July 15, 2019

Food fads come and go every year, but for most Americans, meat always has a starring role on the dinner plate. Our meat habit has a cost, however: it can harm both our health and the environment. Cutting back on meat consumption, or cutting meat out completely, goes a long way toward helping the environment and our bodies—as well as the animals butchered for meat. Searching for meat alternatives, several food industry startups are offering new forms of meat and meat substitutes that are redefining meat as we know it—and they may change forever the way we produce and consume food. Lab-grown meat or plant-based substitutes are now often indistinguishable from the flesh of animals, and the future of meat may be one that does not involve animals at all.

New lab-grown and plant-based meats offer alternatives to traditional meats such as the beef used to make this hamburger. Credit: © Brent Hofacker, Shutterstock

Most nutritionists consider meat to be an important component of a well-balanced diet. Meat supplies vitamins, minerals, and fats necessary for good health and growth. Meat also provides an especially good source of protein. However, meat is not universal in the American diet. Many vegetarians avoid eating meat because they believe it is wrong to kill animals for food or they consider meat to be unhealthy. Many vegetarians, however, will consume such animal products as cheese and eggs. Vegans, on the other hand, eat an entirely plant-based diet and avoid all foods derived from animals, including honey and milk.

In the United States, per capita (per person) meat consumption has grown steadily to about 95 pounds (43 kilograms) per year—more than double the amount consumed in 1960. Each year, the United States raises more than 30 million beef cattle, 73 million hogs, and a staggering 9 billion chickens. The feeding, housing, transportation, and processing of these animals into food is a global industry consuming enormous amounts of energy resources and creating vast amounts of pollution. The meat industry is also one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

Lab-grown or cell-cultured meats may soon rival traditional meats in U.S. supermarkets. Credit: © Tony Hertz, Alamy Images

Food companies have created a variety of meat substitutes over the years, from veggie hot dogs and bacon to tofurkey (tofu turkey). MorningStar Farms, owned by food industry giant Kellogg, has been producing meat substitutes since 1975. Many people consider such plant-based products to be a healthier alternative to meat, especially such red meats as beef, pork, and lamb. In general, red meats have more saturated fat, which can raise blood cholesterol and contribute to heart disease. Medical research has shown that higher meat consumption is linked to a greater incidence of certain cancers. Until now, most meat substitutes have had limited appeal. Made with products like TVP (textured vegetable protein), a by-product of soybean oil production, these products are often found to be dry and lack the look, juicy texture, and taste of meat.

Meat substitutes have long included such products as tofu, a food made of soybean curds pressed into cakes or blocks. Credit: © Shutterstock

Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, however, are food industry startups with new vegan-friendly products that are virtually indistinguishable from traditional meat. Beyond Meat makes its substitute beef using pea protein isolate, coconut oil, and canola oil in a ratio that mimics the fat and protein content of ground beef. Impossible Foods uses soy and potato protein, sunflower seed oil, and coconut oil. Other ingredients include water, salt, and methylcellulose, a substance derived from plant fiber that is widely used in the food industry as a thickener and emulsifier. (An emulsifier bind liquids in an emulsion, a mixture of liquids that do not dissolve in each other.) Beyond Meat uses natural coloring agents derived from beets to provide the juicy appearance of a rare-cooked burger. Impossible Foods uses genetically modified yeast to make soy leghemoglobin (also called a heme), a molecule identical to the blood-red pigment in meat, to provide an appetizing color, meaty flavor, and a juicy sizzle.

Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods hamburger substitutes have modestly better nutritional profiles compared to beef burgers. Both meatless products have fewer calories, slightly less fat, and similar amounts of high-quality protein. The meatless burgers also provide a modest amount of dietary fiber. Beyond and Impossible emphasize the benefits of their products for health, animal welfare, and combatting climate change. However, should we assume that such ultra-processed foods are always better?

In 2019, government health agencies in Europe and the United States released reports that linked higher consumption of ultra-processed foods to an increase in rates of obesity and cardiovascular disease. Such processed foods, including canned foods and most snacks, are made with highly refined ingredients and many additives to improve flavor, texture, and shelf life. Impossible and Beyond burgers are made from an extruded paste of mechanically extracted proteins mixed with vegetable and seed oils, spices, and other ingredients to add flavor and provide meat-like texture. Each lists at least 20 ingredients. Some health experts also worry that they may include several potential allergens that could cause problems for sensitive individuals, although there have not yet been any reported issues.

