What some may consider a pie-in-the-sky scenario is becoming closer to reality, as the Department of Environmental Protection develops a zero waste policy goal for the future.
With skyrocketing solid waste disposal costs and the toxic emissions from landfills and trash incinerators contributing to climate change, the concept of zero waste is being embraced as a realistic, common-sense solution to a number environmental and social ills.

Lynne Pledger, of Clean Water Action and Don't Waste Massachusetts

While it may not be possible to completely eliminate all waste, Lynne Pledger, the solid waste director of Clean Water Action, outlined the steps for getting closer.

“Zero waste is like the North Star. You don’t have to get there, just use it as a guide,” Ms. Pledger said in a forum organized by the Falmouth Climate Action Team, the Falmouth Solid Waste Advisory Committee, and the Cape and Islands chapter of the Sierra Club.

Not only does waste represent inefficiency in society, it is a major contributor to climate change, emitting potent greenhouse gases (methane and CO2) and toxins from landfills and incinerators, Ms. Pledger said.

Throwing things away instead of reusing them also means more natural resources are consumed, destroying ecosystems and habitats in the process.

For example, the bauxite needed to produce aluminum cans has ravaged parts of Jamaica, Iceland, Guinea, Australia, and India— a process that also requires 20 times the amount of energy as recycling aluminum.

The 3 R’s

The mantra of the waste disposal hierarchy—reduce, reuse, recycle—rings true in achieving zero waste, said Ms. Pledger.

By reusing shopping bags to composting, people are already taking steps to reduce their household garbage.

But in order to get to zero waste  municipalities and manufacturers will also have to step up their efforts.

The DEP’s Pathway to Zero Waste solid waste master plan for 2010-2020:

According to the DEP,  recycling, reuse, and remanufacturing:

To cut the state’s garbage in half, commercial-scale composting facilities or anaerobic digesters will be needed in every region to handle food scraps from residences and businesses, Ms. Pledger said.

In the 125 municipalities nationwide that offer curbside composting along with recycling and trash disposal, she said trash collection has decreased to twice a month, offsetting costs.

A pay-as-you-throw program for curbside trash collection has also proven to reduce solid waste tonnage, Ms. Pledger added.

Setting a nationwide example, San Francisco instituted a mandatory recycling and composting program last year, a huge gain in achieving its goal of zero waste by 2020.

Boston and San Francisco are similar in size and demographics, Ms. Pledger pointed out, but currently San Francisco diverts 75 percent of its solid waste, while Boston diverts only 13 percent.

“The difference is political will,” she said.

Think globally, act locally

Taking steps toward zero waste represents an opportunity for Falmouth to increase “green tourism” while also saving money and protecting the environment, Ms. Pledger said.

Local boards of health have the authority to determine what can be handled at a transfer station, she said— meaning that the board could decide to ban recyclable goods and organic materials from the Upper Cape Regional Transfer Station.

Falmouth DPW Director Ray Jack has gone on the record in support of regionalizing solid waste services, another of the DEP’s solid waste guidelines. He has also expressed support for mandatory recycling program and a materials reclamation center on Cape Cod.
As the Cape’s contracts with the SEMASS waste-to-energy incinerator near expiration (2015 in Falmouth) and the Bourne landfill, well, fills, this forward-thinking step could reduce our solid waste disposal costs significantly—meanwhile creating a market for used (but still perfectly useful) construction and art materials.
A reclamation facility similar to Urban Ore in San Francisco would create a market for builders who want cheaper or more unique building materials, and could also be expanded to take in household goods, clothing, and other useful materials, similar to the Falmouth Waste Management Facility’s popular Swap Shop.

The EPR model

-Product Policy Institute

EPR is just one way of incorporating societal costs into consumer products.

They came to learn advanced satellite imaging techniques, and left at the end of September with maps that will help their countries manage their forests and take part in a potential global carbon credit trading system.

The pan-(bio)mass challenge

The WHRC is leading an effort to create the first pan-tropical biomass map that will demonstrate the future effects of deforestation and land use change across the globe. This information is key in developing the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) policy initiative being negotiated under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Mukund Srivastava (left), of the Indian Forest Survey, works with Tina Courmier of the Woods Hole Research Center and Abel Siample of the Zambia Forestry Department, to develop a map that shows the land use and carbon-sequestration capacity of India.

Under the REDD system, countries like the United States that emit a large amount of greenhouse gas could purchase carbon credits from countries like Gabon that have a lot of forest, but need cash to continue to protect it.

The system is also designed to encourage countries like Kenya to build up its forests, reversing the trend of deforestation that threatens to increase not only global carbon emissions, but also the ability of its citizens to grow food and find safe drinking water.

Using the maps, governments and tropical forest stakeholders will be able to monitor and track changes to land cover, helping inform policy decisions, said Joseph Kellndorfer, a WHRC scientist co-leading the pan-tropical mapping effort.

Tropical deforestation is estimated to be the cause of about 17 percent of man-made global carbon emissions, which makes it an easy target for combating climate change, said Dr. Kellndorfer.

“These maps give us a first estimate of what we’re talking about trading,” he said.

As the scholars taking part in the workshop indicated, deforestation is caused by a variety of factors. While logging is an obvious source, agricultural expansion—exacerbated by population pressures and a turn to the cultivation of cash crops—is also taking a major toll on tropical forests across Africa and Southeast Asia.

In Colombia, a decades-long guerilla war is having an impact even in remote forests; in Bolivia, hydroelectric projects threaten to flood the lush jungle of the Amazon basin.

