Political Ecology

Precision agriculture comprises a set of technologies that combines sensors, information systems, enhanced machinery, and informed management to optimize production by accounting for variability and uncertainties within agricultural systems. Adapting production inputs site-specifically within a field and individually for each animal allows better use of resources to maintain the quality of the environment while improving [...]

For some parameters, such as nitrogen loading and atmospheric CO2 concentrations, we may have already stepped out of our safety zone and need to back-pedal quickly. For others, such as ocean acidification, we may still have enough time to avoid catastrophic change if we act wisely.But do we understand the Earth system well enough to [...]

To meet the challenge of maintaining the Holocene state, we propose a framework based on ‘planetary boundaries’. These boundaries define the safe operating space for humanity with respect to the Earth system and are associated with the planet’s biophysical subsystems or processes. Although Earth’s complex systems sometimes respond smoothly to changing pressures, it seems that [...]

This article provides a synthesis of literature values to trace the fate of 150 Tg/yr anthropogenic nitrogen applied by humans to the Earth’s land surface. Approximately 9 TgN/yr may be accumulating in the terrestrial biosphere in pools with residence times of ten to several hundred years. Enhanced fluvial transport of nitrogen in rivers and percolation [...]

Modern day concentrations of ground level ozone pollution are decreasing the growth of trees in the northern and temperate mid-latitudes, as shown in a paper publishing today in Global Change Biology. Tree growth, measured in biomass, is already 7% less than the late 1800s, and this is set to increase to a 17% reduction by [...]

The authors concluded that their investigation indicates “that no-till can result in incremental nitrous oxide emissions that can more than offset the soil carbon dioxide sink during the first 5 yr after adoption of this soil conservation practice in a heavy clay soil…. Consequently, the potential of no-till for decreasing net greenhouse gas emissions may [...]

In its new guidelines, FDA proposes regulating the genetic modifications as “animal drugs” because, as with traditional drugs, they alter the animal. The agency wants to know whether the genetic change is safe for animals and for humans if the animals are destined for the slaughterhouse. Companies will need to show that the additional DNA [...]