climate change

Livestock are blamed as a significant contributor to global warming because they emit methane, a greenhouse gas, while digesting their feed rations. An international team of scientists has identified a compound that can be added to feed that reduces methane emissions by up to 30 percent.

Government scientists in India "are working hard to reduce carbon emissions by making cows less flatulant," says the New York Times. The second-most populous country in the world is home to 280 million head of cattle and 200 million other ruminants, such as sheep, goats, yaks and buffaloes, together emitting 13 tons of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, daily. "So reducing animal flatulence might actually do some good -- especially in India, where there is little chance of cutting back the use of fossil fuels anytime soon," says the Times.

“Snowpack levels in the West are melting faster than climate hydrologists have seen in nearly four decades, bringing the snowpack far below normal in most states in the West,” says High Country News.

“Once seeds are secured in gene banks, it is a never-ending — and expensive— job to keep them viable,” writes Virginia Gewin at Yale Environment 360.

Forget the rumors: quinoa’s international popularity hasn’t made the Peruvian grain too expensive for Peruvians, says NPR.

Rising water temperatures in the world's oceans can expand the range of marine diseases into new regions, says researcher Charlotte Eve Davies at The Conservation website.

The United States and Cuba, adversaries since the 1960s, agreed to cooperate in improving food production and conserving natural resources as part of President Obama's visit to Havana.

Researchers say the biosphere, which includes the plants, animals and organisms on land around the world, has become a "net source" of greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, reports the Washington Post, citing a study in the journal Nature.

Algae blooms are poisoning marine life farther north than they ever have, says a new study by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

A meta study of two key food producing regions in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa concluded that conservation agriculture has minimal impact on carbon sequestration, meaning it won't have much impact on mitigating climate change.

In the U.S., Native Americans will be some of the hardest hit by climate change, says The Smithsonian, and water—or a lack of it—will be at the heart of their struggle.

Traditional studies may be underestimating the impact of climate change on agriculture, because they don’t take into account “farmers’ reactions to climate shocks,” says a new study in Nature Climate Change.

A comparatively mild winter has meant an early start to the maple syrup season in the U.S. Northeast.

While organic agriculture yields less than conventional farming systems, it surpasses on a wide spectrum of sustainability benefits, a review study published in Nature Plants found.

In the northeast United States, scallops, eastern oysters, the quahog clam and Atlantic salmon will be the most vulnerable to changing ocean conditions associated with climate change, a federal study says.

New data from NASA satellites show that the wettest regions of the world are getting wetter, while drier regions are getting drier, reports The Desert Sun.

A poll of Michigan residents suggests there would be high public support for government assistance to help farmers adapt to climate change, according to three researchers from Michigan State U.

In FERN’s latest story, published with Switchyard Magazine, reporter Robert Kunzig takes us to the upper Mississippi River Delta, where the idea of growing more fruits and vegetables — to ease the burden on California in the climate-change era — is taking root.