The forest for the trees

Poverty is the number one barrier to forest conservation, said Edward Ssenyonjo, a remote sensing specialist with the Ugandan National Forest Authority. “More than 80 percent of people depend on the natural environment, mainly forests, to survive. This is compounded by a population growth [rate] of 3.2 percent,” he said.

His colleague, Abel Siample, of the Zambia Forestry Department, said that investment in alternatives to charcoal production and agricultural expansion are the only way to stop encroachment in protected forests.

Joint forest management committees in Zambia and India are giving disenfranchised people a say in how REDD funds are distributed, said Mukund Srivastava, of the Indian Forest Survey.

With a structure based on equality for women and the rural poor, these committees are developing a model so that a portion of REDD revenue returns to the community to attract tourism or sustainable industries and build up infrastructure.

People realize it when they hit the wall, and there is no more forest, but they cannot stop without alternatives. It’s a human dilemma: we do not change our behavior until it becomes too late.

-Nadine Laporte, associate scientist

However, said WHRC associate scientist Nadine Laporte, throwing money at the problem is not a sure way to protect diminishing forests. Sensitive to the socio-economic hardships that people in developing countries face, she is working with the scholars to find solutions to deforestation while meeting the needs of impoverished people.

“In Africa, deforestation is done by people who are trying to feed their families,” said Dr. Laporte, pointing out that people are driven to cut down the forest in a quest to find wood for cooking and heating.

Think global, act local

Peter Ndunda, of the Green Belt Movement, and WHRC Associate Scientist Nadine Laporte go over Peter's map of Kenya

Although REDD was not adopted by the UNFCCC Conference of Parties that met in Copenhagen last December, Dr. Laporte said it is only a matter of time before a global carbon-trading system is in place.

Already, there are several bilateral agreements in place between developing nations and high carbon-emitting countries and states. Progress on REDD achieved in Copenhagen will continue at the next COP meeting in Cancun, Mexico, starting in late November.

Shifting the focus of international climate talks to helping communities and developing nations solve their own problems, the field survey sessions that Dr. Laporte and her colleagues take part in reach some of the most rural or forested areas in the world.

Community capacity-building is the name of the game for Peter Ndunda, a GIS specialist with the Kenyan Green Belt Movement (GBM), a non-governmental organization founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai.

By building up tree nurseries and embarking on a nationwide tree planting campaign, the GBM has been able to stem the trend of deforestation in part of Kenya. In addition, GBM offers civic and environmental education programs that help people understand how forests help retain soil and water, thereby supporting food production and safe drinking water.

A map of Kenya's forest cover shows the GBM's progress, but huge areas in the east remain deforested.

While GBM has made great strides in the last 20 years, the biomass map Mr. Ndunda created at WHRC shows how much further the country has to go.

Indeed, great swaths of Kenya were colored in brown on his map, indicating low forest cover; while the green areas where GBM is active nonetheless indicate that human activity has spilled over the boundaries of designated conservation areas.

“How do you help communities increase their yields without compromising future generations?” Mr. Ndunda asked.

With additional income from REDD, communities will have the time to wait for the trees to grow, while also improving their farmland, he said.

“REDD provides a great opportunity to help resolve the global challenge of poverty. This is a huge economic and ecological benefit that we cannot quantify.”

If you teach a man to map…

Nguyen Hanh Quyenv, of the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology, works on a biomass map that she says will help her country develop forest conservation policies

Some of the scholars taking part in the WHRC workshop were able to create a map of the forest cover as well as the biomass capacity of their country.

Using readily-downloadable data from free sources like Google Earth–as well as sophisticated software and the 160 processing systems owned by the WHRC– the scholars were able to create forest-cover maps of their entire country with a 15-meter resolution, and biomass maps with 500 meters resolution.

Another benefit offered through the WHRC program is the use of satellite radar imaging, a powerful tool that can penetrate the cloud cover that tends to persist over tropical forests, Dr. Kellndorfer said.

That way, forest managers will have more accurate “snapshots” of a forest region, without gaps in data due to cloud cover.

That was a difficulty for Edersson Cabrera, a remote sensing expert with the Colombian ministry of the environment. Though he has been collecting data on the country’s diverse range of forests for the past two decades, thick cloud cover in some years led to gaps in knowledge about how land use had changed over time.

Eric Armijo, of the Friends of Nature Foundation in Bolivia, said the maps he is working on with the WHRC will give his organization the tools it needs to make sure conservation policies are in place— and working.

“It’s a powerful way of pushing the decision-makers,” he said.

High tide flooding covers Menauhant Road

I would like to know why, in all the discussion on the half-billion dollar sewer project, there has been not one word on global warming and sea level rise. There is no question that the sea level is rising, and this century it is likely to rise sufficiently to make the health of the coastal ponds a moot question. …  It seems to me that spending that much money to protect ponds that will soon enough be part of the Atlantic is a huge waste of resources.

Prepare for the Worst, Hope for the Best

Ric brings up an interesting point that is not often considered in the great sewering debate that Falmouth and other coastal towns are engaging in these days. Then again, very little planning is being done with climate change and sea level rise in mind in this country.

In a shift from that trend, the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) is taking an active role in planning for changes to the coastline, by mapping the seafloor and making recommendations for how to mitigate impacts. They’re working on legislation so that towns have clear guidelines for what to do, should buildings and beaches start to disappear into the ocean, or should get-rich-quick contractors attempt to build in vulnerable coastal zones.

