Is the future of manufacturing local?

I co-authored this with Chris McMahon, Professor of Engineering Design, inspired by his work on how highly adaptable manufacturing processes, capable of operating at small scales (re-distributed manufacturing), can contribute to a sustainable and resilient future.  I find so many aspects of his work fascinating, from the connections to the Industrial Revolution to the argument that many of our societal challenges arise from the disconnection between what we consume and how it is made.  The latter is a theme that resonates across so much of the environmental movement, from the food we consume to our deeper connection to nature. In a world that has become utterly dependent on global supply chains, acutely illustrated by the far-reaching and often unanticipated consequences of Covid, I am not sure if we can restore strictly local manufacturing or even if that is the most efficient way to produce what we need.  But it is a vital question and I have always been inspired by Chris’ knowledge and his wisdom.

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The next few years have the potential to be transformative in the history of our society and our planet.  We are faced with numerous choices in how we live our lives, and our decisions could either embed the practices of the last two centuries or empower new paradigms for the production of our food and energy, our buildings and transport systems, our medicine, furniture and appliance, all of those things on which we have grown to depend. It could be a transformation in what we own or borrow, how we use it…. And how we make it.

Bristol is one of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Global Resilient Cities.  Unlike many of the other cities (and somewhat unconventionally), Bristol, the University of Bristol and the Cabot Institute have adopted a holistic definition of resiliency that includes not just adaption to future change but also the contemporary behaviour that minimises the chances of future shocks.  Recognising that, the launch of the Bristol 2015 European Green Capital year focused on the need to bridge the gap between our resource intensive and environmentally harmful current behaviour and a more sustainable – and resilient – future.

This combination is key.  We know that our non-sustainable behaviour will bring about dangerous climate change and resource stress. But we are also obtaining a sharper understanding of the limits of our knowledge. Unfortunately, our behaviour is not just threatening the security of our food, water and energy but is inducing a profound uncertainty in our ability to forecast and adapt to future change.  Not only does such radical uncertainty demand mitigative rather than adaptive action but, where we fall short or the damage has already been done, it will require an equally radical emphasis on resiliency.

Part of Bristol’s path to achieving these goals of sustainability and resiliency is localism, including local production of food and energy, exemplified by the recent launch of a municipally-owned energy company but also community-owned energy and food cooperatives.   Localism can only go so far in our highly interconnected and interdependent world, but it is undeniably one of Bristol’s strongest tools in empowering local communities and driving its own sustainability agenda while making us more resilient to external factors.  But why stop at food and energy?

Manufacturing has undergone a suite of radical transformations over the past decade, the potential of which are only now being harnessed across a range of manufacturing scales from high-value (such as Bristol’s aerospace industry) to SMEs and community groups.  Crudely put, the options for the manufacturer have traditionally been limited to moulding things, bashing things into shape, cutting things and sticking things together.  New technologies now allow those methods to be downscaled and locally owned. Other technologies, enabled by the exponential growth of computer power, are changing the manufacturing framework for example by allowing complex shapes to be made layer-by-layer through additive manufacturing.

Crucially, these new technologies represent highly adaptable manufacturing processes capable of operating at small scales.  This offers new possibilities with respect to where and how design, manufacture and services can and should be carried out to achieve the most appropriate mix of capability and employment but also to minimise environmental costs and to ensure resilience of provision.  In short, manufacturing may now be able to be re-distributed away from massive factories and global supply chains back into local networks, small workshops or even homes. This has brought about local empowerment across the globe as exemplified by the Maker movement and locally in initiatives such as Bristol Hackspace.  These technologies and social movements are synergistic as localised manufacturing not only brings about local empowerment but fosters sustainable behaviour by enabling the remanufacturing and upcycling that are characteristic of the circular economy.

There are limits, however, to the reach of these new approaches if they remain dependent on traditional manufacturing organisations and systems into which we are locked by the technological choices made in two centuries of fossil-fuel abundance.  As well as the technologies and processes that we use, a better understanding of how to organise and manage manufacturing systems and of their relationship with our infrastructure and business processes is central to the concept of re-distributed manufacturing and its proliferation.  It requires not only local production but a fundamental rethinking of the entire manufacturing system.