There is also a certain suspicion that tends to surround mass-produced food substitutes meant to replaced cherished favorites. While meat has a complex composition and structure—made up of amino acids (the building blocks of protein), fats, minerals, vitamins, and water all woven together—it is usually considered a single ingredient—a whole food that is proven safe to eat. Companies producing plant-based meat substitutes are not immune from being labeled “Frankenfoods” by advocacy groups if their production processes are too complex or secretive.

In 2018, the American hamburger chain Burger King began selling an Impossible version of their trademark “Whopper” hamburger in several Midwest cities on a trial basis. The chain has plans to make the sandwich available nationally by the end of 2019. Burger King will do a plant-based burger for European locations, too–but it cannot use Impossible burgers there because of the use of genetically modified yeast. In 2018, the European Court ruled that gene-edited crops are subject to the same strict regulations Europe has for genetically modified organisms (GMOs). European real food advocacy groups worry that products like the Impossible burger will increase public acceptance of genetically engineered food and highly-processed food over whole foods grown by farmers.

A food researcher tastes a hamburger patty made from meat grown in a laboratory. The patty was formed from protein strands grown by cattle cells cultured in a laboratory, rather than by slaughtering and butchering a cow. Credit: © Toby Melville, Reuters/Landov

As plant-based meat substitutes gain in popularity, some food industry experts believe that the future of meat is in cell cultures. In 2013, scientists in the Netherlands took cells from a cow and produced muscle fibers in a laboratory—the first lab-grown meat. That summer, they revealed their work to the world in a news conference. As the press looked on, a chef prepared the laboratory product into a hamburger. Today, proponents of lab-grown meat say the technology has the potential to produce real beef, pork, chicken, and fish grown from a small cell sample, eliminating the need for farms, feedlots, slaughterhouses, or even animals. Some animal-welfare groups favor this “cellular agriculture” because it diminishes the need to kill animals to provide food for human beings. They see cellular agriculture as a way to establish a more humane world without livestock farms and slaughterhouses.

New Harvest, a company headquartered in New York City, holds an annual conference on advancements in cellular agriculture. Connecting scientists and businesses, New Harvest helps to establish companies that produce cell-cultured food. The laboratory process reduces land and water costs and produces a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions compared with factory farms. Companies in the United States and Europe are already producing cell-cultured foods. One of them is Muufri, which produces animal-free milk. Another is Memphis Meats, which introduced cellular-grown meatballs in 2016.

But will people eat a hamburger that was grown in a lab? Public perception is just one challenge facing lab-grown meat. To overcome the many challenges, cultured meat proponents are upfront and transparent about the technology and the manufacturing processes involved, emphasizing the many positive environmental and ethical benefits.

Another challenge involves how these products are overseen within the heavily regulated food industry. In 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finalized an agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to establish regulatory jurisdiction over the production of meat that does not involve animals. Under the plan, the FDA will oversee the collection and growth of cultured cells. The USDA will regulate the processing of those cells into meat and determine how the products will be labeled.

Before cell-cultured meats hit supermarkets, a range of other questions still remain to be answered. What sort of products will be available, exactly how healthy will they be, and what will they cost? Perhaps the most important question is: How will they taste?

April 26, 2019

Last month, in March, Tropical Cyclone Idai struck the southeastern coast of Africa. One of the strongest storms ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere, Idai caused catastrophic landslides and flooding that killed more than 1,000 people in Mozambique and in neighboring Malawi and Zimbabwe. The storm left more than 300,000 people homeless and led to deadly outbreaks of cholera and increased cases of malaria. More than a month later, thousands of people remain missing in affected areas, and government and international aid agencies continue to struggle to provide badly needed food, water, and medical supplies.

On March 23, 2019, residents of Beira, a coastal city in central Mozambique, survey the damage done by Cyclone Idai. Credit: © Yasuyoshi Chiba, AFP/Getty Images

Cyclone Idai formed as a tropical depression over the warm waters of the southwestern Indian Ocean in early March. The storm intensified into a cyclone as it struck central Mozambique on March 4. Torrential rains and deadly winds whipped coastal areas for days as Idai spun along the Mozambique Channel between the African mainland and the island of Madagascar. Idai varied in strength, until reaching peak intensity with winds of 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour on March 14. After 17 days of damage and deluge, the storm finally weakened and dissipated on March 21.

