Planting season for corn and soybeans across the United States corn belt is drawing to a close. As they plant, farmers are participating in what is likely to be one of the largest deployments of insecticides in United States history.

Almost every field corn seed planted this year in the US – approximately 90 million acres’ worth – will be coated with neonicotinoid insecticides, the most widely used class of insecticides in the world.

The same is true for seeds in about half of US soybeans – roughly 45 million acres and nearly all cotton – about 14 million acres. In total, by my estimate, these insecticides will be used across at least 150 million acres of cropland, an area about the size the Texas.

Yield loss

Neonicotinoids are very good at killing insects. In many cases they require only parts per billion, equivalent to a few drops of insecticide in a swimming pool of water.

In recent years, concerns have been raised about the influence of neonicotinoids on bee populations. As an applied insect ecologist and extension specialist who works with farmers on pest control, I believe the focus on bees has obscured larger concerns.

In my view, US farmers are using these pesticides far more heavily than necessary, with potential negative impacts on ecosystems that are poorly understood.

Neonicotinoid use by crop from 1992 to 2014. The y-axis represents mass of neonicotinoid active ingredient applied in millions of kg. Tooker, Douglas, Krupke, 2017, doi:10.2134/ael2017.08.0026, CC BY-NC-ND

Most neonicotinoids in the United States are used to coat field crop seeds. Their role is to protect against a relatively small suite of secondary insect pests – that is, not the main pests that tend to cause yield loss.

National companies or seed suppliers apply these coatings, so that when farmers buy seed, they just have to plant it.

Limited time

The percentage of corn and soybean acreage planted with neonicotinoid seed coatings has increased dramatically since 2004.

By 2011, over 90 percent of field corn and 40 percent of soybeans planted were treated with a neonicotinoid. Between 2011 and 2014, the area treated crept toward 100 percent for corn and 50 percent for soybeans.

And the mass of neonicotinoids deployed in each crop doubled, indicating that seed suppliers applied about twice as much insecticide per seed. Unfortunately, many farmers are unaware of what is coated on their seeds, while others like the peace of mind that comes from an apparently better protected seed.

Unlike most insecticides, neonicotinoids are water soluble. This means that when a seedling grows from a treated seed, its roots can absorb some of the insecticide that coated the seed.

This can protect the seedling for a limited time from insects. But only a small fraction of the insecticide applied to seeds is actually taken up by seedlings.

For example, corn seedlings only take up about two percent, and it only persists in the plant for two to three weeks. The critical question is where the rest goes.

Clothianidin is a neonicotinoid used almost exclusively as a coating on seed corn. Maps from USGS.

Pervading the environment

Because neonicotinoids are water soluble, the leftover insecticide not taken up by plants can easily wash into nearby waterways. Neonicotinoids from seed coatings are now routinely found polluting streams and rivers around the country.

Here it is likely that they are poisoning and killing off some of the aquatic insects that are vital food sources for fishes, birds and other wildlife.

In the Netherlands, neonicotinoids in surface waters have been associated with widespread declines in insectivorous bird populations – a sign that concentrations of these insecticides are having strong effects on food webs.

Neonicotinoids also can strongly influence pest and predator populations in crop fields. My lab’s research has revealed that use of coated seeds can indirectly reduce crop yield by poisoning insect predators that usually kill slugs, which are important crop pests in mid-Atlantic corn and soybeans fields.

More broadly, planting coated seeds generally decreases populations of insect predators in crop fields by 15 to 20 percent. These predatory insects can eat insect pests, such as black cutworm and armyworm, that can reduce yield. Crop fields with fewer resident predators are more vulnerable to pest infestations.

Slugs, shown here on a soybean plant, are unaffected by neonicotinoids, but can transmit the insecticides to beetles that are important slug predators. Nick Sloff/Penn State University, CC BY-ND

An exaggerated need

Neonicotinoid advocates point to reports – often funded by industry – which argue that these products provide value to field crop agriculture and farmers.

However, these sources typically assume that insecticides of some type are needed on every acre of corn and soybeans. Therefore, their value calculations rest on comparing neonicotinoid seed coatings to the cost of other available insecticides.

History shows that this assumption is clearly faulty. In the decade before neonicotinoid seed coatings entered the market, only about 35 percent of US corn acres and 5 percent of soybean acres were treated with insecticides. In other words, pest populations did not cause economically significant harm very often.

Importantly, the pest complex attacking corn today is more or less the same as it was in the 1990s. This suggests that it is not necessary to treat hundreds of millions of acres of crops with neonicotinoid seed coatings.

Neonicotinoids can harm birds via multiple pathways, sometimes in very small quantities.

From overkill to moderation

Should the United States follow the European Union’s lead and pass a broad ban on neonicotinoids? In my view, action this drastic is not necessary.

Neonicotinoids provide good value in controlling critical pest species, particularly in vegetable and fruit production. However, their use on field crops needs to be reined in.

In the Canadian province of Ontario, growers can only use neonicotinoid seed treatments on 20 percent of their acres. This seems like a good start, but does not accommodate farmers’ needs very well.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM), a control strategy based on using pesticides only when they are economically justified, offers valuable guidelines.

It was introduced in the late 1950s in response to issues stemming from overuse of insecticides, including environmental damage and pest populations that had evolved resistance. Field-crop growers have a good history of using IPM, but current use of neonicotinoids ignores pest risk and conflicts with this approach.

To implement IPM in field crops with neonicotinoids, seed companies need to acknowledge that the current approach is overkill and poses serious environmental hazards.

Extension entomologists will then need to provide growers with unbiased information on strengths and limitations of neonicotinoids, and help farmers identify crop acres that will benefit from their use.

Finally, the agricultural industry needs to eliminate practices that encourage unnecessary use of seed coatings, such as bundling together various seed-based pest management products, and provide more uncoated seeds in their catalogs. These steps could end the ongoing escalation of neonicotinoid use and change the goal from “wherever possible” to “just enough.”

This Author

John F. Tooker is a associate professor of entomology and extension specialist at Pennsylvania State University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

It is now 10 years since the Climate Change Act (CCA) was first brought into law. Professor Chris Rapley CBE was one of the authors of the piece of legislation that served to hold governing ministers to account.

A decade on it is time to ask where it has put the UK in the context of the Paris Agreement and is it still fit for purpose.

Rapley speaks candidly about our preparedness for an ever-rising tide of climate impacts that are already having a disastrous effect on nearly all regions of the world.

Nick Breeze (NB): Can you summarise why the Climate Change Act (CCA) was significant when it was brought into law a decade ago?

Professor Chris Rapley CBE (CR): Ok, CCA was a really innovative piece of legislation and the fundamental core of it was that it makes the secretary of state, whoever they are in the future, in a statutory way, responsible for ensuring that the UK reduces its carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. And indeed, following a trajectory that is dictated by an independent body. 

NB: Would you say that this has been effective in the 10 years it has been enforced? 

CR: Well, up until now, yes. The UK’s carbon emissions are today 40 percent lower then they were in 1990. Partly, there are a whole load of factors that contributed to that.

But at the same time, the economy has grown by 60 percent, so one of the big results is that the myth that you can not decarbonise without damaging the economy has been blown out of the water. It’s clear: you can. 

NB: Where does this place Britain in the context of climate action compared with other countries? 

CR: From the government and the statutory point of view it places the UK well in the lead. It is a very innovative piece of legislation which many other nations are considering following.

Spain among others has been looking at it because it is seen as overcoming the four or five yearly electoral cycle. It commits the nation to a long-term set of action. So, this has been highly beneficial. 

NB: And do you think it stood the test of time? 

CR: Yes, I think it has. The Climate Change Committee which was established as the independent body to lay out the trajectory that the country needs to follow, and the Adaptation Sub-Committee which has been looking at the nation’s preparedness for climate change which is inevitably happening around us, now.

These are both very prestigious bodies. They are regarded – even at a time where experts are suspect – they are regarded as being rigorous and having done a very effective job. 

So, it’s established a process which I think is largely admired. What it reveals though, is that there are many areas where government action or national action is still, lagging.

But nevertheless, we have an independent and rigorous means of exposing that and once you expose the problem, then, of course, you can begin to address it. 

NB:  Do you think 10 years on, there are areas now where you think well, that could be tightened up or this could be improved upon. I mean, are there elements of the CCA that could be changed?  

CR: I think in terms of the act itself and the processes, the structures that had been set up to support it, I think they’ve stood the test of the time.

What we see now is the actual action on the ground is not keeping up in many areas. So for example, there are some very good examples of flood protection plans, like the London flood plan.