Looking forward, we must explore a whole range of issues from diverse disciplinary perspectives, bringing together experts in manufacturing, design, logistics, operations management, infrastructure, engineering systems, economics, geographical sciences, mathematical modelling and beyond.  In particular, we must examine the potential impact of such re-distributed manufacturing at the scale of the city and its hinterland, centering not just resilience and sustainability but equity and inclusion.

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It seems entirely appropriate that Bristol and the SW of England assume a prominent leadership role in this endeavour.  In many ways, it is the intellectual and spiritual home of the industrial use of fossil fuels, responsible for unprecedented growth and prosperity but also setting us on a path of unsustainable resource exploitation.  Thomas Newcomen from South Devon produced arguably the first practical steam engine, leading to the use of fossil fuels in mining and eventually industry; in the late 1700s, coal-powered steam energy was probably more extensively used in SW England than anywhere in the world.  Continuing this legacy, Richard Trevithick from Cornwall developed high pressure steam engines which allowed the use of steam (and thus fossil fuels) for transportation, and of course Brunel’s SS Great Western, built in Bristol, was the first vehicle explicitly designed to use fossil fuel for intercontinental travel.

But that legacy is not limited to energy production.  Abraham Darby, who pioneered the use of coke for smelting iron in Coalbrookdale, i.e. the use of fossil fuels for material production, had worked at a foundry in Bristol and was funded by the Goldney Family, among others.  He married fossil fuels to the production of materials and manufactured goods.

These are reasons for optimism not guilt.  This part of the world played a crucial role in establishing the energy economy that has powered our world.  On the back of that innovation and economic growth have come medical advances, the exploration of our solar system and an interconnected society.  That same creative and innovative spirit can be harnessed again.  And these approaches need not be limited to energy and materials but also healthcare and the digital economy. The movement is already in place, exemplified by the more than 800 organisations in the Bristol Green Capital Partnership.  It is receiving unprecedented support from both Universities of this city.  This new project is only one small part of that trend but it illustrates a new enthusiasm for partnership and transformative change and to study the next generation of solutions rather than be mired in incremental gains to existing technology.

The 50th Anniversary of the Organic Geochemistry Gordon Research Conference

In 1970, some of the world’s leading research held the first Organic Geochemistry GRC.  It was not the first organic geochemistry conference, and our field traces its origins to some 20 years earlier – when Alfred Treibs showed the structural link between biologically produced chlorophylls and hemes and their diagenetic products in rocks and oils.  In doing so, he showed that organic matter in the sedimentary record was nearly entirely of original biological origin – albeit significantly altered by diagenetic and catagenetic processes.  This then was the platform for a diverse discipline that explored topics ranging from the exploration of life on the moon and other planets, the fingerprinting and discovery of fossil fuel deposits (as well as the fingerprinting of fossil fuel contamination), the probing of critical Earth system processes, and the reconstruction of the past – in historical and archaeological contexts to recent climates to deep time and even the early history of life.

I was fortunate to be chosen by my colleagues to chair the 2020 Organic Geochemistry GRC which would have marked its 50th Anniversary.  We had a fantastic lineup of speakers – from diverse backgrounds, international, and with interests ranging from the origins of biosynthesis to the fate of organic matter in polar regions to the structure of membranes (many of the best biomarker tracers for past climates are membrane lipids). Unfortunately, that was cancelled due to Covid.

 

 

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The original 1970 GRC Attendees.
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A larger and much more diverse cohort in 2018. And full of wonderful colleagues spanning several generations of organic geochemistry. But like all of the geosciences, our discipline still has some work to do to be truly racially and ethnically diverse.

Instead we marked it virtually, sharing photos and memories.  This fantastic figure by Keith Kvenvolden captures the origins of the GRC, its attendees and themes.  It has changed in many ways but the seeds of everything we do now – the discovery of new biological and geological materials, the centrality of analytical innovation, the ambition to look at *anything* – were already present.

 

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For the past 20 years or so, the Organic Geochemistry GRC has been hosted at Holderness School in New Hampshire.  We miss you.  But Roger Summons was passing through and took some photos…. we are there in spirit.

 

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And some pictures from the past.  They would not be complete without table football! Who are these fierce competitors.  And where are their shoes?

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And some photos courtesy of Roger!

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Also courtesy of Roger is a photo of the iconic Thursday night lobster dinner.

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Cait Witkowski shared this great photo of the NIOZ group (past and present)

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And others shared photos of meeting up (socially distanced) in other ways!

