"Global warming is essentially forever." states David Archer in a nice blog post at fast company about the long-term effects of our current carbon emissions to the atmosphere.  Yet more evidence that the Anthropocene is here to stay.  Reminds me of one of my first blog posts - Is managing ... [More]

When did rice change the planet?  Rice is the most important food crop on earth, feeding more than half of all humans.  Most is produced in Asia in the flooded paddy systems that form the core of the most intensively-managed of all ancient agricultural anthromes, the rice villages, where i... [More]

If you still think of rural China as remote, traditional, and unchanged for millennia, think again.  China’s ancient village landscapes are among the most dynamic and densely populated on Earth, with a global extent more than twice that all of Earth’s cities combined (2.5 million km... [More]

With carbon, climate and COP 15 in the news, Google and Microsoft are now battling over carbon mindshare, introducing the latest web-based “Carbonware” designed to help combat carbon emissions and global warming.  These add to a growing list that includes the many “carbon foot... [More]

"How do we feed a growing world without destroying the planet?" asks Jon Foley’s new 3 minute video (see below).   It’s a great question.  To get enough food for our existing billions, we already use about 40% of Earth’s ice-free land to produce crops and livestock.&nbs...; [More]

Our planet is heating up in a hurry!  Call in the Earth doctors!  Let’s fix the planet!   Now that we’ve pushed Earth systems out of the comfort zone, Earth and environmental scientists are increasingly being called on to address the big questions that affect all of us, ... [More]

Do not ask for whom China’s carbon burns, it burns for you!  A new article in press at Energy Policy by Lin and Sun assesses the extent of carbon emitted to the atmosphere in China because of exports produced for consumption by other nations.  While the exact contributions by exports... [More]

Are humans pushing earth systems towards environmental catastrophe?  Or are we just worrying needlessly about the novel state of the earth that we have now created?  Or both? In a Nature Feature entitled “A safe operating space for humanity” a team of scientists affiliated wit... [More]