We know that there are many other areas around the country, which are very poorly prepared for sea level rise, flooding, or the intense rainfall flooding, that we are already experiencing. So there is plenty to do. 

NB: And, do you think when you highlight risks outside of London, in other parts of Britain, do you think these are being acted on right now? 

CR: It’s very patchy. There are some good examples and there are some areas where there is really insufficient knowledge and action. The present administration has definitely not helped.

For example, there had been a long process by which zero carbon home legislation was being prepared. The new administration abandoned that, and when they did so, they also removed the ability of local councils to impose conditions for the development on developers.

These conditions would make sure that the future developments are future and climate-proofed. 

So, a huge opportunity was lost to ensure that the local appropriate action was being taken. And if you talk to local councils now, or boroughs, the austerity and cutbacks have so reduced their staffing, that often you will find that there is nobody responsible for climate change at all.

So, if one has a new report that provides some useful advice there is literally nobody to send it to because there is nobody in the borough administration who is assigned that task. 

NB: Ok, I was curious whether [ministers] might be making a lot of noise but not actually taking a lot of action.

CR: Well we don’t know. Ah, well the cynic in me says, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’, but we have to be…there are good signs because the markets are beginning to have an effect, in two ways. 

Firstly, the green technology, the experience curves, the cost of the solar PV and wind have so plummeted, so much faster than was expected, that they are cost competitive with fossil fuels in many parts of the world, but also in the UK.

So we see the kind of baseload delivery of green energy increasing: I mean, we have been through periods were coal contributed nothing to the UK electricity supply for a couple of days on end. 

But in addition, large investment companies, say pension funds and so on, are increasingly nervous of potential carbon bubbles, and stranded assets.

So you can see, the huge supertanker is a probably a very good metaphor, you can see the nose ineluctably begin to move towards the green and clean future, almost regardless of what the government may do. 

NB: Are there signs you can see that change is happening at the speed we need to see it, to avert the worst of climate impacts?

CR: Well yes we do things are happening but absolutely not at the scale, or pace that is necessary if we are serious about keeping the overall warming to about 2 degrees Centigrade, or less. 

We are currently on a track to 3-3.5ºC maybe even 4ºC at the end of the century. And we may have gone over a threshold where we have committed the Earth to rising sea levels of many metres over hundreds, if not thousands of years. 

So, certainly, the actions that we all collectively take over the next decade or two will determine the trajectory of the planet for thousands of years.

I absolutely do not see the scale and pace that is necessary to achieve our aspirations, which is two degrees of warming maximum and a planet that stabilizes in the next century or so. 

NB: You had a lot of experience, obviously with British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and so on, when we talk about many meters of sea level rise, this is a game-changer for the civilisation, isn’t it?

CR: Yes. British Antarctic Survey and of course all of the polar scientists have many contributions to understanding how the planet works. Antarctica is a big and important piece of the planetary machinery.

It is the air-conditioning system, or the water conditioning system, and at present, it is not the major contributor to the sea level rise that we are measuring now.

That is coming from the thermal expansion of the ocean as it warms and from Greenland and the glaciers on mountains around the world. 

But the paper came out last week that shows that the contribution of Antarctica to rising sea levels rise tripled in the last five years. So, it is beginning to accelerate.

Some years ago, I likened the Antarctic to a slumbering giant, and said, there were signs that it was awakening, and more recently I said, I think it is beginning to stretch its limbs and we should be very nervous about what is happening down there. 

NB:  When you consider a climate timeline of action versus impacts what concerns you the most? 

CR: Well, let’s talk about impacts, what we have seen is that climate change is happening now. This is not some abstract thing that is going to happen, to other people, somewhere else in the future. It is happening right now. 

There is a wonderful book that just came out called The Water Will Come by the journalist called Jeff Goodell which I recommend. And he has done a wonderful job, really investigating Florida and Venice and all of the obvious places that sea-level rises is going to impact. 

And there are people in Miami who are making decisions now, about whether to sell some of their condominiums now, before the prices collapse, or perhaps keep it, and sell it, or rent it to low-income people and finally let it go at the zero value. 

So people are seeing that the climate change is happening around them and they are reacting to it. One of the more controversial aspects of the climate change is that there is evidence that it is driving migration already, and it is migration probably more than anything else, that will be so disruptive in the future. 

Climate refugees from areas that are too hot, where crops fail, from areas that are flooded either through the sea-level flooding or whatever.

Or through the areas that no longer have a water supply because the winter system of snowfall that sits on the top of the mountains and then delivers water in the summer, from the Himalayas or Alps or wherever it is, no longer functions. 

So, very large numbers of people will move. We have seen the destabilising effect that has on Europe. Of course, the migrants we are seeing in Europe are not solely driven, or even largely driven by climate change, although there is a climate change component.

But that threat multiplier is a really serious consequence of climate change, and we are beginning to see it happening and it is only going to get worse, and that could cause very, very unpleasant social consequences. 

NB: In the struggle to communicate the challenges of climate change, what gives you the most strength? 

CR: Well the fact that a large percentage, although not all of the people, are genuinely what you might call communalistic, that is they believe that there is such a thing as society – despite that what we are told – and they are outraged by injustice.

And they are concerned about future of their children and their children’s children and, indeed, other’s people’s children’s children. 

So, what I see is a willingness on the part of people to bond together and act. If only they understood what it is that they can do. So, the strength is that there is a willingness out there. The weakness is, that it is very difficult to offer people agency in a way that it is effective. 

What I say to people is: personal, professional and political. You can organise your own life so that it is a low carbon, you can work within, amongst your colleagues, so assuming you have a job, and often do much more that way.

But the political pressure is where people can really make a difference, keeping that pressure on elected representatives to recognise that this is an issue that needs an action. 

This Author

Nick Breeze is a climate change interviewer and can be followed on Twitter here: @NickGBreeze – He also blogs at Envisionation.co.uk.

Planting season for corn and soybeans across the United States corn belt is drawing to a close. As they plant, farmers are participating in what is likely to be one of the largest deployments of insecticides in United States history.

Almost every field corn seed planted this year in the US – approximately 90 million acres’ worth – will be coated with neonicotinoid insecticides, the most widely used class of insecticides in the world.

The same is true for seeds in about half of US soybeans – roughly 45 million acres and nearly all cotton – about 14 million acres. In total, by my estimate, these insecticides will be used across at least 150 million acres of cropland, an area about the size the Texas.

Yield loss

Neonicotinoids are very good at killing insects. In many cases they require only parts per billion, equivalent to a few drops of insecticide in a swimming pool of water.

In recent years, concerns have been raised about the influence of neonicotinoids on bee populations. As an applied insect ecologist and extension specialist who works with farmers on pest control, I believe the focus on bees has obscured larger concerns.

In my view, US farmers are using these pesticides far more heavily than necessary, with potential negative impacts on ecosystems that are poorly understood.

Neonicotinoid use by crop from 1992 to 2014. The y-axis represents mass of neonicotinoid active ingredient applied in millions of kg. Tooker, Douglas, Krupke, 2017, doi:10.2134/ael2017.08.0026, CC BY-NC-ND

Most neonicotinoids in the United States are used to coat field crop seeds. Their role is to protect against a relatively small suite of secondary insect pests – that is, not the main pests that tend to cause yield loss.

National companies or seed suppliers apply these coatings, so that when farmers buy seed, they just have to plant it.

Limited time

The percentage of corn and soybean acreage planted with neonicotinoid seed coatings has increased dramatically since 2004.

By 2011, over 90 percent of field corn and 40 percent of soybeans planted were treated with a neonicotinoid. Between 2011 and 2014, the area treated crept toward 100 percent for corn and 50 percent for soybeans.

And the mass of neonicotinoids deployed in each crop doubled, indicating that seed suppliers applied about twice as much insecticide per seed. Unfortunately, many farmers are unaware of what is coated on their seeds, while others like the peace of mind that comes from an apparently better protected seed.

Unlike most insecticides, neonicotinoids are water soluble. This means that when a seedling grows from a treated seed, its roots can absorb some of the insecticide that coated the seed.

This can protect the seedling for a limited time from insects. But only a small fraction of the insecticide applied to seeds is actually taken up by seedlings.

For example, corn seedlings only take up about two percent, and it only persists in the plant for two to three weeks. The critical question is where the rest goes.

Clothianidin is a neonicotinoid used almost exclusively as a coating on seed corn. Maps from USGS.