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Flo and Nadine are evidently still working on that asphate seep paper from Nadine’s masters research!

One of the key events at the GRC is the awarding of the Treibs Medal (by the Organic Geochemistry Division of the Geochemical Society). This year, the very worthy winner is my friend and colleague Kai-Uwe Hinrichs of MARUM. Congratulations, Kai. It is hard to imagine a more deserving winner.

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Kai’s research group (and one visitor!)

Last year’s winner was Sylvie DeRenne (awarded at IMOG in 2019) and the previous GRC Awardee was Stefan Schouten.  Here is a history of Dutch diagenesis that… I guess led to his formation?

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Previous recent winners include Kate Freeman, Marilyn Fogel and Pat Hatcher. But of course Steve Larter had to mark his award with a song… which he forced all of the 2014 Scientific Committee to sing.  I reluctantly share this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv-dLT2qAPE&feature=youtu.be

Also announced during our virtual GRC: Three members of the MIT Group started an organic geochemistry podcast!  Great initiative by @FatimagulHusain@angelshale, and @wizardofdrozd You can check it out here!

And of course, Gordon Inglis also hosted the second Biomarker World Cup on Twitter – a chance to learn about biomarkers and banter!  The brackets and results are below… and if you follow some of the links, you will be able to learn about these amazing compounds.  And if you follow this link to the twitter thread, you can see the extensive associated banter (including reversals, betrayals, friendships torn asunder)!

From Gordon: To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the first Organic Geochemistry Gordon Research Conference (GRC), the ‘Biomarker World Cup’ has returned for its 2nd edition! It will feature 16 biomarkers and conclude this weekend. Who will win? Only you can decide!! #50YrsOrgGeochemGRC

Group A, Team 1: 𝘯-alkanes. Veteran biomarkers and reigning champions. Derived from epicuticular wax of terrestrial plants, they are nature’s ultimate waterproofing. Insights into vegetation, C3 vs C4 photosynthesis, rainfall and diagenesis (). Versatile. (tinyurl.com/y2k6ujw3)

Group A, Team 2: Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs). Volatile compounds produced by the incomplete combustion of organics. Usually interpreted to indicate changes in fire occurrence (e.g. Karp et al., 2018; ). Inferno. (tinyurl.com/yxdfgexm)

Group A, Team 3: Ladderanes. Made their debut at the GRC in 2002. Geoff Eglinton took Jan de Leeuw aside and asked if they were a joke (!). Biomarkers for anaerobic ammonium-oxidizing bacteria (e.g. ). Modern Art. (tinyurl.com/y6kj4nqe)

Group A, Team 4: 2,6,15,19-tetramethylicosane (TMI). Perhaps the “…rarest biomarker in the world” (@rpancost, pers. comm). Archaeal origin. An acyclic isoprenoid only found during mid-Cretaceous Oceanic Anoxic Events (e.g. OEA1b; ). Underdogs. (tinyurl.com/yxvu7mk2)

Vote now for the winner of Group A! Only one team will qualify to the semi-finals.

This was contentious with the upstart Ladderanes challenging the iconic n-alkanes. It prompted some discussion on Twitter:

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Wow! The holders (n-alkanes) are knocked out in the first round! Absolute scenes. Instead, the world’s weirdest biomarker (ladderanes) progress to the semi-final. Who will join them? Vote now!! #50YrsOrgGeochemGRC

Group B, Team 1: Crenarchaeol. A funky molecule with a unique structure. Specific to the phylum Thaumarchaeota. Not good enough for TEX86, but a rising star in the paleobarometry community (see @sarahjhurley et al; ). Fluid. (tinyurl.com/y2aqtnsq)

Group B, Team 2: Alkenones. Sea surface temperature proxy. CO₂ proxy. Algal productivity proxy. Salinity proxy (e.g. Gabriella Weiss et al ). Is there anything it can’t do!? Discovered in the late 1970s, but still going strong. Legendary. (tinyurl.com/y3guugju)

Group B, Team 3: long-chain diols. Another oldie, originally discovered in the early 1980s. Multiple sources (diatoms, algae) but new interest as a proxy for input of riverine organic matter (e.g. Julie Lattaud et al., ). Potential. (tinyurl.com/y35azv2b)

Group B, Team 4: 3-methylhopanoids. Once attributed to aerobic methanotrophs. Used to study Neoarchean aerobiosis, but can be produced by other bacteria. Methylation may aide survival under nutrient limited conditions (@PaulaWelander & Summons; ). Diverse. (tinyurl.com/y5e443rn)

Vote now! Only one team will progress!! #50YrsOrgGeochemGRC

A game of two halves. After leading for 12 hours, alkenones faded away in the second half. They will be really disappointed with that performance. Congratulations to crenarchaeol who progress to the semi finals. Next up: Group C!