Regarding building public infrastructure such as sewer pipes and roads, the CZM posted these guidelines:

• Roads and utilities are absolutely critical during evacuation, disaster response, and recovery. If they’re flooded or damaged, they can become yet another liability, rather than an asset.
• Placing public infrastructure in areas where it may be damaged makes it extremely likely that your community will end up repairing it—an added strain to municipal staff, budgets, and available services.
• Putting public infrastructure (e.g., water and sewer) in a hazard-prone area increases the likelihood that the area will be developed, or that existing development will be expanded, thereby putting more structures and people at risk.

In Chatham, a local bylaw prevented new construction of a house in a floodplain, a landmark decision upheld by the MA Supreme Court. One of the prohibited uses of the land in these Flood Hazard Zones is the discharge of sewage. In a model bylaw developed by the Cape Cod Commission, towns would be able to repair or replace their existing sewer and water mains, but not build new ones in high-risk flood zones  “in order to avoid impairment of or contamination from them during flooding.”

Regulating catastrophe?

Despite these regulatory strides, Ric’s question brings up an important point about long-term planning for climate change on Cape Cod, which includes planning for a region-wide sewer system.

It strikes me that the egos and possibly greed of town officials are leading people astray. To refuse to address this question, based on the best science available, is arrogant, short-sighted, and ultimately just plain stupid. It’s not improbable that by the end of the century, if not considerably sooner, that Falmouth Plaza will be the new Falmouth Heights Beach. Perhaps money might be better spent protecting the fresh water supply from salt incursion, though in time that will also be moot.

-Ric Gerace, Falmouth

As I’ve reported in the Enterprise, sea level rise is already a reality on Cape Cod, although occuring at a miniscule rate of 3 millimeters per year. That amount is expected to accelerate as the polar ice caps melt. A very conservative– yet widely accepted–projection from the IPCC of a 2-11 °F increase in average global temperatures would cause an average one meter (3 foot) rise in sea level.

Again, that might not sound like much, but with storm surges, high tides, and erosion over time, Main Street, Falmouth (as we know it), will be waterfront property. Ric’s prediction that Staples will be the next Falmouth Heights Beach may not be too far from the truth. (Click here for an excellent PowerPoint presentation on the issue from Falmouth resident and USGS researcher, Rob Thieler.)

Long Term Gain for Short Term Pain

In 2003, the Coastal Resources Working Group completed a report to Falmouth selectmen on how to deal with the threat of sea level rise. In order to prevent an apocalyptic, beach-less town by 2100, the group made the following recommendations (among others):

• Beaches and dunes will be wide enough for protection from storms and for public access and use.
• Water quality, habitat and fisheries resources of the coastal zone, estuaries, ponds and marshes will be sustained and enhanced.
• A minimum of hard structures (e.g., groins, seawalls, jetties, etc.) will be found in the coastal zone, to reduce
  maintenance costs, allow natural sediment transport, and for ease and safety of public use; adverse impacts of their presence will be mitigated by passive and active management approaches.
• Public infrastructure will be relocated from the immediate coast to reduce maintenance and repair costs and to reduce its impact on the coastal system.

These recommendations contain two important aspects of the issue that Ric brought up: protection of water quality for the health of marine life, and the costs of building and maintaining public infrastructure in flood zones.  They needn’t be mutually exclusive goals, however.  With proper planning, the main sewer line (if that is what happens) should be located well beyond the reach of the flood zone. By restoring the estuarine ecosystem, especially south of Route 28, where nitrogen pollution is most severe, nature’s defenses against erosion will be able to do their job. Eel grass and dune grass are essential for keeping sand and sediment in place. Natural migration of sand (which is rapidly moving eastward in Falmouth) will protect the coastline from erosion and sea level rise.

From there, yes, it would be a matter of time before the residences that connect to the sewer main are compromised by rising water levels. But that will likely take centuries. We may not be able to stop global climate change, but at least we can do something now to restore the local marine ecosystem.

While we have to take the issue of nitrogen (and other nutrient) pollution seriously, we also need to examine the unintended consequences of sewering the entire coast. What impact will pumping and discharging millions of gallons of water have on the aquifer, not to mention, on CO2 levels in the atmosphere? What are some ways we as residents can reduce our nitrogen output on an individual scale?

Last week, I went to an interesting talk by USGS hydrologist Denis LeBlanc, who described the role of the Sagamore Lens in supplying the Upper Cape’s fresh water.

I’d been skeptical that pumping wastewater all over town to a centralized location for treatment, and possibly discharging it through an outfall pipe off of Nobska Point, would not impact our groundwater levels. But according to Mr. LeBlanc, even at a rate of 3-5 million gallons a day, that kind of discharge is peanuts, compared to the volume of the resource.

Whether or not an outfall pipe is a good idea is still up for debate. Experts, including Mark Rasmussen of the Coalition for Buzzards Bay, say that the strong currents at Nobska would create enough “flushing” to dilute the wastewater (treated to tertiary standards) so that it would not impact marine life or public health. But still– in a world where water is considered to be “blue gold,” is it responsible to discharge it into the ocean? Even if we can’t drink it, couldn’t we reuse it?

Eco-logical design

At a conference at WBNERR last spring, environmental designers presented some very intriguing ideas on how to turn wastewater into a resource.