Pervading the environment

Because neonicotinoids are water soluble, the leftover insecticide not taken up by plants can easily wash into nearby waterways. Neonicotinoids from seed coatings are now routinely found polluting streams and rivers around the country.

Here it is likely that they are poisoning and killing off some of the aquatic insects that are vital food sources for fishes, birds and other wildlife.

In the Netherlands, neonicotinoids in surface waters have been associated with widespread declines in insectivorous bird populations – a sign that concentrations of these insecticides are having strong effects on food webs.

Neonicotinoids also can strongly influence pest and predator populations in crop fields. My lab’s research has revealed that use of coated seeds can indirectly reduce crop yield by poisoning insect predators that usually kill slugs, which are important crop pests in mid-Atlantic corn and soybeans fields.

More broadly, planting coated seeds generally decreases populations of insect predators in crop fields by 15 to 20 percent. These predatory insects can eat insect pests, such as black cutworm and armyworm, that can reduce yield. Crop fields with fewer resident predators are more vulnerable to pest infestations.

Slugs, shown here on a soybean plant, are unaffected by neonicotinoids, but can transmit the insecticides to beetles that are important slug predators. Nick Sloff/Penn State University, CC BY-ND

An exaggerated need

Neonicotinoid advocates point to reports – often funded by industry – which argue that these products provide value to field crop agriculture and farmers.

However, these sources typically assume that insecticides of some type are needed on every acre of corn and soybeans. Therefore, their value calculations rest on comparing neonicotinoid seed coatings to the cost of other available insecticides.

History shows that this assumption is clearly faulty. In the decade before neonicotinoid seed coatings entered the market, only about 35 percent of US corn acres and 5 percent of soybean acres were treated with insecticides. In other words, pest populations did not cause economically significant harm very often.

Importantly, the pest complex attacking corn today is more or less the same as it was in the 1990s. This suggests that it is not necessary to treat hundreds of millions of acres of crops with neonicotinoid seed coatings.

Neonicotinoids can harm birds via multiple pathways, sometimes in very small quantities.

From overkill to moderation

Should the United States follow the European Union’s lead and pass a broad ban on neonicotinoids? In my view, action this drastic is not necessary.

Neonicotinoids provide good value in controlling critical pest species, particularly in vegetable and fruit production. However, their use on field crops needs to be reined in.

In the Canadian province of Ontario, growers can only use neonicotinoid seed treatments on 20 percent of their acres. This seems like a good start, but does not accommodate farmers’ needs very well.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM), a control strategy based on using pesticides only when they are economically justified, offers valuable guidelines.

It was introduced in the late 1950s in response to issues stemming from overuse of insecticides, including environmental damage and pest populations that had evolved resistance. Field-crop growers have a good history of using IPM, but current use of neonicotinoids ignores pest risk and conflicts with this approach.

To implement IPM in field crops with neonicotinoids, seed companies need to acknowledge that the current approach is overkill and poses serious environmental hazards.

Extension entomologists will then need to provide growers with unbiased information on strengths and limitations of neonicotinoids, and help farmers identify crop acres that will benefit from their use.

Finally, the agricultural industry needs to eliminate practices that encourage unnecessary use of seed coatings, such as bundling together various seed-based pest management products, and provide more uncoated seeds in their catalogs. These steps could end the ongoing escalation of neonicotinoid use and change the goal from “wherever possible” to “just enough.”

This Author

John F. Tooker is a associate professor of entomology and extension specialist at Pennsylvania State University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

It is now 10 years since the Climate Change Act (CCA) was first brought into law. Professor Chris Rapley CBE was one of the authors of the piece of legislation that served to hold governing ministers to account.

A decade on it is time to ask where it has put the UK in the context of the Paris Agreement and is it still fit for purpose.

Rapley speaks candidly about our preparedness for an ever-rising tide of climate impacts that are already having a disastrous effect on nearly all regions of the world.

Nick Breeze (NB): Can you summarise why the Climate Change Act (CCA) was significant when it was brought into law a decade ago?

Professor Chris Rapley CBE (CR): Ok, CCA was a really innovative piece of legislation and the fundamental core of it was that it makes the secretary of state, whoever they are in the future, in a statutory way, responsible for ensuring that the UK reduces its carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. And indeed, following a trajectory that is dictated by an independent body. 

NB: Would you say that this has been effective in the 10 years it has been enforced? 

CR: Well, up until now, yes. The UK’s carbon emissions are today 40 percent lower then they were in 1990. Partly, there are a whole load of factors that contributed to that.

But at the same time, the economy has grown by 60 percent, so one of the big results is that the myth that you can not decarbonise without damaging the economy has been blown out of the water. It’s clear: you can. 

NB: Where does this place Britain in the context of climate action compared with other countries? 

CR: From the government and the statutory point of view it places the UK well in the lead. It is a very innovative piece of legislation which many other nations are considering following.

Spain among others has been looking at it because it is seen as overcoming the four or five yearly electoral cycle. It commits the nation to a long-term set of action. So, this has been highly beneficial. 

NB: And do you think it stood the test of time? 

CR: Yes, I think it has. The Climate Change Committee which was established as the independent body to lay out the trajectory that the country needs to follow, and the Adaptation Sub-Committee which has been looking at the nation’s preparedness for climate change which is inevitably happening around us, now.

These are both very prestigious bodies. They are regarded – even at a time where experts are suspect – they are regarded as being rigorous and having done a very effective job. 

So, it’s established a process which I think is largely admired. What it reveals though, is that there are many areas where government action or national action is still, lagging.

But nevertheless, we have an independent and rigorous means of exposing that and once you expose the problem, then, of course, you can begin to address it. 

NB:  Do you think 10 years on, there are areas now where you think well, that could be tightened up or this could be improved upon. I mean, are there elements of the CCA that could be changed?  

CR: I think in terms of the act itself and the processes, the structures that had been set up to support it, I think they’ve stood the test of the time.

What we see now is the actual action on the ground is not keeping up in many areas. So for example, there are some very good examples of flood protection plans, like the London flood plan.

We know that there are many other areas around the country, which are very poorly prepared for sea level rise, flooding, or the intense rainfall flooding, that we are already experiencing. So there is plenty to do. 

NB: And, do you think when you highlight risks outside of London, in other parts of Britain, do you think these are being acted on right now? 

CR: It’s very patchy. There are some good examples and there are some areas where there is really insufficient knowledge and action. The present administration has definitely not helped.

For example, there had been a long process by which zero carbon home legislation was being prepared. The new administration abandoned that, and when they did so, they also removed the ability of local councils to impose conditions for the development on developers.

These conditions would make sure that the future developments are future and climate-proofed. 

So, a huge opportunity was lost to ensure that the local appropriate action was being taken. And if you talk to local councils now, or boroughs, the austerity and cutbacks have so reduced their staffing, that often you will find that there is nobody responsible for climate change at all.

So, if one has a new report that provides some useful advice there is literally nobody to send it to because there is nobody in the borough administration who is assigned that task. 

NB: Ok, I was curious whether [ministers] might be making a lot of noise but not actually taking a lot of action.

CR: Well we don’t know. Ah, well the cynic in me says, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’, but we have to be…there are good signs because the markets are beginning to have an effect, in two ways. 

Firstly, the green technology, the experience curves, the cost of the solar PV and wind have so plummeted, so much faster than was expected, that they are cost competitive with fossil fuels in many parts of the world, but also in the UK.

So we see the kind of baseload delivery of green energy increasing: I mean, we have been through periods were coal contributed nothing to the UK electricity supply for a couple of days on end. 

But in addition, large investment companies, say pension funds and so on, are increasingly nervous of potential carbon bubbles, and stranded assets.

So you can see, the huge supertanker is a probably a very good metaphor, you can see the nose ineluctably begin to move towards the green and clean future, almost regardless of what the government may do. 

NB: Are there signs you can see that change is happening at the speed we need to see it, to avert the worst of climate impacts?

CR: Well yes we do things are happening but absolutely not at the scale, or pace that is necessary if we are serious about keeping the overall warming to about 2 degrees Centigrade, or less. 

We are currently on a track to 3-3.5ºC maybe even 4ºC at the end of the century. And we may have gone over a threshold where we have committed the Earth to rising sea levels of many metres over hundreds, if not thousands of years. 

So, certainly, the actions that we all collectively take over the next decade or two will determine the trajectory of the planet for thousands of years.

I absolutely do not see the scale and pace that is necessary to achieve our aspirations, which is two degrees of warming maximum and a planet that stabilizes in the next century or so. 