Group C, Team 1: branched GDGTs. Who produces them? Who cares! First discovered in a Dutch peat, now found just about anywhere. Can help distinguish OM sources. Routinely employed as continental temperature and pH proxies (). Rising star. (tinyurl.com/y5d88lxp)

Group C, Team 2: 24-isopropylcholestane. Unusual molecule found in Precambrian rocks (~650 to 540 Ma). Perhaps the oldest evidence for complex animal life () but may also be produced by unicellular organisms. (). Controversial. (pnas.org/content/113/10…) (tinyurl.com/y6lurj45)

Group C, Team 3: Porphyrins. Discovered and described by Alfred Treibs (“the father of organic geochemistry”) in 1936. Derived from chlorophylls and helped to confirm the biological origin of petroleum. Now used to provide insights into N-cycling (e.g. ). (tinyurl.com/y3ndaope)

Group C, Team 4: Highly branched isoprenoids. Notable for the distinctive “T-branch” in their carbon skeleton. Used to explore the rise of diatoms during the Phanerozoic (e.g. ). Also a useful sea ice proxy. Utility. (tinyurl.com/y35ugl4y) Vote now! Only one team will progress!! #50YrsOrgGeochemGRC

Porphyrins were a formidable force back in the 1980’s. However, they seem to have lost their enchantment as well as supremacy. The golden era is over. Instead, branched GDGTs progress! Now onto Group D

Group D, Team 1: Isorenieratane. Light-harvesting pigment derived from photosynthetic green sulphur bacteria. These bugs like sunshine and hydrogen sulfide but hate oxygen. Regarded as key evidence for euxinia in the geological record (). Indicative. (tinyurl.com/y39n59la)

Group D, Team 2: Phytane. Diagenetic product of chlorophyll (…but other sources likely). Easy to measure using gas chromatography. Pristane/phytane often used as redox indicator. Renewed promise in recent years as a paleo-CO2 proxy (). Revitalised. (tinyurl.com/yye8ysaz)

Group D, Team 3: Archaeol. Abundant in methane-rich settings. Ridiculously low carbon isotope values (-100 per mil) provided early evidence for the involvement of archaea in anaerobic oxidation of methane ( & ). Extreme. (tinyurl.com/yytmrtlf) (tinyurl.com/y2f9fz5g)

Group D, Team 4: Heterocyst Glycolipids. Biomarkers for nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria (…move aside 2-methylhopanoids!). Remarkably well preserved in ancient sediments and can provide unique insights into microbial ecology (). Potential. (tinyurl.com/y28mjsje) Vote now! Only one team will progress!! #50YrsOrgGeochemGRC

That was the closest race I have EVER seen. Nailbiting. Congratulations to phytane! Now onto the semi-finals

Semi Final 1: Ladderanes vs branched GDGTs. Do you prefer cyclobutane or cyclopentane rings? Only YOU can decide! #50YrsOrgGeochemGRC

Branched GDGTs win!

Semi-final 2: Crenarchaeol vs phytane. Liquid chromatography vs gas chromatography. The winner will face brGDGTs in the final. You have 24 hours to decide!! #50YrsOrgGeochemGRC

Its been a long season for phytane and they looked increasingly fatigued as the game wore on. Crenarchaeol, with its superior mass-to-charge ratio, took full advantage. A big win for the big molecule. Now onto the long-awaited final

The final: branched GDGTs vs Crenarchaeol. Bacteria vs Archaea. Terrestrial vs Marine. It’s the ‘Battle of the GDGTs’. Who will win? You have 48 hours (!) to decide! #50YrsOrgGeochemGRC

It is all over! Crenarchaeol win the 2020 Biomarker World Cup. A deserved victory. Branched GDGTs are runners-up for the second World Cup in a row. Ouch!