These weren’t pie-in-the-sky dreamers, or con artists trying to sell you back your own pee as drinking water. These were businessmen who had built their reputation on some common-sense notions: why should you flush your toilet or water your lawn with drinking water? Why should we still be using the 2,000 year-old Roman aquaduct system to sewer our communities?

To the speakers, the saying, “the solution to pollution is dilution” is simply not the case. Instead, they suggested a closed-loop system, in which gray water is continually re-used within a building, with minimal loss.

Patrick Lucey, president of Aqua-Tex, a water management consultancy firm in British Columbia, showed slides of a LEED-certified complex he designed on a working waterfront section of Victoria.

The system is designed to reuse the gray water from sinks and showers and collect rainwater from the roof. The “wastewater” is then treated in a centralized sewage treatment that one might mistake for a luscious garden.

Wastewater from toilets is treated to a standard that could be safely used for doing laundry or watering non-edible plants, Mr. Lucey said.

The system could go several steps further by including a bio-refinery to utilize solid waste and garbage as bio-fuels for heating; co-generation technology to create electricity; and removing nitrogen and phosphorus from effluent for use as fertilizer.

Engineered ecology

Closer to home, projects at the Wrentham Mall and Gilette Stadium in Foxboro (home of the Patriots) have achieved 75-95 % water reuse by employing ecological design principles. If every large public building could do that, we’d go a long way in reducing the 1,200 gallons that Americans consume on average per day (through showers, toilets, laundry, dishwashers, and food production).

Even closer to home, a Woods Hole-based firm, Todd Ecological Design, has set the standard for using nature’s principles to deal with wastewater. In municipalities, golf courses, factories, and campuses worldwide, the EcoMachines designed by Dr. John Todd, one the founders of New Alchemy Institute, use micr0-bacteria, plants, and invertebrates to effectively digest the harmful components of wastewater. Designs often include tropical greenhouse gardens that help make this process possible, even in cold climates.

However, as Falmouth’s wastewater superintendent pointed out after meeting with Jon Todd (Dr. Todd’s son), the EcoMachine cannot get the nitrogen content low enough to meet the limits set by DEP.  In order to prevent further estuarine degradation, some parts of Falmouth need to reduce nitrogen to 3 milligrams per liter– the equivalent of 1.5 drops in a bathtub– which will likely require the services of a modern wastewater treatment plant.

You are what you eat

But there are still possibilities for concerned residents to reduce their nitrogen output. Eating less meat is one idea proposed by Dr. Eric Davidson of the Woods Hole Research Center. While this might be a startling idea to some, consider the fact that the amino acids in animal protein are made up of nitrogen, and to a large extent, are passed out of the body.

If we’re eating meat three times a day, we have a bigger nitrogen footprint. For those who don’t want to be vegetarian, thinking about portion sizes, or whether they’re eating beef, or less nitrogen-demanding pork, chicken, or fish, makes a difference.

-Eric Davidson, sr. scientist, Woods Hole Research Center

Another reason to cut down meat consumption takes a global view: in places like Brazil, rainforest is being cleared at alarming rates in order to create cattle pasture. Cutting forests reduces the earth’s ability to process CO2, and also releases extra greenhouse gases (like NO2) into the atmosphere. So, if not just for the local environment, eating meat (or chosing not to) from these places can make a big difference in terms of climate change.

What else can you do?

Finally, debate over sewering sometimes leaves out small, yet significant components of our community’s total nitrogen output: stormwater and fertilizers. If we could eliminate chemical-based fertilizers from our lawns and gardens, Falmouth could reduce nitrogen in estuaries by at least 10 %. (For info on how to reduce your lawn’s N-footprint, see the Falmouth Friendly Lawns brochure.)

And if the town could install more catch basins to deal with stormwater, less nitrogen (and other pollutants) would flow directly from the roads to sensitive ecosystems. One fun fact to remember as you’re driving in a rainstorm: that first flush of rainwater from the road brings NOx emissions from your tailpipe directly to the nearest water source.

So, a few nuances to consider as we head down the road to figuring out how to create a wastewater design to meet demands of the next century. And we didn’t even get into I/A systems, such as Nitrex or RUCK.

Special thanks to David Dow for putting his two cents in on these issues. As always, we welcome comments, questions, and perspectives.

Nora Greenglass, a research assistant at the Woods Hole Research Center, shared her impressions as a negotiator for the UN program for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) with members of the Woods Hole Science and Technology Education Partnership (WHSTEP) last week.

Nora Greenglass shares her impressions of the UN climate change conference with members of WHSTEP

From Falmouth to Copenhagen

Nora Greenglass was among 8,000 party negotiators in Copenhagen, as world governments, NGO’s, and activist groups converged on the Danish capital for COP 15.

It was not her first UN climate conference, but the first one where she had to wait for five hours in the snow with other accredited observers, just to get into the conference hall.

That’s when the observers did just what 30,000 climate change activists had been doing over the course of the 2-week conference: they protested.

“They barred civil society from entering when the heads of state were there. It was a bone of contention. This was supposed to be an open process,” she said. “Needless to say, I did not get much work done that day.”

Ms. Greenglass went to Denmark with a team of other researchers from WHRC (and other Woods Hole Consortium participants from the MBL and WHOI) to give scientific input on aspects of climate change that rarely make the headline news.  Among those are the REDD initiative and the impacts of rising greenhouse gas emissions on the world’s oceans.

