project to engage the high school’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classrooms. Additional support was provided by the Fralin Life Science Institute.
“Mutually beneficial partnerships like this are a win-win situation for everyone,” said Lally. “The exceptional teachers and principal at BHS get to provide engaging learning experiences for their students and the faculty and students of VT get to promote the learning, discovery, and engagement that are at the core of our mission. This approach allows us to achieve multiple goals with a singular investment.”
Beck said that while it may take at least five years for the students to compile significant data, the team is off to a good start and have already made several observations about differences in bird breeding patterns between the first and second years.