This satellite image shows Cyclone Idai in the Mozambique Channel on March 14, 2019. Credit: NASA

The broad and determined storm reached inland to Malawi and Zimbabwe and pelted coastal areas of Madagascar. The storm extensively damaged or destroyed vital infrastructure, including communication networks, hospitals, roads, sanitation facilities, and schools. Wide swaths of farmland were ruined, portions of forests were flattened by high winds, and flooding created a temporary inland sea in Mozambique that measured some 80 miles (130 kilometers) long and 15 miles (24 kilometers) wide. Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi called Cyclone Idai a “humanitarian disaster of great proportion.”

Mozambique. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

Mozambique’s typically able Instituto Nacional de Gestão de Calamidades (National Disasters Management Institute) was overwhelmed by the scale of Idai’s destruction, and an urgent note verbale (formal diplomatic notice) went out requesting international help. The Red Cross and Red Crescent, Doctors Without Borders, and several United Nations organizations came to the rescue, as did the European Union and the governments of Canada, France, Portugal, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.

Cyclone Idai was the seventh tropical cyclone of the Indian Ocean season, more than twice the average for this time of year. Globally, high-intensity storms have been occurring more frequently in recent years, a trend directly related to climate change. Global warming increases sea temperatures, creating more moisture and instability in the atmosphere—factors crucial to the birth of dangerous cyclones and hurricanes. Tropical cyclones need high humidity and surface water temperatures of 79 °F (26 °C ) or higher to form. Melting glaciers and ice have increased global sea levels, resulting in more frequent and intense flooding in coastal areas around the world.

March 4, 2019

Yesterday, March 3, was World Wildlife Day, an international celebration of the Earth’s flora and fauna sponsored by the United Nations (UN). This year’s theme, “Life Below Water: For People and Planet,” singled out the crucial ecosystems and marine life of the world’s oceans. Life on Earth depends on the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans.

In 2019, the theme of World Wildlife Day is “Life Below Water: For People and Planet.” Credit: © World Wildlife Day

The first UN World Wildlife Day was celebrated on March 3, 2013, the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1973. The treaty—which went into effect in 1975—aims to control trade in wild animals and plants, their parts, and products derived from them. Over 170 countries around the world have joined the treaty. CITES forbids commercial international trade in certain endangered species, and it regulates trade in other species that might otherwise become endangered. Nevertheless, international wildlife trade continues to put many species at risk.

This year’s World Wildlife Day theme drew particular attention to the diverse animal and plant species that inhabit the world’s oceans. It also highlighted the importance of the oceans themselves, which—aside from providing energy, food, livelihoods, medicines, natural resources, recreation, sediments, and transportation—also absorb about 30 percent of the carbon dioxide produced by humans, buffering the impacts of global warming.

Unfortunately, many ocean waters are polluted, and plastic marine debris in particular is poisoning the world’s waters and killing marine wildlife. Overfishing and other forms of exploitation are also reducing marine wildlife populations, as are the losses of coastal habitats and the effects of climate change. The goal of “Life Below Water: For People and Planet” was to raise awareness of the importance of marine life and to instruct people on responsible and sustainable behavior that can limit the many perils facing the world’s oceans.

February 11, 2019

Last week, monsoon rains dumped record amounts of water in northern  Queensland, Australia, flooding roads, swelling rivers above their banks, and causing landslides. The coastal city of Townsville received more than 3.3 feet (1.0 meters) of rain, raising the level of water held by the Ross River dam to dangerous levels far above its capacity. On February 3, city officials opened the dam’s gates, intentionally flooding several neighborhoods to ease pressure on the dam and keep it from collapsing. Crocodiles, snakes, and other wildlife followed the waters into the flooded streets, appearing in places they are not typically found. Boats and other vehicles capable of navigating high waters rescued many people and pets trapped by the flooding. Two people are known to have died in the flooding.

Floodwaters inundate the Townsville, Australia, suburb of Idalia on Feb. 4, 2019. Credit: © Ian Hitchcock, Getty Images

Some Queensland farmers welcomed the rainfall. Drought conditions have been widespread in recent months across Australia (where summer is from December to February), and the farmers hoped the rain would help their crops. The monsoon flooding came at the tail end of the hottest month ever recorded by Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology. On February 1, the agency reported that the average January temperature across the continent exceeded 86 ºF (30 ºC). The Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, the Northern Territory, and Victoria all set new high temperature records for the month of January. Some parts of western Queensland and New South Wales had weeks of temperatures above 104 ºF (40 ºC). Numerous farm and wild animals died in the extreme heat, as did many fish in overheated lakes and rivers.