The UN-REDD Programme is aimed at tipping the economic balance in favour of sustainable management of forests so that their formidable economic, environmental and social goods and services benefit countries, communities and forest users while also contributing to important reductions in greenhouse gas emissions… The immediate goal is to assess whether carefully structured payment structures and capacity support can create the incentives to ensure actual, lasting, achievable, reliable and measurable emission reductions while maintaining and improving the other ecosystem services forests provide.

-the UN Collaborative Program on REDD

Reducing poverty and emissions?

The main purpose of the conference this year was to develop a “cap and trade” system for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. With the Kyoto Protocol past its prime, the outcome of Copenhagen was meant to set a new blueprint for setting emissions reduction targets, and ways to measure progress toward those goals.

However, negotiations broke down between developing nations and some of the biggest emitters (including the BASIC countries, Brazil, South Africa, India, and China) on the terms of such a high-stakes deal.

From the point of view of the developing nations (led by Africa), the system would allow industrialized countries to keep polluting, thus endangering their chances of survival. In the case of small island nations or places where desertification threatens arable crop land, climate change is indeed a matter of life or death.

But as Ms. Greenglass pointed out, the countries that produce the lion’s share of CO2 need to act now to reduce their emissions, and need  incentives to do so.

The World is Waiting for US

Despite the worldliness of the conference, Ms. Greenglass said that the elephant in the room was legislation currently stalled before the US Senate. (Last fall, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would require polluters to offset their greenhouse gas emissions, but a Senate version is not expected to pass.)

“The world is waiting for Congress, and we know where that’s going,” she said.

President Obama made an attempt to save the day, crafting an 11th-hour document known as the Copenhagen Accord, with 29 other nations (out of 194). Among other things, this non-binding document states that the US will reduce its emissions by 17% (from 2005 levels) by 2020. However, this pledge requires congressional approval– in an election year, in a recession.

A few positives did come out of Denmark in the waning days of the conference, Ms. Greenglass said.

• The REDD negotiations are nearly complete, with a “relatively prominent” place in US legislation, and a favorable view from US industry.
• In addition, the US pledged $100 billion to go towards climate adaptation measures, technology transfer, and forest protection for vulnerable countries by 2020.
• The US pledged $1 billion to help implement REDD; an additional $3.5 billion was committed by France, Norway, Australia, Japan, and the UK.
• An agreement was made on a transparent mechanism for evaluating the performance of each nation’s emissions reductions through an independent review process.

Pat Harcourt, an education specialist with WBNERR, asked how much of a role science plays in determining the outcome of policy.

Ms. Greenglass said that the specific targets, such as the 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F) maximum for global temperature rise, are based on sound  science, but overall, the negotiations are “frighteningly political.”

“We need to peak global emissions by 2020,” she told WHSTEP members.

These days, Ms. Greenglass and thousands of other science policy consultants are heading back to the drawing board in preparation for COP 16, this November, in Cancun, Mexico.

According to scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 30% of the world’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, known to be a leading cause of global warming, are being absorbed by the ocean. Small coincidence that over the past 50 years of global  industrialization, rising CO2 emissions have also led to a 30% increase in the average acidity of ocean surface water.

This phenomenon is just starting to attract the attention– and alarm– of policymakers and the shellfish industry.  I talked to Scott Doney and Sarah Cooley at WHOI to find out why.

How does ocean acidification happen?

When CO2 in the atmosphere combines with seawater (H2O), the molecules combine to form carbonic acid (H2CO3). This acid is weak and dissociates rapidly in basic seawater, releasing hydrogen ions. When these ions combine with the carbonate ions already present in the water to form bicarbonate, they rob coral and shellfish of the materials they need to grow their shells and skeletons.

Scientists estimate that the pH of seawater has decreased by about 0.1 units– a 30 % decline on the logarithmic pH scale– and could decline by 0.3-0.5 units more in the next 100 years, as CO2 levels rise. Over time, they warn, the ocean’s ability to absorb CO2 could diminish the development of coral reefs and marine organisms with calcium carbonate shells, with side effects reverberating throughout the ecosystem.

Scott Doney, of WHOI, explains the connection between CO2 and your favorite seafood dinner

The question is when, and where, said Dr. Doney. Using carbon emissions projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he predicted that acidity levels in the ocean will double by mid-century, and carbonate ions could decline by half.

Carbon dioxide, if you look at it as a pollutant, is very long-lived, lasting from hundreds to thousands of years. It will also continue to grow through the mid-century, with no good indication that we’ll be able to stabilize it.  We’ve now increased atmospheric carbon dioxide to a range that hasn’t been seen since 800,000 years ago,  judging from ice cores.

-Scott Doney

In a 2008 paper, Drs. Cooley and Doney indicate that bivalves, such as scallops and oysters, would feel the effects of acidification more heavily than sea urchins or crustaceans, such as lobsters, shrimp, and crabs, due to their use of a more soluble form of calcium carbonate in their shells. The effects of acidification on fish is not known, but should be studied, Dr. Doney said.

“There’s no indication that this will destroy sea life, but it certainly will diminish and dislocate some species,” he said.

Calling for additional research into the socio-economic, as well as biological and political ramifications of ocean acidification, Drs. Doney and Cooley, with WHOI marine policy specialist Hauke Kite-Powell, are investigating the impacts on the shellfish industry in the Northeast.