NB: You had a lot of experience, obviously with British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and so on, when we talk about many meters of sea level rise, this is a game-changer for the civilisation, isn’t it?

CR: Yes. British Antarctic Survey and of course all of the polar scientists have many contributions to understanding how the planet works. Antarctica is a big and important piece of the planetary machinery.

It is the air-conditioning system, or the water conditioning system, and at present, it is not the major contributor to the sea level rise that we are measuring now.

That is coming from the thermal expansion of the ocean as it warms and from Greenland and the glaciers on mountains around the world. 

But the paper came out last week that shows that the contribution of Antarctica to rising sea levels rise tripled in the last five years. So, it is beginning to accelerate.

Some years ago, I likened the Antarctic to a slumbering giant, and said, there were signs that it was awakening, and more recently I said, I think it is beginning to stretch its limbs and we should be very nervous about what is happening down there. 

NB:  When you consider a climate timeline of action versus impacts what concerns you the most? 

CR: Well, let’s talk about impacts, what we have seen is that climate change is happening now. This is not some abstract thing that is going to happen, to other people, somewhere else in the future. It is happening right now. 

There is a wonderful book that just came out called The Water Will Come by the journalist called Jeff Goodell which I recommend. And he has done a wonderful job, really investigating Florida and Venice and all of the obvious places that sea-level rises is going to impact. 

And there are people in Miami who are making decisions now, about whether to sell some of their condominiums now, before the prices collapse, or perhaps keep it, and sell it, or rent it to low-income people and finally let it go at the zero value. 

So people are seeing that the climate change is happening around them and they are reacting to it. One of the more controversial aspects of the climate change is that there is evidence that it is driving migration already, and it is migration probably more than anything else, that will be so disruptive in the future. 

Climate refugees from areas that are too hot, where crops fail, from areas that are flooded either through the sea-level flooding or whatever.

Or through the areas that no longer have a water supply because the winter system of snowfall that sits on the top of the mountains and then delivers water in the summer, from the Himalayas or Alps or wherever it is, no longer functions. 

So, very large numbers of people will move. We have seen the destabilising effect that has on Europe. Of course, the migrants we are seeing in Europe are not solely driven, or even largely driven by climate change, although there is a climate change component.

But that threat multiplier is a really serious consequence of climate change, and we are beginning to see it happening and it is only going to get worse, and that could cause very, very unpleasant social consequences. 

NB: In the struggle to communicate the challenges of climate change, what gives you the most strength? 

CR: Well the fact that a large percentage, although not all of the people, are genuinely what you might call communalistic, that is they believe that there is such a thing as society – despite that what we are told – and they are outraged by injustice.

And they are concerned about future of their children and their children’s children and, indeed, other’s people’s children’s children. 

So, what I see is a willingness on the part of people to bond together and act. If only they understood what it is that they can do. So, the strength is that there is a willingness out there. The weakness is, that it is very difficult to offer people agency in a way that it is effective. 

What I say to people is: personal, professional and political. You can organise your own life so that it is a low carbon, you can work within, amongst your colleagues, so assuming you have a job, and often do much more that way.

But the political pressure is where people can really make a difference, keeping that pressure on elected representatives to recognise that this is an issue that needs an action. 

This Author

Nick Breeze is a climate change interviewer and can be followed on Twitter here: @NickGBreeze – He also blogs at Envisionation.co.uk.

Planting season for corn and soybeans across the United States corn belt is drawing to a close. As they plant, farmers are participating in what is likely to be one of the largest deployments of insecticides in United States history.

Almost every field corn seed planted this year in the US – approximately 90 million acres’ worth – will be coated with neonicotinoid insecticides, the most widely used class of insecticides in the world.

The same is true for seeds in about half of US soybeans – roughly 45 million acres and nearly all cotton – about 14 million acres. In total, by my estimate, these insecticides will be used across at least 150 million acres of cropland, an area about the size the Texas.

Yield loss

Neonicotinoids are very good at killing insects. In many cases they require only parts per billion, equivalent to a few drops of insecticide in a swimming pool of water.

In recent years, concerns have been raised about the influence of neonicotinoids on bee populations. As an applied insect ecologist and extension specialist who works with farmers on pest control, I believe the focus on bees has obscured larger concerns.

In my view, US farmers are using these pesticides far more heavily than necessary, with potential negative impacts on ecosystems that are poorly understood.

Neonicotinoid use by crop from 1992 to 2014. The y-axis represents mass of neonicotinoid active ingredient applied in millions of kg. Tooker, Douglas, Krupke, 2017, doi:10.2134/ael2017.08.0026, CC BY-NC-ND

Most neonicotinoids in the United States are used to coat field crop seeds. Their role is to protect against a relatively small suite of secondary insect pests – that is, not the main pests that tend to cause yield loss.

National companies or seed suppliers apply these coatings, so that when farmers buy seed, they just have to plant it.

Limited time

The percentage of corn and soybean acreage planted with neonicotinoid seed coatings has increased dramatically since 2004.

By 2011, over 90 percent of field corn and 40 percent of soybeans planted were treated with a neonicotinoid. Between 2011 and 2014, the area treated crept toward 100 percent for corn and 50 percent for soybeans.

And the mass of neonicotinoids deployed in each crop doubled, indicating that seed suppliers applied about twice as much insecticide per seed. Unfortunately, many farmers are unaware of what is coated on their seeds, while others like the peace of mind that comes from an apparently better protected seed.

Unlike most insecticides, neonicotinoids are water soluble. This means that when a seedling grows from a treated seed, its roots can absorb some of the insecticide that coated the seed.

This can protect the seedling for a limited time from insects. But only a small fraction of the insecticide applied to seeds is actually taken up by seedlings.

For example, corn seedlings only take up about two percent, and it only persists in the plant for two to three weeks. The critical question is where the rest goes.

Clothianidin is a neonicotinoid used almost exclusively as a coating on seed corn. Maps from USGS.

Pervading the environment

Because neonicotinoids are water soluble, the leftover insecticide not taken up by plants can easily wash into nearby waterways. Neonicotinoids from seed coatings are now routinely found polluting streams and rivers around the country.

Here it is likely that they are poisoning and killing off some of the aquatic insects that are vital food sources for fishes, birds and other wildlife.

In the Netherlands, neonicotinoids in surface waters have been associated with widespread declines in insectivorous bird populations – a sign that concentrations of these insecticides are having strong effects on food webs.

Neonicotinoids also can strongly influence pest and predator populations in crop fields. My lab’s research has revealed that use of coated seeds can indirectly reduce crop yield by poisoning insect predators that usually kill slugs, which are important crop pests in mid-Atlantic corn and soybeans fields.

More broadly, planting coated seeds generally decreases populations of insect predators in crop fields by 15 to 20 percent. These predatory insects can eat insect pests, such as black cutworm and armyworm, that can reduce yield. Crop fields with fewer resident predators are more vulnerable to pest infestations.

Slugs, shown here on a soybean plant, are unaffected by neonicotinoids, but can transmit the insecticides to beetles that are important slug predators. Nick Sloff/Penn State University, CC BY-ND

An exaggerated need

Neonicotinoid advocates point to reports – often funded by industry – which argue that these products provide value to field crop agriculture and farmers.

However, these sources typically assume that insecticides of some type are needed on every acre of corn and soybeans. Therefore, their value calculations rest on comparing neonicotinoid seed coatings to the cost of other available insecticides.

History shows that this assumption is clearly faulty. In the decade before neonicotinoid seed coatings entered the market, only about 35 percent of US corn acres and 5 percent of soybean acres were treated with insecticides. In other words, pest populations did not cause economically significant harm very often.

Importantly, the pest complex attacking corn today is more or less the same as it was in the 1990s. This suggests that it is not necessary to treat hundreds of millions of acres of crops with neonicotinoid seed coatings.

Neonicotinoids can harm birds via multiple pathways, sometimes in very small quantities.

From overkill to moderation

Should the United States follow the European Union’s lead and pass a broad ban on neonicotinoids? In my view, action this drastic is not necessary.

Neonicotinoids provide good value in controlling critical pest species, particularly in vegetable and fruit production. However, their use on field crops needs to be reined in.

In the Canadian province of Ontario, growers can only use neonicotinoid seed treatments on 20 percent of their acres. This seems like a good start, but does not accommodate farmers’ needs very well.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM), a control strategy based on using pesticides only when they are economically justified, offers valuable guidelines.

It was introduced in the late 1950s in response to issues stemming from overuse of insecticides, including environmental damage and pest populations that had evolved resistance. Field-crop growers have a good history of using IPM, but current use of neonicotinoids ignores pest risk and conflicts with this approach.