Despite the monsoon rains in Queensland, much of Australia remains in a drought. Scientists believe that such extreme weather events will become more frequent in coming years as a result of global climate change.

August 3, 2018

For many people in the Northern Hemisphere, the summer of 2018 has been touched by fire and obscured by smoke. Summers are typically fire seasons in many areas, but climate change has caused hotter and drier conditions in recent years, and wildfire outbreaks have become more frequent and more destructive. Other causes of increased fire activity include the building of more developments in fire-prone areas, a lack of proper forest management, and, of course, simple human carelessness. In the past weeks, fires have killed more than 100 people and destroyed homes and large swaths of land in Asia, Europe, and North America.

A firefighting helicopter flies over a wildfire in the Greek town of Rafina near Athens on July 23, 2018. The Greek wildfire was the deadliest yet this year, claiming the lives of 92 people. Credit: © Angelos Tzortzinis, AFP/Getty Images

In southeastern Greece, a wildfire erupted July 23, destroying or damaging some 3,500 structures and killing 96 people along the Attica coast. The giant wildfire, just 18 miles (30 kilometers) east of Athens, the Greek capital, burned out of control for several days, gutting seaside resorts and holiday homes. Fanned by high winds, the fast-moving blaze trapped and killed groups of people, including entire families as they huddled between the flames and steep cliffs overlooking the Aegean Sea. The high death toll prompted criticism of the the area’s lack of access roads, warning systems, and other civil protection measures in areas surrounded by forest and at high risk of wildfires.

In far northern Europe, dozens of wildfires have consumed more than 62,000 acres (25,000 hectares) this summer in Sweden, which is experiencing an abnormally lengthy and intense heat wave. Neighboring Finland and Norway are also suffering from unusual heat and wildfire outbreaks, as are Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania on the other side of the Baltic Sea. Wildfires also torched drought-stricken areas of Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland.

This week in northern California, firefighters continued to battle the Carr Fire that has killed 8 people, destroyed over 1,500 buildings, and consumed some 125,000 acres (50,000 hectares) of land. The wildfire started on July 23 along Carr Powerhouse Road in Shasta County near the city of Redding. The “mechanical failure of a vehicle” ignited dried grasses and trees, and soon flames were roaring through the forested hills around Whiskeytown Lake west of Redding. The wildfire, aided by hot and dry weather, high winds, an abundance of natural fuel, and steep terrain, has since been chased westward by more than 4,200 firefighters—2 of whom have died fighting the blaze. Reports of  “firenados” (huge, rotating whorls of smoke, flame, and ash) encouraged nearly 40,000 people to obey evacuation orders and leave the fire area (which included parts of nearby Trinity County). Many people will return to find their homes and property in ashes.

The Carr Fire is the largest of 17 wildfires currently burning throughout the state of California. Collectively, wildfires in the western United States have scorched 4.6 million acres (1.86 million hectares) so far this year, a 24 percent increase over the annual average for the past decade. Wildfires have also stricken large areas of western Canada and parts of Mexico this summer.

Wildfires have also consumed vast amounts of territory in Siberia of eastern Russia. Since May, firefighters have been battling immense wildfires in the Amur Oblast region along the Chinese border, where towering pyrocumulus clouds have injected smoke and pollutants high into Earth’s atmosphere. Pyrocumulus clouds are formed by rising heat from wildfires or by plume emissions from fossil fuel-burning industrial plants, and they sharply increase the levels of carbon dioxide and harmful aerosols in the atmosphere.

July 26, 2018

The baobab, one of the world’s most unusual and iconic trees, is in danger. The gigantic baobab, known as the “tree of life,” can live as long as 3,000 years. But the hardy trees are suddenly dying in unusual numbers, many long before their expected life spans. Climate change has increased the occurrence of such weather anomalies as droughts, floods, and lightning storms, all of which can harm or kill baobab trees. A destructive mold called black fungus is also appearing more frequently on baobab trees. The tree is further threatened by the loss of its natural habitat to agriculture and development. Habitat loss and illegal hunting have also greatly reduced the population of African elephants, the animals largely responsible for spreading the tree’s seeds. If no action is taken to protect the baobab and its environment, certain species of the tree could be extinct within 100 years.