The economic effects of ocean acidification will be felt locally, the scientists say. In New Bedford, the top American port for shellfish, they found:

• By 2060, a 25 % loss in shellfish populations would decrease landing revenues by $67 million a year, or $2.2 billion
• Losses in primary revenue from commercial harvests—or the money that fishermen receive for their catch—could add up to as much as $1.4 billion within 50 years
• In comparison, a 25 % decrease in the seafood employment sector contributed to a dramatic economic decline from in New Bedford from 1992 to 1999, when 20 % of residents were living below the federal poverty level

The Bigger Picture

Dr. Doney’s research also takes a look at the global picture, especially at areas of the developing world that are dependent on viable fisheries.

“As with so many aspects of environmental degradation, the Third World is often hit hardest, and is the least resilient,” he said. “We want to make the connections with fishing communities and how they can adapt.”

Acidification could be the death blow for coral reefs, which are already impacted by pollution and overfishing, Dr. Doney said, which will have an impact on coastal erosion, fish habitat, and tourism.

Regions that are impacted by acid rain and nutrient runoff might already be experiencing the effects of acidification, he added. While a connection between nitrogen loading and acidity has not been thoroughly studied, Dr. Doney warned that algal blooms from excess nitrogen release CO2, “an unfortunate synergy” that could occur on Cape Cod.

Tracy Johns in her office at the Woods Hole Research Center

It’s been a month after COP 15, the UN Climate Change conference that was supposed to give the world a new system for reducing carbon emissions.

A month to reflect, regroup, and respond to this reporter’s questions about what happened, and what didn’t, in Copenhagen.

From Woods Hole to Copenhagen

Tracy Johns is a research associate and policy advisor at the Woods Hole Research Center who focuses on the role of forests in stabilizing the world’s climate. She is an advisor to several countries on the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degredation (REDD) initiative, intended to create a carbon trading system that would adequately compensate countries that do not cut their remaining forests.

Having attended the last five COPs (Conference Of Parties), Ms. Johns said that the negotiations in Copenhagen, by comparison, were chaotic. Thousands of people from official delegations, NGO’s, and protest movements, crowded into a noisy meeting hall. It was difficult to find out where negotiations were taking place, even those related to REDD. When a delegation of African nations walked out of talks on carbon credits, she said, the conference really broke down.

With the REDD initiative dependent on the overall treaty, the process is stalled for now. Ms. Johns said she can sympathize with the African and developing nations, which are likely to feel the most deleterious effects of climate change, and yet are not responsible for the lion’s share of greenhouse gas emissions. However, she said, the stalled negotiations do not help anyone.

The Copenhagen Accord was eventually drafted by the US, China, Brazil, India, and South Africa, which other nations did not adopt. Because the UN Climate Change treaties must be adopted by consensus (remember the stalled Kyoto Protocol?) that means that there is no blueprint going forward. But, Ms. Johns said, there is still a lot that countries, especially the US, can do to reduce carbon emissions on a domestic level.

Seeing the forest for the trees

Rainforests have been dubbed the “lungs of the world” for their ability to “inhale” carbon dioxide (CO2) and “exhale” oxygen (O2), a well-known chemical exchange that sustains our every breath. In this way, trees are able to store or “sequester” large amounts of CO2, one of the critical greenhouse gases responsible for climate change.

But as trees are clear-cut for lumber or to make way for soybean plantations or cattle ranches, much of that carbon sequestered in trees is released back into the atmosphere. In addition, the trees are no longer able to inhale the atmospheric CO2 that is increasing in concentration each year. From Brazil to Gabon to Indonesia, deforestation is responsible for 12 to 18 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, said Ms. Johns.

“We will not be able to avoid the devastating effects of climate change without stopping deforestation,” she said. “Forests are a vital piece of the puzzle.”

In working out the jigsaw of economics versus the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the REDD program aims to put a value on forests that are removing CO2 from the atmosphere every day, free of charge. Not only will this give developing nations a monetary incentive to protect their remaining forests, it will encourage consumers to make responsible choices, Ms. Johns said.

A fair trade?

While her focus is on the global carbon credit market, provisions in the Waxman-Markey bill– passed last June by the House of Representatives– allow companies to purchase carbon “0ffsets” for their emissions by contibuting to reforestation efforts or rainforest conservation, both in the US and abroad, Ms. Johns said. This initiative could make the US the largest carbon trading market in the world, she added, since the European Union does not allow REDD credits.

“As the legislative process moves forward, most of the bills being discussed include pretty strong pieces that wold allow a REDD to happen,” she said. “But the numbers President Obama has announced are far below our goals.”

In her work with some of the agricultural stakeholders in Brazil, for example, Ms. Johns has found that they would gladly find alternatives to cutting down the rainforest, but their practices reflect global demand for cheap beef and soybeans.

“One of the reasons why climate change legislation is important is that we’re not paying for the cost of pollution. If we understood the costs, it’s much cheaper to consume sustainably,” she pointed out.

“It’s got to be a collaborative effort between consumers and providers. Without a change in consumption practices, there will be no incentive to change.”

What can you do?

While forests in the US Northeast enjoy a fair amount of protection, Ms. Johns said people living here can have a part in reducing deforestation. She encourages us to do a little research to learn about the origins of products, and make an effort to support industries that use sustainable practices.

• The Institute for Market Transformation to Sustainability is one website that makes it easier to find (and verify) eco-certified products.
• One common sense tip in regard to forests would be to eliminate paper-based products like paper plates from your shopping list, and in the case of necessities like toilet paper, purchasing a post-consumer recycled brand.
• Shop locally for “green” building and household products at the “G” Green Design Center in Mashpee Commons.

