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Saving species won't harm poor people
News in perspective
Upfront– GETTY IMAGES
CHINESE SMOG’S SILVER LINING Who would have thought that smog had an upside? It may be the scourge of China’s urban citizens and a prickly PR problem during the Olympics, but surprisingly, the pea-soupy fallout from Chinese industrial pollution could be reducing the country’s contribution to climate change from at least one greenhouse gas. A British team has been adding sulphate to laboratory rice paddies in an effort to mimic the effect of acid rain on Asia’s most important food crop. This equivalent of typical acid rain reduced methane emissions from flooded paddies by up to 25 per cent, says Vincent Gauci of the Open University in Milton Keynes in the UK (Journal of Geophysical Research, DOI: 10.1029/2007JG000501). Methane from agriculture is the
second most important human-made greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, and by some estimates up to a third of it comes from methane-generating bacteria lurking in rice paddies. So Asia’s thickening smogs could be good news, in one respect, for the global climate. That’s as long as the acid rain does not simultaneously reduce the yield of rice fields, causing farmers to flood more and more fields to maintain production. In fact, says Gauci, “the acid rain seems to increase rice yields”. That may be how the unexpected methane suppression operates. By boosting grain production, the sulphur helps plants retain organic matter that once disappeared from their roots to trigger the manufacture of methane in the flooded fields.
US HIV shocker
reveals when they were infected. A larger fraction indicates a more recent infection. When applied to US blood samples from 2006, the test indicates there were 56,300 infections that year, not 40,000 as assumed (The Journal of the American Medical Association, DOI: 10.1001/jama.300.5.520). Are vast numbers of HIV infections being missed globally? It’s a tough one, says Kevin DeCock, director of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization. Estimates are based on the best figures available in what are often difficult settings, he says, but the US finding means “there is a risk that we might sometimes underestimate”.
–Bring on the acid rain–
Fair conservation
“Even if relatively few poor people live in these areas, they must still take priority” WCS and other conservation groups are often accused of taking land from its rightful occupants in the name of conservation. Some observers, including the International Union for 6 | NewScientist | 9 August 2008
NASA
ONE of the most damning charges made against environmentalists is that they destroy the lives of poor people in rainforests and other wild areas by taking over their land in the name of conservation. Nonsense, says new research. “The vast majority of the world’s poor people live in extremely urban areas… only a small percentage live in areas that are somewhat or extremely wild,” says Kent Redford of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in New York, the author of a study mapping poverty and human environmental impact around the world. Even the rural poor mostly live in grasslands, Redford says, while biodiverse forests are largely empty (Oryx, DOI: 10.1017/ S0030605308001889).
Conservation of Nature, have called on greens to do more to combat rural poverty in areas where they work. Redford’s study suggests that neither of these concerns is particularly justified. However, critics say that even if relatively few poor people live in the most biodiverse areas, their needs must still take priority. “Security of livelihoods is still vitally important for people that do live in such areas,” says Simon Counsell of the Rainforest Alliance UK. “Like it or not, conservation groups are going to have to improve the lot of local people if they want their programmes to succeed.”