These giant baobabs form part of the magnificent Avenue of the Baobabs in the Megabe region of western Madagascar. Credit: © Monika Hrdinova, Shutterstock

Baobab is the name of a group of trees that grow in tropical and subtropical regions of the Eastern Hemisphere, especially in Madagascar. The best-known type of baobab is found on the African mainland. It has an extremely thick, often bulging, trunk. This tree may grow to 80 feet (24 meters) tall with a trunk from 30 to 50 feet (9 to 15 meters) in diameter. The tree has white flowers that open at night and are pollinated by bats. The fruit, called monkey bread, is almost 1 foot (30 centimeters) long. It dangles from the tree like a lantern from a long, ropy stem. The fruit holds many seeds buried in a mealy pulp. The pulp, which is rich in vitamin C, serves as food for both animals and people, and it is also used to flavor cool drinks. People sometimes use the leaves and bark in medicines. They make paper, cloth, and rope from the bark fibers. The giant trees also provide shade in the hot climates where they grow, serving as cool gathering places for animals and humans alike.

African elephants, who are themselves in danger, help propagate baobabs by eating the tree’s fruit and seeds (antelopes, baboons, and other animals also contribute). The seeds pass through the animal’s digestive system, and they are then dropped in ready-made fertilizer. Elephants tend to walk great distances in search of food and water, and a single tree’s seeds can thus be spread out over many miles. Ironically, elephants are also known to damage or kill baobab trees in times of severe drought. Elephants sometimes rip apart a baobab’s trunk to get at the tree’s bountiful water supply inside.

Adrian Patrut, a chemist at Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania, has led an international research study on baobab trees since 2005. Patrut pioneered a radiocarbon technique to date baobabs, which do not have the tell-tale age rings found in most trees. Patrut and his team have kept close tabs on the largest and oldest baobabs in southern Africa. They found that 9 of the 13 oldest recorded baobabs (between 1,100 and 2,500 years old) and 5 of the 6 largest have died in the past 12 years—an alarming death rate among these long-living trees. Parts of many other baobabs have also died. The trees have multiple core systems within their massive trunks, allowing parts of the tree to die while the rest lives on.

Of the nine species of baobab trees, six are endemic to the African island of Madagascar. Of those six, half are on the Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). The numbers of three Madagascar baobabs—Adansonia grandidieri, Adansonia perrieri, and Adansonia suarezensis—have dropped more than a 50 percent since the 1950′s. A. perrieri and A. suarezensis are considered critically endangered. The numbers of the remaining baobab species that live in mainland Africa, the Arabian peninsula, and Australia are also on the decline.

October 18, 2017

On the heels of Harvey, Irma, Jose, and Katia, Hurricane Maria churned through the Caribbean Sea in mid-September 2017. The storm hit the islands of the Lesser Antilles hard, but Maria saved its worst for Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States.

A Puerto Rican coastal community lies in pieces on Oct. 2, 2017, nearly two weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. Credit: Mani Albrecht, U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Hurricane Irma skirted Puerto Rico on September 6, causing minor damage and an electric power outage. As Maria approached two weeks later, Puerto Ricans once again took cover—but Maria proved far worse than its sister hurricane. On September 20, Maria struck the island with torrential rains and winds well over 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour. In a matter of hours, record rainfalls drenched the island, with the east-central city of Caguas topping the gauges at nearly 40 inches (100 centimeters). Storm surges and flash flooding submerged large parts of the island, including neighborhoods of San Juan, the capital. Reservoirs and rivers overflowed and dams threatened to burst. Electric power went out—and stayed out—throughout Puerto Rico. Cellular phone service vanished, banks ceased functioning, roads became impassable, and television and radio stations went silent. “Everything collapsed,” said Héctor Pesquera, Puerto Rico’s commissioner of safety and public protection. “Everything collapsed simultaneously.”

Maria left Puerto Rico as quickly as it came, and as the skies cleared, the devastation was evident. Houses and trees were reduced to splinters; cars were scattered and half-buried in water and mud; farm crops lay shredded; and everywhere were broken windows, chunks of rooftops, and street signs twisted into knots.