That was one of the questions that Neil D. Bettez, of the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, spent five years as a doctoral student in Falmouth trying to answer. Working with Eric Davidson, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center, and colleagues at Cornell University, Dr. Bettez came across a local nitrogen source that is often overlooked: emissions from cars and trucks.

“We’d like to say it’s only the power plants in the Midwest [that are responsible], but the fact that a lot of cars driving on Cape contributes to local impacts. What we drive, and how much, really matters on a local level,” Dr. Bettez said.

‘The more you put in, the more you put out’

Those driving around down Route 28 between 2003 and 2007 may have noticed bottles with funnels on top sitting under trees at the Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Reserve (WBNERR) near the Mashpee-Falmouth town line, or on the lawn at the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth. These contraptions collected rainwater dripping from tree leaves, which Dr. Bettez analyzed for nitrogen content.

His results showed that areas of the forest within 30 feet of a road contained the highest amounts of nitrogen. He also found more nitrogen underground near the road, pointing to a nitrogen source that is leaching into the groundwater, and eventually into nearby water bodies.

“Understanding sources of nitrogen is a key first step in managing and mitigating nitrogen pollution,” he said. “The more you put in, the more you get out. Even kids know that.”

The research conducted by Drs. Davidson, Bettez and their colleagues suggests that road runoff may have been underestimated in the past, and it could contribute as much as 10 percent of the nitrogen load to some local water bodies.

According to Dr. Bettez, atmospheric nitrogen has been on the rise since the Industrial Revolution. Through fertilizer production and fossil fuel combustion, humans now release as much reactive nitrogen (NOx and NH3) as is created naturally from lightning and nitrogen-fixing plants, such as soybeans or blue-green algae.

Due to cleaner emissions standards, power plants in the US now produce 29 percent less NOx than they did 30 years ago; and despite better emissions standards for cars, Americans also drive twice as much as they did in the 1970s, contributing 33 percent more nitrogen, said Dr. Bettez.

A hidden killer

Excess nitrogen in waterways can lead to eutrophication, resulting in low-oxygen conditions that makes it difficult for marine animals to survive. Algae thrives on the nitrogen, but sudden algal blooms can lead to smelly die-offs, unpleasant swimming conditions, and degraded eelgrass, an important habitat for shellfish.

Because most of the nitrogen that settles on leaves is retained in the forest, Dr. Bettez said, wastewater is still the single largest source of nitrogen in the water. However, he added, the forest’s capacity to hold that nitrogen is limited. In large quantities, he said, NOx and NH3 in the atmosphere can lead to tree “die back” due to acidification, an effect similar to acid rain.

While nitrogen deposition on the Cape is still too little to impact local forests, it could reach a saturation point, and end up in waterways, Dr. Bettez said. “My research points out that it will continue to be a bigger problem as people drive more.”

According to Ivan Valiela, of the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Ecosystems Center, different parts of Waquoit Bay could receive an additional 31 to 79 percent nitrogen load from rain and snow falling directly on the water.

“There is an additional atmospheric deposition directly onto the surface of the water of the bay, and this can be large,” Dr. Valiela said.

“Management action such as sewering would not affect this direct atmospheric source… a consideration, given the current interest in installation of municipal sewers.”

In comparison to wastewater and atmospheric deposition, the nitrogen from road runoff is “trivial,” at about four percent of the total load to the watershed, Dr. Valiela said.

However, Dr. Davidson said that the nitrogen contained in road runoff is significant enough to warrant better management in coastal zones. Analyzing the runoff he sampled during storms from Woods Hole Road, Oyster Pond Road, and Quonset Road, Dr. Davidson found that even small residential roads contain significant amounts of nitrogen, from a combination of car exhaust, lawn fertilizers, and animal waste.

“Roads are conduits for moving all that nitrogen rapidly. Where roads lead to water bodies, they contribute directly to the nitrogen load,” he said.

To reduce road runoff, the town could install “wells” that shuttle water from storm drains through layers of soil, where microbes can break down nitrogen and other hazardous byproducts, Dr. Davidson said.

Global problem, local solution

Because nitrogen loading is a local problem, Dr. Bettez said that local solutions, such as driving less, or driving hybrid vehicles, will help reduce nitrogen emissions.

Another way to tackle nitrogen emissions would be to follow California’s lead in developing regulations that would limit ammonia, a compound that is created from NOx by highly efficient catalytic converters, said Dr. Davidson.

Dr. Bettez noted that NOx is responsible for smog and atmospheric ozone, while ammonia plays a role in creating haze. Ammonia is also deposited very close to its source, which means that emissions from cars can fall out onto nearby water bodies, Dr. Davidson said.

Both Dr. Bettez and Dr. Davidson added that dietary changes could make an impact on global nitrogen production, noting that it takes significant amounts of fertilizer to produce animal feed, and animals produce manure, another large source of nitrogen that is released into the environment

“If we’re eating meat three times a day, we have a bigger nitrogen footprint,” said Dr. Davidson. “For those who don’t want to be vegetarian, thinking about portion sizes, or whether they’re eating beef, or less nitrogen-demanding pork, chicken, or fish, makes a difference.”

Results from the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) program indicate that Arctic ice melt has made its way to the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, said Cabell S. Davis, a WHOI senior biologist.

The influx of fresh water has lowered the natural salinity of these productive fishing grounds—and coupled with rising water temperature, the impacts will be felt across the entire ecosystem, he said.