WE KNEW things were bad, but in fact they are worse. For years, the US has been underestimating the rate of new HIV infections by a whopping 40 per cent. Until now, most countries, including the US, estimated the number of new cases by applying correction factors to the latest data on national HIV prevalence. The discrepancy came to light courtesy of a blood test developed by the US Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. By measuring the proportion of antibodies in an individual’s blood that are primed to fight HIV, it
No plain sailing SOLAR sails just can’t find a fair wind. Another space mission intended to prove the technology, which is designed to propel spacecraft using only the pressure of sunlight, has failed to reach space safely. It is the third such setback since 2001. NASA’s NanoSail-D spacecraft, a 9-kilogram vessel no bigger than a loaf of bread, was supposed to reach orbit on Saturday and unfurl four solar sails with a –From yacht to not– combined area of 9 square metres. www.newscientist.com
Upfront– GETTY IMAGES
CHINESE SMOG’S SILVER LINING Who would have thought that smog had an upside? It may be the scourge of China’s urban citizens and a prickly PR problem during the Olympics, but surprisingly, the pea-soupy fallout from Chinese industrial pollution could be reducing the country’s contribution to climate change from at least one greenhouse gas. A British team has been adding sulphate to laboratory rice paddies in an effort to mimic the effect of acid rain on Asia’s most important food crop. This equivalent of typical acid rain reduced methane emissions from flooded paddies by up to 25 per cent, says Vincent Gauci of the Open University in Milton Keynes in the UK (Journal of Geophysical Research, DOI: 10.1029/2007JG000501). Methane from agriculture is the
second most important human-made greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, and by some estimates up to a third of it comes from methane-generating bacteria lurking in rice paddies. So Asia’s thickening smogs could be good news, in one respect, for the global climate. That’s as long as the acid rain does not simultaneously reduce the yield of rice fields, causing farmers to flood more and more fields to maintain production. In fact, says Gauci, “the acid rain seems to increase rice yields”. That may be how the unexpected methane suppression operates. By boosting grain production, the sulphur helps plants retain organic matter that once disappeared from their roots to trigger the manufacture of methane in the flooded fields.
US HIV shocker
reveals when they were infected. A larger fraction indicates a more recent infection. When applied to US blood samples from 2006, the test indicates there were 56,300 infections that year, not 40,000 as assumed (The Journal of the American Medical Association, DOI: 10.1001/jama.300.5.520). Are vast numbers of HIV infections being missed globally? It’s a tough one, says Kevin DeCock, director of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization. Estimates are based on the best figures available in what are often difficult settings, he says, but the US finding means “there is a risk that we might sometimes underestimate”.
–Bring on the acid rain–
Fair conservation
“Even if relatively few poor people live in these areas, they must still take priority” WCS and other conservation groups are often accused of taking land from its rightful occupants in the name of conservation. Some observers, including the International Union for 6 | NewScientist | 9 August 2008
NASA
ONE of the most damning charges made against environmentalists is that they destroy the lives of poor people in rainforests and other wild areas by taking over their land in the name of conservation. Nonsense, says new research. “The vast majority of the world’s poor people live in extremely urban areas… only a small percentage live in areas that are somewhat or extremely wild,” says Kent Redford of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in New York, the author of a study mapping poverty and human environmental impact around the world. Even the rural poor mostly live in grasslands, Redford says, while biodiverse forests are largely empty (Oryx, DOI: 10.1017/ S0030605308001889).
Conservation of Nature, have called on greens to do more to combat rural poverty in areas where they work. Redford’s study suggests that neither of these concerns is particularly justified. However, critics say that even if relatively few poor people live in the most biodiverse areas, their needs must still take priority. “Security of livelihoods is still vitally important for people that do live in such areas,” says Simon Counsell of the Rainforest Alliance UK. “Like it or not, conservation groups are going to have to improve the lot of local people if they want their programmes to succeed.”
WE KNEW things were bad, but in fact they are worse. For years, the US has been underestimating the rate of new HIV infections by a whopping 40 per cent. Until now, most countries, including the US, estimated the number of new cases by applying correction factors to the latest data on national HIV prevalence. The discrepancy came to light courtesy of a blood test developed by the US Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. By measuring the proportion of antibodies in an individual’s blood that are primed to fight HIV, it
No plain sailing SOLAR sails just can’t find a fair wind. Another space mission intended to prove the technology, which is designed to propel spacecraft using only the pressure of sunlight, has failed to reach space safely. It is the third such setback since 2001. NASA’s NanoSail-D spacecraft, a 9-kilogram vessel no bigger than a loaf of bread, was supposed to reach orbit on Saturday and unfurl four solar sails with a –From yacht to not– combined area of 9 square metres. www.newscientist.com