Puerto Rican civilians pass cases of fresh water delivered by a Puerto Rico National Guard helicopter on Oct. 4, 2017. Credit: Spc. Agustin Montanez, The National Guard (licensed under CC BY 2.0)

Tens of thousands of people were stranded, and recovery efforts began immediately. The Puerto Rico National Guard rescued more than 2,000 people in the first 24 hours, and thousands of others found help in the days to come. But for many people, it was already too late. Drowned bodies began appearing, and as of October 18, the death toll on Puerto Rico stands at 48. Many people remain missing, however, and the number could still rise. Weeks after the storm, many areas still lack electric power and phone service, and there is still not enough food, water, medicine, and fuel to help people who have lost everything.

Lagging relief efforts from the mainland United States were heavily criticized, and there was a noted lack of urgency in the reaction of President Donald Trump, who downplayed the seriousness of the disaster. U.S. government aid for its Puerto Rican citizens did eventually kick into high gear, but only after several days of wrangling and indecisiveness on the part of administration officials.

Individual charities and international organizations have brought in millions of dollars worth of aid to Puerto Rico, as have such Puerto Rican celebrities as Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Daddy Yankee. Former baseball star Alex Rodriguez, rapper Pitbull, and Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias have also helped significantly.

August 30, 2017

Late last Friday night, on August 25, the deluge of Hurricane Harvey began soaking the central coast of Texas in the southern United States. Since then, the storm has continued to dump record rains, causing unprecedented flooding that has displaced some 30,000 people. More than 4 feet (1.2 meters) of rain has saturated the Houston area, submerging low-lying areas and swelling reservoirs to near-breaking points. As Harvey hovers and continues to dump torrential rains, the U.S. National Weather Service warns of “catastrophic” and “life threatening” flooding in southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana. As of today, 30 people have died in storm-related incidents.

On Aug. 27, 2017, members of the Texas National Guard evacuate Houston residents stranded by Hurricane Harvey’s record flooding. Credit: Lt. Zachary West, Army National Guard

Harvey’s floodwaters have affected 50 counties in Texas, and some 4,000 troops from the Texas National Guard have been deployed—along with thousands of police, firefighters, and other emergency responders—to help the storm’s many victims. Many civilian volunteers are helping, too, using their own boats, food, and other supplies. Numerous people and pets have been rescued by boat, high-water vehicles, and helicopter from automobiles, trees, homes, and rooftops. Hundreds of roads are blocked by high water, and Houston’s airports, schools, and office buildings remain closed. Storm damage is expected to top $20 billion, and repairs and reconstruction after the storm could take years. Some 450,000 people are expected to seek federal disaster assistance. Harvey is the strongest storm to hit Texas since Hurricane Carla in 1961.

On Aug. 24, 2017, Hurricane Harvey strengthens over the Gulf of Mexico prior to hitting the Texas coast late on August 25. Credit: NOAA/NASA GOES Project

Harvey’s pockets of tornadolike winds have caused some damage, but the storm’s winds—which have lessened enough for Harvey to be downgraded to a tropical storm—have not been the problem. Harvey’s great destructive force has been its rain generation. Very slow moving, Harvey has lingered over the Texas coast and the Gulf of Mexico, turning out multiple thunderstorms from a bottomless water supply. Torrential rains have hit coastal areas for days on end, and flooding and storm surges have not reached their peak potential. The worst may be yet to come before the storm crawls northeast and weakens over land in the coming days.

Harvey formed as a cluster of thunderstorms over the Atlantic Ocean before hitting the island of Barbados as a tropical storm on August 18. The storm fragmented as it crossed Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, but it redeveloped and gained strength over the Bay of Campeche. Water temperatures there and in the entire Gulf of Mexico are well above average, and storms like Harvey feed off those warm waters. An expansion of the subtropical high pressure belt gave Harvey a clear and gentle upper atmosphere in which to grow, and the storm coiled and flexed into a hurricane as it neared the Texas coast. The warmer waters and expansion of high pressure areas—as well as a superabundance of moisture in the air—are ripe conditions for hurricane creation. They are also consistent with the effects of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change. The United Nations World Meteorological Organization linked Harvey’s enormous rainfall with climate change.