To implement IPM in field crops with neonicotinoids, seed companies need to acknowledge that the current approach is overkill and poses serious environmental hazards.

Extension entomologists will then need to provide growers with unbiased information on strengths and limitations of neonicotinoids, and help farmers identify crop acres that will benefit from their use.

Finally, the agricultural industry needs to eliminate practices that encourage unnecessary use of seed coatings, such as bundling together various seed-based pest management products, and provide more uncoated seeds in their catalogs. These steps could end the ongoing escalation of neonicotinoid use and change the goal from “wherever possible” to “just enough.”

This Author

John F. Tooker is a associate professor of entomology and extension specialist at Pennsylvania State University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

It is now 10 years since the Climate Change Act (CCA) was first brought into law. Professor Chris Rapley CBE was one of the authors of the piece of legislation that served to hold governing ministers to account.

A decade on it is time to ask where it has put the UK in the context of the Paris Agreement and is it still fit for purpose.

Rapley speaks candidly about our preparedness for an ever-rising tide of climate impacts that are already having a disastrous effect on nearly all regions of the world.

Nick Breeze (NB): Can you summarise why the Climate Change Act (CCA) was significant when it was brought into law a decade ago?

Professor Chris Rapley CBE (CR): Ok, CCA was a really innovative piece of legislation and the fundamental core of it was that it makes the secretary of state, whoever they are in the future, in a statutory way, responsible for ensuring that the UK reduces its carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. And indeed, following a trajectory that is dictated by an independent body. 

NB: Would you say that this has been effective in the 10 years it has been enforced? 

CR: Well, up until now, yes. The UK’s carbon emissions are today 40 percent lower then they were in 1990. Partly, there are a whole load of factors that contributed to that.

But at the same time, the economy has grown by 60 percent, so one of the big results is that the myth that you can not decarbonise without damaging the economy has been blown out of the water. It’s clear: you can. 

NB: Where does this place Britain in the context of climate action compared with other countries? 

CR: From the government and the statutory point of view it places the UK well in the lead. It is a very innovative piece of legislation which many other nations are considering following.

Spain among others has been looking at it because it is seen as overcoming the four or five yearly electoral cycle. It commits the nation to a long-term set of action. So, this has been highly beneficial. 

NB: And do you think it stood the test of time? 

CR: Yes, I think it has. The Climate Change Committee which was established as the independent body to lay out the trajectory that the country needs to follow, and the Adaptation Sub-Committee which has been looking at the nation’s preparedness for climate change which is inevitably happening around us, now.

These are both very prestigious bodies. They are regarded – even at a time where experts are suspect – they are regarded as being rigorous and having done a very effective job. 

So, it’s established a process which I think is largely admired. What it reveals though, is that there are many areas where government action or national action is still, lagging.

But nevertheless, we have an independent and rigorous means of exposing that and once you expose the problem, then, of course, you can begin to address it. 

NB:  Do you think 10 years on, there are areas now where you think well, that could be tightened up or this could be improved upon. I mean, are there elements of the CCA that could be changed?  

CR: I think in terms of the act itself and the processes, the structures that had been set up to support it, I think they’ve stood the test of the time.

What we see now is the actual action on the ground is not keeping up in many areas. So for example, there are some very good examples of flood protection plans, like the London flood plan.

We know that there are many other areas around the country, which are very poorly prepared for sea level rise, flooding, or the intense rainfall flooding, that we are already experiencing. So there is plenty to do. 

NB: And, do you think when you highlight risks outside of London, in other parts of Britain, do you think these are being acted on right now? 

CR: It’s very patchy. There are some good examples and there are some areas where there is really insufficient knowledge and action. The present administration has definitely not helped.

For example, there had been a long process by which zero carbon home legislation was being prepared. The new administration abandoned that, and when they did so, they also removed the ability of local councils to impose conditions for the development on developers.

These conditions would make sure that the future developments are future and climate-proofed. 

So, a huge opportunity was lost to ensure that the local appropriate action was being taken. And if you talk to local councils now, or boroughs, the austerity and cutbacks have so reduced their staffing, that often you will find that there is nobody responsible for climate change at all.

So, if one has a new report that provides some useful advice there is literally nobody to send it to because there is nobody in the borough administration who is assigned that task. 

NB: Ok, I was curious whether [ministers] might be making a lot of noise but not actually taking a lot of action.

CR: Well we don’t know. Ah, well the cynic in me says, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’, but we have to be…there are good signs because the markets are beginning to have an effect, in two ways. 

Firstly, the green technology, the experience curves, the cost of the solar PV and wind have so plummeted, so much faster than was expected, that they are cost competitive with fossil fuels in many parts of the world, but also in the UK.

So we see the kind of baseload delivery of green energy increasing: I mean, we have been through periods were coal contributed nothing to the UK electricity supply for a couple of days on end. 

But in addition, large investment companies, say pension funds and so on, are increasingly nervous of potential carbon bubbles, and stranded assets.

So you can see, the huge supertanker is a probably a very good metaphor, you can see the nose ineluctably begin to move towards the green and clean future, almost regardless of what the government may do. 

NB: Are there signs you can see that change is happening at the speed we need to see it, to avert the worst of climate impacts?

CR: Well yes we do things are happening but absolutely not at the scale, or pace that is necessary if we are serious about keeping the overall warming to about 2 degrees Centigrade, or less. 

We are currently on a track to 3-3.5ºC maybe even 4ºC at the end of the century. And we may have gone over a threshold where we have committed the Earth to rising sea levels of many metres over hundreds, if not thousands of years. 

So, certainly, the actions that we all collectively take over the next decade or two will determine the trajectory of the planet for thousands of years.

I absolutely do not see the scale and pace that is necessary to achieve our aspirations, which is two degrees of warming maximum and a planet that stabilizes in the next century or so. 

NB: You had a lot of experience, obviously with British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and so on, when we talk about many meters of sea level rise, this is a game-changer for the civilisation, isn’t it?

CR: Yes. British Antarctic Survey and of course all of the polar scientists have many contributions to understanding how the planet works. Antarctica is a big and important piece of the planetary machinery.

It is the air-conditioning system, or the water conditioning system, and at present, it is not the major contributor to the sea level rise that we are measuring now.

That is coming from the thermal expansion of the ocean as it warms and from Greenland and the glaciers on mountains around the world. 

But the paper came out last week that shows that the contribution of Antarctica to rising sea levels rise tripled in the last five years. So, it is beginning to accelerate.

Some years ago, I likened the Antarctic to a slumbering giant, and said, there were signs that it was awakening, and more recently I said, I think it is beginning to stretch its limbs and we should be very nervous about what is happening down there. 

NB:  When you consider a climate timeline of action versus impacts what concerns you the most? 

CR: Well, let’s talk about impacts, what we have seen is that climate change is happening now. This is not some abstract thing that is going to happen, to other people, somewhere else in the future. It is happening right now. 

There is a wonderful book that just came out called The Water Will Come by the journalist called Jeff Goodell which I recommend. And he has done a wonderful job, really investigating Florida and Venice and all of the obvious places that sea-level rises is going to impact. 

And there are people in Miami who are making decisions now, about whether to sell some of their condominiums now, before the prices collapse, or perhaps keep it, and sell it, or rent it to low-income people and finally let it go at the zero value. 

So people are seeing that the climate change is happening around them and they are reacting to it. One of the more controversial aspects of the climate change is that there is evidence that it is driving migration already, and it is migration probably more than anything else, that will be so disruptive in the future. 

Climate refugees from areas that are too hot, where crops fail, from areas that are flooded either through the sea-level flooding or whatever.

Or through the areas that no longer have a water supply because the winter system of snowfall that sits on the top of the mountains and then delivers water in the summer, from the Himalayas or Alps or wherever it is, no longer functions. 

So, very large numbers of people will move. We have seen the destabilising effect that has on Europe. Of course, the migrants we are seeing in Europe are not solely driven, or even largely driven by climate change, although there is a climate change component.

But that threat multiplier is a really serious consequence of climate change, and we are beginning to see it happening and it is only going to get worse, and that could cause very, very unpleasant social consequences. 

NB: In the struggle to communicate the challenges of climate change, what gives you the most strength? 

CR: Well the fact that a large percentage, although not all of the people, are genuinely what you might call communalistic, that is they believe that there is such a thing as society – despite that what we are told – and they are outraged by injustice.

And they are concerned about future of their children and their children’s children and, indeed, other’s people’s children’s children. 