Towing an underwater video camera from the Azores to Woods Hole, Dr. Davis captured thousands of images of copepods, a food source for cod and haddock larvae, and even right whales. Putting a computer model to work, the GLOBEC team found that decreased salinity led to an earlier spring bloom of phytoplankton, the main food source for copepods.

The result was a three-fold increase in copepod populations on Georges Bank from 1995 to 1999. Longer term data sets revealed that the water in the 1990s was more fresh and had more copepods than the 1980s.

Pointing to the 2003 haddock harvest, the best year for that fishery since 1963, Dr. Davis said the changes can initially be a good thing for fish. An earlier spring bloom of phytoplankton means that copecods have more food. Higher concentrations of copepods will allow the infant cod and haddock to grow faster, and thus have better survival rates.

However, not all copecods are created equal, Dr. Davis said. There are two types living in the western North Atlantic: one cold-water species, and one tropical species. The warm-water copepod, Centropages typicus, swims too fast for the larval fish to catch.

Already, Dr. Davis said, these copepod populations have doubled in the Mid-Atlantic Bight, off New York and New Jersey, since 1977.

“Potentially, cod and haddock larvae won’t have anything to eat,” said Dr. Davis, speaking at a Marine Biological Laboratory Ecosystems Center seminar last week.

“Even with best management practices, if the projected warming trend happens in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, cod and haddock could be gone by 2080.”

Worst-case scenarios

Dr. Davis based his models on a medium prediction of climate change, established by an International Panel on Climate Change scenario that includes a mix of fossil fuel and renewable energy to drive the economy. If Artic melting occurs more rapidly than the predictions—which has already been the case—Dr. Davis said that the effects on fisheries could be worse.

“As more melting occurs, the nutrients on the surface sink, leading to a decrease in productivity. In addition, a climate pattern, called the North Atlantic Oscillation, affects how deep Labrador Sea water flows southward to New York, bringing in colder, low salinity water with lower nutrients,” Dr. Davis said.

Further research will be needed to study the consequences of this ecosystem shift, and other effects of climate change, on other commercially important species, including adult cod, haddock, scallops, and lobsters.

In a report published earlier this month in Science, Marine Biological Laboratory senior scientist Jerry M. Melillo and research associate David W. Kicklighter found the costs of producing biofuels may outweigh the benefits of burning them.

Due to a rising demand for corn-based ethanol, cropland in the United States is slowly being converted from food to biofuel production, Dr. Melillo said, mirroring a global trend.

The scientists’ model, which looked at economic and biogeochemistry data, predicted that the land devoted to biofuels will become greater than the total area currently devoted to growing food by the end of this century.

The displacement of food crops and forests for growing biofuel products will release up to twice as much as the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted from the same land, they found.

“Large greenhouse gas emissions from these indirect land-use changes are unintended consequences of a global biofuels program, consequences that add to the climate-change problem rather than helping to solve it,” said Dr. Melillo.

Oil for food

Increasing biofuel consumption in the United States may also lead to land use changes in other parts of the world. Dr. Melillo pointed out that as the United States grows more corn, it is growing less soybeans, which are in high demand from China. As a result, China is buying more soybeans from Brazil, a country that is rapidly destroying its rainforests to convert to agricultural production.

“Our ethanol production is having knock-off consequences on land use in Brazil. There are several degrees of separation but everything is connected,” Dr. Melillo said.

Growing more biofuel crops could also mean that fertilizer use will increase, resulting in greater nitrous oxide (N²O) emissions. Dr. Melillo said this potent greenhouse gas could become more important than carbon dioxide as a driver of climate change by the end of the century.

“When you cut down [trees or crops], you release carbon. Burning wood in remote tropics, or allowing it to decay, that’s a big pulse of carbon. And once you clear the land, the next thing is to fertilize,” Dr. Melillo said.

The N²O threat

Unwillingness to use fertile cropland to grow biofuel plants can mean that less productive land—and more fertilizer—is used, Dr. Melillo said. By 2100, the scientists estimated that more than half of the total N²O emissions will come from fertilizer, surpassing CO² as the leading cause of global warming.

For this reason, Dr. Melillo said that N2O emissions are what he is worried about over the long term.

“Fertilization is probably going to go on for a long time. Whereas, the large carbon losses occur around the time of conversion of natural lands,” he said.

Current climate policy is aimed at reducing CO2 emissions to 350 parts per million, a target that some countries are trying to achieve by increasing their dependence on biofuels. So far, Dr. Melillo said, greenhouse gas emissions from biofuel-related land use change are not included in any country’s carbon credit accounting.

Furthermore, the spin-off effects of such policies, Dr. Melillo said, could mean that land prices will increase, leading to higher prices for food and wood products.

Because most of the ethanol used in Massachusetts is not produced in the state, he said that the ecological consequences in the US will mostly be felt in the Midwest, where farms and refineries dedicated to ethanol production have sprouted up.

“Corn is a nitrogen-demanding crop. It does not use fertilizer efficiently, so it runs off into the groundwater, down the Mississippi, and to the Gulf Coast,” Dr. Melillo said.

“I have a feeling there will be work in the agricultural community to maximize the efficiency using of nitrogen by breeding crops,” he said.

While Dr. Melillo said he is not planning to attend the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen next month, he will present his research on biofuel issues to officials in the European Union next week. He will be pushing for a global greenhouse gas emissions policy that protects forests and encourages best practices for nitrogen fertilizer that will reduce emissions associated with biofuels production.