July 12, 2017

Last month, in June, an international team of researchers and scientists braved heavy snows, freezing winds, and thin air to extract ice core samples from the Illimani glacier high in the Andes Mountains of Bolivia. The samples were the latest collected by teams from Ice Memory, a project aiming to gather ice samples from endangered glaciers around the world. The archive—which will be stored in a sanctuary in Antarctica—will allow future studies of glaciers that will soon fall victim to global warming. Ice Memory is managed by the University of Grenoble Alps Foundation in France and supported by the French and Italian national commissions for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

On June 6, 2017, the Ice Memory team drills near their camp on the Illimani glacier in the Andes Mountains of Bolivia. Credit: © Sarah Del Ben, Wiltouch/Fondation UGA

At 21,004 feet (6,402 meters), Illimani is the highest mountain in the Cordillera Real range of western Bolivia. Glaciers on Illimani have existed for many thousands of years, but they are rapidly melting and retreating as climate change increases Earth’s temperatures. Glacier ice reads like a historical record of climate and environment, preserving ancient animal, plant, and mineral samples as well as showing glacial growth over millennia. They also show variations in temperatures and more recent concentrations of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Saving Illimani cores will allow scientists to study the ice long after the host glaciers have disappeared.

Scientists remove ice from the drilling core on the Illimani glacier in Bolivia on June 9, 2017. Credit: © Sarah Del Ben, Wiltouch/Fondation UGA

It took several weeks for the Illimani team to drill through the ice and extract the core samples, both of which were more than 440 feet (135 meters) long. Dangerous weather forced the team to abandon the planned retrieval of a third sample. The glacier cores were then cut into smaller pieces, stored in tubes, and catalogued. The samples will eventually make their way to the archive at Concordia Station in Antarctica, where they will join the first core samples extracted from France’s Mont Blanc in 2016. The Concordia glacier archive is meant to store hundreds of ice core samples in a protected snow cave at -65° Fahrenheit (-54° Celsius).

An Ice Memory researcher stacks tubed sections of ice core in an improvised snow cave on the Illimani glacier on June 5, 2017. The samples will eventually be stored in Antarctica. Credit: © Sarah Del Ben, Wiltouch/Fondation UGA

Future core extractions are planned for such threatened glacier areas as Mera Peak in Nepal, Mount Elbrus in Russia, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and sites in the Swiss Alps and the Altai Mountains in Asia. Ideally, three glacier samples from each area will provide one sample for immediate analysis and two for storage and archiving. Aside from providing clues about the past, the samples help scientists understand the current effects of climate change and predict future environmental events.

June 29, 2017

The Bay of Bengal forms the northernmost part of the Indian Ocean. Bordered in an arc by the populous nations of Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar (also called Burma), the bay plays an important role in the lives of hundreds of millions of people. For thousands of years, people have subsisted on the bay’s rich marine life. With its waters dirtied and its sea populations dwindling, however, the bay’s fruitful abundance is lessening and may soon come to an end.

Traditional fishing boats crowd the harbor at Visakhapatnam, India, on the Bay of Bengal. Larger trawling vessels can be seen in the background. Credit: © Shutterstock

Covering an area of some 840,000 square miles (2.2 million square kilometers), the Bay of Bengal is one of the world’s largest marine ecosystems. The bay’s deep waters, coral reefs, estuaries, and mangroves provide a remarkable diversity of life. The rare Irrawaddy dolphin, which lives in fresh and brackish (slightly salty) waters, lurks in the muddy river mouths along the coasts. The bay’s salty and swampy mangrove forests provide a key habitat for Bengal tigers in India and Bangladesh, and for saltwater crocodiles, river terrapins, and other endangered species throughout the region. The dynamic mix of salt and freshwater habitats makes the coasts hotspots of fish biodiversity as well. At least 24 species of shrimp, 50 species of crab, and hundreds of different types of mollusks live in the bay’s shallower waters. These waters also host an abundance of squid and octopus species.

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The Bay of Bengal is the northern part of the Indian Ocean. The bay borders on India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

The Bay of Bengal is best known, however, for its rich fishing. Seemingly endless populations of tuna, mackerel, sharks, reef fish, prawns, oysters, and other marine animals have long provided people with food and a steady income. For centuries, people fished the bay with pole and line, they trolled from light boats, or they practiced beach seining (hauling in nets anchored to the beach). These methods—which are still common today—produced ample results for both home and market, yet they did little harm to the bay’s overall fish stocks. Over the past 50 years or so, however, industrial fishing—which leans heavily on the use of trawlers—has largely supplanted the traditional sustainable fishing techniques, and the results have been disastrous.