So, what I see is a willingness on the part of people to bond together and act. If only they understood what it is that they can do. So, the strength is that there is a willingness out there. The weakness is, that it is very difficult to offer people agency in a way that it is effective. 

What I say to people is: personal, professional and political. You can organise your own life so that it is a low carbon, you can work within, amongst your colleagues, so assuming you have a job, and often do much more that way.

But the political pressure is where people can really make a difference, keeping that pressure on elected representatives to recognise that this is an issue that needs an action. 

This Author

Nick Breeze is a climate change interviewer and can be followed on Twitter here: @NickGBreeze – He also blogs at Envisionation.co.uk.

Planting season for corn and soybeans across the United States corn belt is drawing to a close. As they plant, farmers are participating in what is likely to be one of the largest deployments of insecticides in United States history.

Almost every field corn seed planted this year in the US – approximately 90 million acres’ worth – will be coated with neonicotinoid insecticides, the most widely used class of insecticides in the world.

The same is true for seeds in about half of US soybeans – roughly 45 million acres and nearly all cotton – about 14 million acres. In total, by my estimate, these insecticides will be used across at least 150 million acres of cropland, an area about the size the Texas.

Yield loss

Neonicotinoids are very good at killing insects. In many cases they require only parts per billion, equivalent to a few drops of insecticide in a swimming pool of water.

In recent years, concerns have been raised about the influence of neonicotinoids on bee populations. As an applied insect ecologist and extension specialist who works with farmers on pest control, I believe the focus on bees has obscured larger concerns.

In my view, US farmers are using these pesticides far more heavily than necessary, with potential negative impacts on ecosystems that are poorly understood.

Neonicotinoid use by crop from 1992 to 2014. The y-axis represents mass of neonicotinoid active ingredient applied in millions of kg. Tooker, Douglas, Krupke, 2017, doi:10.2134/ael2017.08.0026, CC BY-NC-ND

Most neonicotinoids in the United States are used to coat field crop seeds. Their role is to protect against a relatively small suite of secondary insect pests – that is, not the main pests that tend to cause yield loss.

National companies or seed suppliers apply these coatings, so that when farmers buy seed, they just have to plant it.

Limited time

The percentage of corn and soybean acreage planted with neonicotinoid seed coatings has increased dramatically since 2004.

By 2011, over 90 percent of field corn and 40 percent of soybeans planted were treated with a neonicotinoid. Between 2011 and 2014, the area treated crept toward 100 percent for corn and 50 percent for soybeans.

And the mass of neonicotinoids deployed in each crop doubled, indicating that seed suppliers applied about twice as much insecticide per seed. Unfortunately, many farmers are unaware of what is coated on their seeds, while others like the peace of mind that comes from an apparently better protected seed.

Unlike most insecticides, neonicotinoids are water soluble. This means that when a seedling grows from a treated seed, its roots can absorb some of the insecticide that coated the seed.

This can protect the seedling for a limited time from insects. But only a small fraction of the insecticide applied to seeds is actually taken up by seedlings.

For example, corn seedlings only take up about two percent, and it only persists in the plant for two to three weeks. The critical question is where the rest goes.

Clothianidin is a neonicotinoid used almost exclusively as a coating on seed corn. Maps from USGS.

Pervading the environment

Because neonicotinoids are water soluble, the leftover insecticide not taken up by plants can easily wash into nearby waterways. Neonicotinoids from seed coatings are now routinely found polluting streams and rivers around the country.

Here it is likely that they are poisoning and killing off some of the aquatic insects that are vital food sources for fishes, birds and other wildlife.

In the Netherlands, neonicotinoids in surface waters have been associated with widespread declines in insectivorous bird populations – a sign that concentrations of these insecticides are having strong effects on food webs.

Neonicotinoids also can strongly influence pest and predator populations in crop fields. My lab’s research has revealed that use of coated seeds can indirectly reduce crop yield by poisoning insect predators that usually kill slugs, which are important crop pests in mid-Atlantic corn and soybeans fields.

More broadly, planting coated seeds generally decreases populations of insect predators in crop fields by 15 to 20 percent. These predatory insects can eat insect pests, such as black cutworm and armyworm, that can reduce yield. Crop fields with fewer resident predators are more vulnerable to pest infestations.

Slugs, shown here on a soybean plant, are unaffected by neonicotinoids, but can transmit the insecticides to beetles that are important slug predators. Nick Sloff/Penn State University, CC BY-ND

An exaggerated need

Neonicotinoid advocates point to reports – often funded by industry – which argue that these products provide value to field crop agriculture and farmers.

However, these sources typically assume that insecticides of some type are needed on every acre of corn and soybeans. Therefore, their value calculations rest on comparing neonicotinoid seed coatings to the cost of other available insecticides.

History shows that this assumption is clearly faulty. In the decade before neonicotinoid seed coatings entered the market, only about 35 percent of US corn acres and 5 percent of soybean acres were treated with insecticides. In other words, pest populations did not cause economically significant harm very often.

Importantly, the pest complex attacking corn today is more or less the same as it was in the 1990s. This suggests that it is not necessary to treat hundreds of millions of acres of crops with neonicotinoid seed coatings.

Neonicotinoids can harm birds via multiple pathways, sometimes in very small quantities.

From overkill to moderation

Should the United States follow the European Union’s lead and pass a broad ban on neonicotinoids? In my view, action this drastic is not necessary.

Neonicotinoids provide good value in controlling critical pest species, particularly in vegetable and fruit production. However, their use on field crops needs to be reined in.

In the Canadian province of Ontario, growers can only use neonicotinoid seed treatments on 20 percent of their acres. This seems like a good start, but does not accommodate farmers’ needs very well.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM), a control strategy based on using pesticides only when they are economically justified, offers valuable guidelines.

It was introduced in the late 1950s in response to issues stemming from overuse of insecticides, including environmental damage and pest populations that had evolved resistance. Field-crop growers have a good history of using IPM, but current use of neonicotinoids ignores pest risk and conflicts with this approach.

To implement IPM in field crops with neonicotinoids, seed companies need to acknowledge that the current approach is overkill and poses serious environmental hazards.

Extension entomologists will then need to provide growers with unbiased information on strengths and limitations of neonicotinoids, and help farmers identify crop acres that will benefit from their use.

Finally, the agricultural industry needs to eliminate practices that encourage unnecessary use of seed coatings, such as bundling together various seed-based pest management products, and provide more uncoated seeds in their catalogs. These steps could end the ongoing escalation of neonicotinoid use and change the goal from “wherever possible” to “just enough.”

This Author

John F. Tooker is a associate professor of entomology and extension specialist at Pennsylvania State University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

It is now 10 years since the Climate Change Act (CCA) was first brought into law. Professor Chris Rapley CBE was one of the authors of the piece of legislation that served to hold governing ministers to account.

A decade on it is time to ask where it has put the UK in the context of the Paris Agreement and is it still fit for purpose.

Rapley speaks candidly about our preparedness for an ever-rising tide of climate impacts that are already having a disastrous effect on nearly all regions of the world.

Nick Breeze (NB): Can you summarise why the Climate Change Act (CCA) was significant when it was brought into law a decade ago?

Professor Chris Rapley CBE (CR): Ok, CCA was a really innovative piece of legislation and the fundamental core of it was that it makes the secretary of state, whoever they are in the future, in a statutory way, responsible for ensuring that the UK reduces its carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. And indeed, following a trajectory that is dictated by an independent body. 

NB: Would you say that this has been effective in the 10 years it has been enforced? 

CR: Well, up until now, yes. The UK’s carbon emissions are today 40 percent lower then they were in 1990. Partly, there are a whole load of factors that contributed to that.

But at the same time, the economy has grown by 60 percent, so one of the big results is that the myth that you can not decarbonise without damaging the economy has been blown out of the water. It’s clear: you can. 

NB: Where does this place Britain in the context of climate action compared with other countries? 

CR: From the government and the statutory point of view it places the UK well in the lead. It is a very innovative piece of legislation which many other nations are considering following.

Spain among others has been looking at it because it is seen as overcoming the four or five yearly electoral cycle. It commits the nation to a long-term set of action. So, this has been highly beneficial. 

NB: And do you think it stood the test of time? 

CR: Yes, I think it has. The Climate Change Committee which was established as the independent body to lay out the trajectory that the country needs to follow, and the Adaptation Sub-Committee which has been looking at the nation’s preparedness for climate change which is inevitably happening around us, now.

