Jan. 11 EPN event will feature climatologist Lonnie Thompson

JImage of Lonnie Thompsonan. 11’s Environmental Professionals Network breakfast program has a big title for a big topic — in fact, for four very closely related topics.

It’s called “Global Warming. You and Me. Energy Audits. Money in Your Pocket. Cleaner Air. More Comfortable Home. Help Is Available. Don’t Procrastinate.”

And it features talks by four Ohio experts — led by Lonnie Thompson, Distinguished University Professor in Ohio State’s School of Earth Sciences and senior research scientist with the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center (pictured) — on a theme of climate and energy. Read more …

Can carbon farming save us?

CFAES scientist Rattan Lal was quoted last week in a story on carbon farming (aka carbon sequestration) called “Soil Matters” in Comstock’s magazine. The question: Can carbon farming really save us?

“It won’t be easy,” Lal says. “First of all we must stop adding carbon to the atmosphere. We must end fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, but it’s not happening yet.”

A world expert on carbon sequestration, Lal is a Distinguished University Professor in CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources.

Comstock’s covers the region around California’s capital, Sacramento. Read the story.

Wooster Science Café is tonight : ‘Reducing our carbon footprint’

The next Wooster Science Café is tonight. CFAES scientist Fred Michel will present “Reducing Our Carbon Footprint.” It’s at 7 p.m. at Muddy’s Restaurant, 335 E. Liberty St., in Wooster. Admission is free. Michel works for CFAES’s research arm, OARDC in Wooster, where he studies composting and bioenergy. He’s also president of the Wayne County Sustainable Energy Network. He spoke on the solar panels on his own home and car at last week’s Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair.

Forests across U.S. face drought threat: Study

Image of green forest 2Almost all of America’s forests, not just those in the West, are vulnerable to increased drought and climate change, according to a study that appeared last month in the journal Global Change Biology. The new study “brings together many different perspectives on drought impact in forests,” says CFAES’s Stephen Matthews, one of the co-authors, “and it is through this effort that the great reach drought can have on forests is clear.” Read more. (Photo: Ookawaphoto, iStock.)

NASA says February 2016 was warmest February ever

“February Smashes Earth’s All-Time Global Heat Record by a Jaw-Dropping Margin” says the headline of a post on yesterday’s WunderBlog, a WeatherUnderground blog. The post is based on an analysis that NASA released on Saturday. Read the post here. There’s coverage today, too, by The Weather Channel, The Telegraph (UK) and The Guardian (UK).

Got an organic farm? Here’s what to do about climate change risk

Photo of sun over farmeOrganic’s free organic farming webinar series continues at 2 p.m. today with “New Times, New Tools: Cultivating Climate Resilience on Your Organic Farm.” The speaker is Laura Lengnick, author of Resilient Agriculture: Cultivating Food Systems for a Changing Climate. Lengnick led the sustainable agriculture program at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina, for more than 10 years. Today, her company, Cultivating Resilience, offers ecosystem-based climate resilience planning services. Learn more here. Sign up here. Check out the rest of the schedule. (Photo: Sportactive from iStock.)

‘Soil restoration is our ally’ in fight against climate change

“As the climate talks in Paris draw to a close, climate activists have taken note: Soil restoration is our ally in the fight against global warming.” So wrote Seth Itzkan and Karl Thidemann, co-founders of an effort called Soil4Climate, in “Dispatch From COP21: The Convenient Truth About Soil,” a Dec. 11 essay on a web page by WBUR, Boston’s NPR station. Read it here. CFAES scientist Rattan Lal, a world expert on soil restoration, carbon sequestration and climate change, is mentioned in the essay. He explains what carbon sequestration is in a video featured in a post last week.

‘Everything should be on the table’

“We should make agriculture part of the solution to our issues,” said CFAES’s Rattan Lal in a recent article in Discovery News. “The climate change problem is so huge everything should be on the table.” Lal is a Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science in the School of Environment and Natural Resources. The article looked at whether so-called “resurrection plants” can help farming adapt to climate change and drought.

Ohio State signs climate action pledge

Ohio State is one of six schools in Ohio and one of more than 200 in the U.S. to sign the American Campuses Act on Climate Pledge. Signing the pledge demonstrates the schools’ support for strong climate action by world leaders at the upcoming UN climate change conference in Paris, according to a White House press release.

“The institutions signing (the) pledge,” the press release said, “are also already taking significant action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase campus sustainability and resilience, and incorporate environmental action into academic curriculum.”

Ohio’s other signers are Cleveland State University, Cuyahoga Community College, Denison University, Kent State University and Oberlin College.