Even such small stern trawlers as the one above catch large amounts of fish, including non-commercial marine species known as bycatch. Credit: © Colin Munro, Alamy Images

Trawlers use funnel-shaped nets called trawls to trap sea life. Trawls are very effective at corralling huge quantities of sea life, particularly valuable shrimp and prawns (often referred to as “pink gold” in the Bay of Bengal). A single trawler can catch many more fish in a day than a dozen or more traditional fishing craft. But trawling is a destructive fishing practice that can devastate marine ecosystems. The heavy trawls, usually weighed down and dragged along the sea floor, do not discriminate. They catch everything too big to slip through the net, including dolphins, rays, sea turtles, and many types of other non-commercial fish. These accidental catches are swept up in the nets, hauled on board the ship, and dismissed as bycatch. Some animals caught as bycatch are returned to the sea alive, but most die and are either discarded or sold to produce farm animal feed. Bycatch can constitute as much as 90 percent of a trawler’s haul—a devastatingly inefficient and wasteful percentage. Trawlers can leave a swath of lifeless sea in their wake, and they also hurt the sea floor itself. The heavy nets mow down sensitive corals and plant life.

In the Bay of Bengal, the switch from local to corporate and industrial fishing—to unsustainable and destructive trawling—has largely depleted the waters’ once-rich fish stocks. As fish hauls have decreased over the years, many traditional fishing families have had to find other ways of life. At the same time, trawling fleets—pushing ever further to find their elusive catch—have caused international disputes as they encroach upon foreign nations’ territorial waters.

Overfishing has done great harm to the Bay of Bengal, but ocean pollution may be the bay’s greatest enemy. Pollution has killed large amounts of marine life, poisoned or otherwise contaminated the bay’s waters, and even drained the life-giving abilities of the water itself. In some areas—including a massive “dead zone” in the middle of the bay—the once organically rich marine environment has become a tangled web of plastic garbage floating on oxygen-poor waters nearly incapable of supporting life.

Water pollution in the Bay of Bengal comes from many sources. Deep-water gas and oil drilling can cause great harm, as can ever-running boat engines and acid rain falling from the polluted air of the “brown cloud” drifting from the Asian mainland. The largest amounts of pollutants, however, come from the bay’s feeding rivers. Many major rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, including the Meghna, the Ganges, and the Mahanadi. These mighty rivers carry fresh water into the salty bay, but they also bring pesticides and fertilizers from farming lands as well as massive amounts of trash and untreated sewage from urban areas.

Aside from the obvious harm from toxins, fertilizer runoff provides the bay’s plankton with an excess of nutrients. This causes the plankton population to rise sharply. The plankton then use up much of the water’s oxygen supply, leading to areas of hypoxic (low oxygen) waters. Few marine species can exist in hypoxic waters, so most animals either die or go elsewhere. In the center of the bay, a 37,000-square mile (60,000-square kilometer) area devoid of fish has appeared—a massive hypoxic zone often referred to as “dead.” Without action to reverse the bay’s decline, this dead zone may grow until, one day, it takes over the entire bay.

Anthropogenic (human caused) climate change, too, is threatening the Bay of Bengal. Climate change affects southern Asia’s seasonal monsoons, causing erratic, stronger, and unpredictable storms and flooding, increasing freshwater runoff and pollution and further deoxygenating the bay’s waters. Global warming leads to warmer ocean water temperatures and encourages the expansion of low-oxygen or even anaerobic (oxygen free) dead zones. Warmer ocean waters also melt polar ice at an increased rate, which causes sea levels to rise. As water inches up the Bay of Bengal’s coastline, it will displace millions of people. It will also take away land badly needed for agriculture, forcing humans to rely still further on fish from the bay—fish that soon may be nearly impossible to find.

As food security in Bay of Bengal countries becomes increasingly threatened and marine species become harder to find, slowing—or, if possible, reversing—the demise of the Bay of Bengal will become increasingly urgent. Bay communities and governments must choose more sustainable methods of fishing as well as more responsible methods of agriculture and commerce. At the same time, they must do their best to reduce pollution and waste. Many scientists see the plight of the Bay of Bengal as a warning signal to the rest of Earth. The bay is an example of a global trend in which unsustainable fishing methods, pollution, and climate change are slowly killing the world’s oceans. The Bay of Bengal is at a breaking point, but it is not too late to save it. Swift immediate and long-term action is needed, and the area’s people must make a genuine commitment to environmental responsibility.