These are both very prestigious bodies. They are regarded – even at a time where experts are suspect – they are regarded as being rigorous and having done a very effective job. 

So, it’s established a process which I think is largely admired. What it reveals though, is that there are many areas where government action or national action is still, lagging.

But nevertheless, we have an independent and rigorous means of exposing that and once you expose the problem, then, of course, you can begin to address it. 

NB:  Do you think 10 years on, there are areas now where you think well, that could be tightened up or this could be improved upon. I mean, are there elements of the CCA that could be changed?  

CR: I think in terms of the act itself and the processes, the structures that had been set up to support it, I think they’ve stood the test of the time.

What we see now is the actual action on the ground is not keeping up in many areas. So for example, there are some very good examples of flood protection plans, like the London flood plan.

We know that there are many other areas around the country, which are very poorly prepared for sea level rise, flooding, or the intense rainfall flooding, that we are already experiencing. So there is plenty to do. 

NB: And, do you think when you highlight risks outside of London, in other parts of Britain, do you think these are being acted on right now? 

CR: It’s very patchy. There are some good examples and there are some areas where there is really insufficient knowledge and action. The present administration has definitely not helped.

For example, there had been a long process by which zero carbon home legislation was being prepared. The new administration abandoned that, and when they did so, they also removed the ability of local councils to impose conditions for the development on developers.

These conditions would make sure that the future developments are future and climate-proofed. 

So, a huge opportunity was lost to ensure that the local appropriate action was being taken. And if you talk to local councils now, or boroughs, the austerity and cutbacks have so reduced their staffing, that often you will find that there is nobody responsible for climate change at all.

So, if one has a new report that provides some useful advice there is literally nobody to send it to because there is nobody in the borough administration who is assigned that task. 

NB: Ok, I was curious whether [ministers] might be making a lot of noise but not actually taking a lot of action.

CR: Well we don’t know. Ah, well the cynic in me says, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’, but we have to be…there are good signs because the markets are beginning to have an effect, in two ways. 

Firstly, the green technology, the experience curves, the cost of the solar PV and wind have so plummeted, so much faster than was expected, that they are cost competitive with fossil fuels in many parts of the world, but also in the UK.

So we see the kind of baseload delivery of green energy increasing: I mean, we have been through periods were coal contributed nothing to the UK electricity supply for a couple of days on end. 

But in addition, large investment companies, say pension funds and so on, are increasingly nervous of potential carbon bubbles, and stranded assets.

So you can see, the huge supertanker is a probably a very good metaphor, you can see the nose ineluctably begin to move towards the green and clean future, almost regardless of what the government may do. 

NB: Are there signs you can see that change is happening at the speed we need to see it, to avert the worst of climate impacts?

CR: Well yes we do things are happening but absolutely not at the scale, or pace that is necessary if we are serious about keeping the overall warming to about 2 degrees Centigrade, or less. 

We are currently on a track to 3-3.5ºC maybe even 4ºC at the end of the century. And we may have gone over a threshold where we have committed the Earth to rising sea levels of many metres over hundreds, if not thousands of years. 

So, certainly, the actions that we all collectively take over the next decade or two will determine the trajectory of the planet for thousands of years.

I absolutely do not see the scale and pace that is necessary to achieve our aspirations, which is two degrees of warming maximum and a planet that stabilizes in the next century or so. 

NB: You had a lot of experience, obviously with British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and so on, when we talk about many meters of sea level rise, this is a game-changer for the civilisation, isn’t it?

CR: Yes. British Antarctic Survey and of course all of the polar scientists have many contributions to understanding how the planet works. Antarctica is a big and important piece of the planetary machinery.

It is the air-conditioning system, or the water conditioning system, and at present, it is not the major contributor to the sea level rise that we are measuring now.

That is coming from the thermal expansion of the ocean as it warms and from Greenland and the glaciers on mountains around the world. 

But the paper came out last week that shows that the contribution of Antarctica to rising sea levels rise tripled in the last five years. So, it is beginning to accelerate.

Some years ago, I likened the Antarctic to a slumbering giant, and said, there were signs that it was awakening, and more recently I said, I think it is beginning to stretch its limbs and we should be very nervous about what is happening down there. 

NB:  When you consider a climate timeline of action versus impacts what concerns you the most? 

CR: Well, let’s talk about impacts, what we have seen is that climate change is happening now. This is not some abstract thing that is going to happen, to other people, somewhere else in the future. It is happening right now. 

There is a wonderful book that just came out called The Water Will Come by the journalist called Jeff Goodell which I recommend. And he has done a wonderful job, really investigating Florida and Venice and all of the obvious places that sea-level rises is going to impact. 

And there are people in Miami who are making decisions now, about whether to sell some of their condominiums now, before the prices collapse, or perhaps keep it, and sell it, or rent it to low-income people and finally let it go at the zero value. 

So people are seeing that the climate change is happening around them and they are reacting to it. One of the more controversial aspects of the climate change is that there is evidence that it is driving migration already, and it is migration probably more than anything else, that will be so disruptive in the future. 

Climate refugees from areas that are too hot, where crops fail, from areas that are flooded either through the sea-level flooding or whatever.

Or through the areas that no longer have a water supply because the winter system of snowfall that sits on the top of the mountains and then delivers water in the summer, from the Himalayas or Alps or wherever it is, no longer functions. 

So, very large numbers of people will move. We have seen the destabilising effect that has on Europe. Of course, the migrants we are seeing in Europe are not solely driven, or even largely driven by climate change, although there is a climate change component.

But that threat multiplier is a really serious consequence of climate change, and we are beginning to see it happening and it is only going to get worse, and that could cause very, very unpleasant social consequences. 

NB: In the struggle to communicate the challenges of climate change, what gives you the most strength? 

CR: Well the fact that a large percentage, although not all of the people, are genuinely what you might call communalistic, that is they believe that there is such a thing as society – despite that what we are told – and they are outraged by injustice.

And they are concerned about future of their children and their children’s children and, indeed, other’s people’s children’s children. 

So, what I see is a willingness on the part of people to bond together and act. If only they understood what it is that they can do. So, the strength is that there is a willingness out there. The weakness is, that it is very difficult to offer people agency in a way that it is effective. 

What I say to people is: personal, professional and political. You can organise your own life so that it is a low carbon, you can work within, amongst your colleagues, so assuming you have a job, and often do much more that way.

But the political pressure is where people can really make a difference, keeping that pressure on elected representatives to recognise that this is an issue that needs an action. 

This Author

Nick Breeze is a climate change interviewer and can be followed on Twitter here: @NickGBreeze – He also blogs at Envisionation.co.uk.

Planting season for corn and soybeans across the United States corn belt is drawing to a close. As they plant, farmers are participating in what is likely to be one of the largest deployments of insecticides in United States history.

Almost every field corn seed planted this year in the US – approximately 90 million acres’ worth – will be coated with neonicotinoid insecticides, the most widely used class of insecticides in the world.

The same is true for seeds in about half of US soybeans – roughly 45 million acres and nearly all cotton – about 14 million acres. In total, by my estimate, these insecticides will be used across at least 150 million acres of cropland, an area about the size the Texas.

Yield loss

Neonicotinoids are very good at killing insects. In many cases they require only parts per billion, equivalent to a few drops of insecticide in a swimming pool of water.

In recent years, concerns have been raised about the influence of neonicotinoids on bee populations. As an applied insect ecologist and extension specialist who works with farmers on pest control, I believe the focus on bees has obscured larger concerns.

In my view, US farmers are using these pesticides far more heavily than necessary, with potential negative impacts on ecosystems that are poorly understood.

Neonicotinoid use by crop from 1992 to 2014. The y-axis represents mass of neonicotinoid active ingredient applied in millions of kg. Tooker, Douglas, Krupke, 2017, doi:10.2134/ael2017.08.0026, CC BY-NC-ND

Most neonicotinoids in the United States are used to coat field crop seeds. Their role is to protect against a relatively small suite of secondary insect pests – that is, not the main pests that tend to cause yield loss.

National companies or seed suppliers apply these coatings, so that when farmers buy seed, they just have to plant it.

Limited time

The percentage of corn and soybean acreage planted with neonicotinoid seed coatings has increased dramatically since 2004.

By 2011, over 90 percent of field corn and 40 percent of soybeans planted were treated with a neonicotinoid. Between 2011 and 2014, the area treated crept toward 100 percent for corn and 50 percent for soybeans.

And the mass of neonicotinoids deployed in each crop doubled, indicating that seed suppliers applied about twice as much insecticide per seed. Unfortunately, many farmers are unaware of what is coated on their seeds, while others like the peace of mind that comes from an apparently better protected seed.