Thanks to everyone who participated over the last week. It was a blast! #50YrsOrgGeochemGRC @rpancost

Congratulations to crenarchaeol but also to Laura Villanueva who clearly went all out for the cause, appealing to marine deities (and the entire Archaea research community) to support the cause.  Image

 

The Origin of the Uncertain World Art

Everyone, gather round! I want to tell you how the marvelous @LucasAntics Park Row artwork came to pass!
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In 2014, Bristol was preparing to be the European Green Capital in 2015. Many great projects were envisioned, including collaborations with Bristol’s outstanding artists, like @lukejerram who created Withdrawn: lukejerram.com/withdrawn/ and many curated by @FestivalofIdeas.
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It had been about 50 years since the publication of J.G. Ballard’s iconic disaster novels, The Drowned World, The Burning World and my favourite, the surreal and biologically disturbing The Crystal World. Consequently, ideas were brainstormed around these.Image
These did not happen. That was probably for the best as no matter how brilliant and perceptive Ballard is, these novels have a very white, male, colonial perspective. Not ideal for our diverse city. But it simulated conversations. As @cabotinstitute Director, I was asked: “What will be the nature of our future world, under climate change?” And my answer was ‘An Uncertain World.’ We can predict warming & rainfall, but we are creating a world beyond all human experience. This was informed by our work on past climates. It has been about 3 million years since the Earth last had so much carbon dioxide in its atmosphere. And the rate of increase is nearly unprecedented in Earth history. For more on these, see other Uncertain World blog pages:

richpancost.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2018/08/17/evi…

richpancost.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2018/08/17/an-…

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Reconstruction of climate over the past 60 million years. The d18O values show the long-term cooling of the Earth, compared to the lower figure showing the similar long-term decline of PCO2 to levels of 270 ppm… Before the Anthropocene increase to 417 ppm.

And hence the Uncertain World.

And to visualise that, we thought it would be fascinating to juxtapose our city – specifically St Werburgh’s – with it’s ancient Mesozoic past. Flooded and thriving with plesiosaurs, ammonites and icthyosaurs. And who better than @LucasAntics?Image

And so Alex created these! Thanks to @ERC_Research and @NERCscience for helping to fund it!Image
And we all loved them so much, that we got permission to paint them on the side of the @BristolUni Drama Building!
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Learn more about Alex’s great work at her website: Visit. It. Now. And be filled with joy.

lucasantics.com

To read about what we learned about the challenges of living with Uncertainty, more relevant now than ever, go here:

richpancost.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2020/01/11/the… 

Fun fact: @DrHeatherBuss and I have all of the original artwork in our house! Including these drawings of a soon to be flooded St Werburgh’s. Views toward St Werburgh’s City Farm and Graffiti Tunnel!
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AND…. all* of the original drawings of the menagerie of critters, not all of whom made it into the art!

*All but one that we gave away to a young fan of Mary Anning!Image

Thank you for listening. I thank Alex and others for inspiring me to use some quirkiness, wonder and silliness as a gateway to the very serious conversations we must have about climate change and biodiversity loss. 💚 

Postscript: The Green Capital Year was amazing. I loved it our collaborations with artists, engaged citizen movements and innovators. But it was not as inclusive as it should have been. And from that lesson arose the Green and Black Ambassadors!

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Tackling climate change is fundamentally a question of justice

This is one of my very first blogs, co-authored with friend and colleague Patricia Lucas.  It was written for Business Fights Poverty (hence the questions at the end), and it stakes out the central themes of my research then and now: that the biggest challenge climate change poses is a world with profoundly greater uncertainty – and with that, confusion, opportunism and victimisation; and that it is the poor and vulnerable who will bear these risks.
Tackling climate change is fundamentally about justice.  About fairness. About equality.
In September 2013, the IPCC published the Fifth Annual Report on the Physical Basis of Climate Change.  It devotes little attention to the human and ecological impacts of global environmental and climatic change, topics that will be addressed by working group reports released in early 2014 .  Nonetheless, the trajectory of climate and other environmental changes and their implicit impacts on society are stark. Despite numerous treaties and efforts at mitigation, concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases continue to increase, and at greater rather than diminished rates. If those rates continue they will result in global warming of 3 to 5.5°C by 2100. This in turn, will result in dramatic changes to the global hydrological cycle, including both more evaporation and more rainfall.
A More Uncertain Climate
Flood; photo by Paul Bates

The results will be a more hostile climate for many as land can become either drier or more flood-prone or both, changes exacerbated in coastal areas by sea level rise.  Freshwater supply will also be affected by the forecast changes in climate. The quantity of water flowing in glacier or snow-melt fed river basins will change, affecting around a sixth of the world’s population[i], while coastal freshwater will be contaminated with saline water[ii]. Areas of the Mediterranean[iii], Western USA[iv], Southern Africa[v] and North Western Brazil[vi] are projected to face decreased availability of freshwater.