Unlike most insecticides, neonicotinoids are water soluble. This means that when a seedling grows from a treated seed, its roots can absorb some of the insecticide that coated the seed.

This can protect the seedling for a limited time from insects. But only a small fraction of the insecticide applied to seeds is actually taken up by seedlings.

For example, corn seedlings only take up about two percent, and it only persists in the plant for two to three weeks. The critical question is where the rest goes.

Clothianidin is a neonicotinoid used almost exclusively as a coating on seed corn. Maps from USGS.

Pervading the environment

Because neonicotinoids are water soluble, the leftover insecticide not taken up by plants can easily wash into nearby waterways. Neonicotinoids from seed coatings are now routinely found polluting streams and rivers around the country.

Here it is likely that they are poisoning and killing off some of the aquatic insects that are vital food sources for fishes, birds and other wildlife.

In the Netherlands, neonicotinoids in surface waters have been associated with widespread declines in insectivorous bird populations – a sign that concentrations of these insecticides are having strong effects on food webs.

Neonicotinoids also can strongly influence pest and predator populations in crop fields. My lab’s research has revealed that use of coated seeds can indirectly reduce crop yield by poisoning insect predators that usually kill slugs, which are important crop pests in mid-Atlantic corn and soybeans fields.

More broadly, planting coated seeds generally decreases populations of insect predators in crop fields by 15 to 20 percent. These predatory insects can eat insect pests, such as black cutworm and armyworm, that can reduce yield. Crop fields with fewer resident predators are more vulnerable to pest infestations.

Slugs, shown here on a soybean plant, are unaffected by neonicotinoids, but can transmit the insecticides to beetles that are important slug predators. Nick Sloff/Penn State University, CC BY-ND

An exaggerated need

Neonicotinoid advocates point to reports – often funded by industry – which argue that these products provide value to field crop agriculture and farmers.

However, these sources typically assume that insecticides of some type are needed on every acre of corn and soybeans. Therefore, their value calculations rest on comparing neonicotinoid seed coatings to the cost of other available insecticides.

History shows that this assumption is clearly faulty. In the decade before neonicotinoid seed coatings entered the market, only about 35 percent of US corn acres and 5 percent of soybean acres were treated with insecticides. In other words, pest populations did not cause economically significant harm very often.

Importantly, the pest complex attacking corn today is more or less the same as it was in the 1990s. This suggests that it is not necessary to treat hundreds of millions of acres of crops with neonicotinoid seed coatings.

Neonicotinoids can harm birds via multiple pathways, sometimes in very small quantities.

From overkill to moderation

Should the United States follow the European Union’s lead and pass a broad ban on neonicotinoids? In my view, action this drastic is not necessary.

Neonicotinoids provide good value in controlling critical pest species, particularly in vegetable and fruit production. However, their use on field crops needs to be reined in.

In the Canadian province of Ontario, growers can only use neonicotinoid seed treatments on 20 percent of their acres. This seems like a good start, but does not accommodate farmers’ needs very well.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM), a control strategy based on using pesticides only when they are economically justified, offers valuable guidelines.

It was introduced in the late 1950s in response to issues stemming from overuse of insecticides, including environmental damage and pest populations that had evolved resistance. Field-crop growers have a good history of using IPM, but current use of neonicotinoids ignores pest risk and conflicts with this approach.

To implement IPM in field crops with neonicotinoids, seed companies need to acknowledge that the current approach is overkill and poses serious environmental hazards.

Extension entomologists will then need to provide growers with unbiased information on strengths and limitations of neonicotinoids, and help farmers identify crop acres that will benefit from their use.

Finally, the agricultural industry needs to eliminate practices that encourage unnecessary use of seed coatings, such as bundling together various seed-based pest management products, and provide more uncoated seeds in their catalogs. These steps could end the ongoing escalation of neonicotinoid use and change the goal from “wherever possible” to “just enough.”

This Author

John F. Tooker is a associate professor of entomology and extension specialist at Pennsylvania State University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Even if we could meet the 1.5°C Paris Agreement target, the climate changes already in effect are irreversible. Various initiatives are asking governments and non-state actors to accelerate their climate actions to meet the Paris Agreement objectives and Sustainable Development Goals targets.

Acceleration in this context means to expediate climate change adaptation and mitigation measures, but the fundamental question is: how is this to be accomplished?

There are many historic approaches to combating climate change; some focus on calculating sustainability, and more recently there is a fascination with big data.

Process-based approaches

These approaches fill the gap in individual sectorial approaches to sustainability – such as the energy and transport sectors. However, outside these more modern, quantitative means of calculating sustainability there are ancient technologies derived from traditional knowledge systems.   

It is hard to quantify a holistic approach to eco-systems of a desert oasis for example; where food production of dates co-enables production of vegetables and fruits, which is also linked to sustainable ground water management by the community.

The oases prevent land degradation and desertification, produce microclimate for the nearby cities and are enablers of economic transitions.

These interdependences co-existed through millennia on the Sahara Desert and in the Arabian Peninsula: sadly some of these practices are no longer in use due to the forces of globalisation. 

In this case, process-based approaches to acceleration of climate change adaptation and mitigation might be the right, if not the only, remaining answer.

Vernacular architecture

Approaches to accelerate in this context may need to take a different form to what we know. Traditional knowledge systems have been acknowledged in all three Climate Change Conventions since 1992 (prior to the Paris Agreement. 

Yet, until today we have not been able to define their importance or commercialise them globally in terms of job creation opportunities, especially in the most vulnerable climate zones such as deserts and tropics that are also affected by poverty.

We have been studying traditional knowledge systems for millennia and historically this knowledge has been passed on from one generation to the next through families.

Today, this knowledge transfer is mostly passed on through more formal education and is in the hands of the state. Higher education research institutes have their own individual expertise too, critical for delivery of technology transfer.

From time to time studies such as HABITAT: Vernacular Architecture for a Changing Planet – the first global review of vernacular architecture carried out by over one hundred and forty contributors over the last twenty years – make an impact on innovative and global outlook on “filling the gaps” opportunity.

Traditional knowledge

Endorsed by several United Nations entities, the HABITAT multidisciplinary team includes architects, engineers, anthropologists, botanists, ethnobotanists, geologists, geographers, archaeologists, film makers and United Nations officials.

It has taken the HABITAT team over five years to deliver their assessment, looking also at cross-sectorial approaches to adaption with experts studying the subject for over twenty years or more.

Collectively we offer over approximately 2,860 years of experience in traditional knowledge systems and cross-sectoral approaches to adaption.

Ownership of acceleration

The big question is what next? How to turn this knowledge into policy making strategies at the regional level and in markets, where technology transfer can deliver transformative sustainable transition using local skills and local materials and be owned by the people of the land to build local resilience.

There must be a clarity which UN organisations own delivery of acceleration for developing countries in the context of “filling the gaps” strategies. What else can we do over and above what has been done already to build on the tremendous achievements and success stories to date?

It is not clear at the moment, and it is hoped that Talanoa Dialogue UNFCCC initiative leading to COP24 in Katowice and the forthcoming High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development Goals due to take place in New York in July 2018 will provide some answers.

Financing acceleration

Defining acceleration opportunities at the global scale requires funding for high level research and the preparatory stages. There needs to be clearly defined funding mechanisms for these high-level ‘filling the gaps’ assessments to be carried out in an innovative way with the participation of Technical Experts and people that have a specialist knowledge on the subject.

Embracing catalysts

There are several inspiring climate change high level champions that stay faithful to their mission to combat various aspects of climate change.

There are also scientists, researchers and people with a passion for sustainability are not necessarily driven by commercial gains. Embracing them as a catalyst for acceleration alongside other non-state actors with a definitive role in the acceleration process might be a good thing.

It means that there is no need to start from scratch at the fundamental definitions level – rather to capitalise on decades of research already done on the subject to take it up to the implementation level.

These ‘Acceleration Catalysts’ also have a capacity to communicate strategies both to the climate change movement as well as indigenous people. Time is a gift.

This Author

Dr Sandra Piesik is an architect and a researcher specialising in technology development and transfer. She is the founder of Habitat Coalition and a director of 3 ideas Ltd, leading several pilot projects endorsed by UNCCD and UNFCCC. She is also the author of Arish: Palm-Leaf Architecture, published by Thames & Hudson. She is the editor of HABITAT: Vernacular Architecture for a Changing Planet which is published by Thames & Hudson.