Key to understanding who will be affected is our ability to predict changes in rainfall, seasonality, and temperature at a regional scale.  However, regional climatic predictions are the most challenging and least certain, especially with respect to the nature and amount of rainfall. For vast parts of the world, including much of South America, Africa and SE Asia, it is unclear whether climate change will bring about wetter or drier conditions. Thus, uncertainty will become the norm: uncertainty in rainfall; uncertainty in weather extremes and seasonality; and most importantly, uncertainty in water resources.

Those combined effects lead to an additional and perhaps the most profound uncertainty for the latter half of the 21st century: uncertainty in food production and access. In the absence of other factors, climate uncertainty and more common extreme events will compromise agriculture at all scales, yielding increased food prices and increased volatility in markets.

Impacts on the Poor

Although the human impacts of climate change will be diverse, their effects will be worst for the most impoverished and, by extension, least resilient population groups.  The UN reports that climate change could “increase global malnutrition by up to 25% by 2080.”  And all of this occurs against a backdrop in which access to food is already a challenge for the poorest of the world already a challenge for the poorest of the world [p5], a situation exacerbated by the global financial crash.These risks to the poorest result from a lack of resources to mitigate harm, lack of power to protect resources, and the global competition for resources.
Those who lack the financial resources to migrate or build more hazard-resistant homes will suffer most from extreme events, as has been sharply illustrated by those suffering most in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.  Those who can least afford to dig deeper wells into more ancient aquifers as water resources diminish will go thirsty.  Subsistence farmers – and those dependent on them – are less resistant to climate shocks (desertification) and adverse weather events (flooding) than commercial farmers.
Land ownership for the poorest is often tenuous, and displacement from land a serious problem for many.  Previous switches to biofuels have led to land competition, resulting in both loss of land to subsistence [p6]  farmers, and diversion of commercial production leading to shortages [p7]  and increased food prices. Within communities, these effects are not evenly spread as marginalised groups, such as women, are the least likely to hold land tenure [p8] .  Similarly, there is increased competition for water [p9]  between peoples, but also between water for industry (including agriculture) and water for drinking. When water is scarce, pollution of fresh water is common, and governance is weak, the poorest are likely to lose out.
Food security comes in many forms, reflecting not just climate and environment but culture, politics and other social constructs. Image by Mammal Research Unit, University of Bristol

Food competition will most likely be exacerbated by other factors: rising demand from a rapidly expanding population and a growing demand for meat from a global ‘middle class’; the increased economic divide between post-industrial and developing nations; the ongoing depletion of soil nutrients and associated impacts on the nutritional value of our food.  The combination of these factors will result in profound impacts on food security. Who decides what gets grown? Who can afford it in the context of global markets and the loss of agricultural land? The poorest members of even the wealthiest societies are the most vulnerable to dramatic and unpredictable changes in food costs[p10] .

‘Wicked Problems’

These issues yield a profoundly challenging ethical issue: the wealthy who are most responsible for anthropogenic climate change, via the greatest material consumption and energy demand, have the greatest resilience to food market fluctuations and the greatest means for avoiding their most deleterious impacts.  Therefore, these issues challenge all governments to dramatically and swiftly act to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the associated climate change.
Unfortunately, many proposed mitigation strategies could also have negative consequences for food prices and availability. Increasing energy prices, such as those brought about by a carbon tax, will be passed onto food prices.  Genetically modified foods could be essential to feeding a growing population, and we would urge that future efforts expand to incorporate a greater degree of climate resilience in crops; however, the patents on those crops can make them financially inaccessible to the poorest nations or build critical dependencies.
Although sustainable agriculture and crops might reduce the impact of climate change and uncertainty in some countries, these solutions can be deleterious for the poorest.  They are more likely to live in regions and areas most negatively affected by climate change, most likely to be relying on subsistence/small scale agriculture and least likely to have access to the global market as consumers.  In other words, a stable global market will be of little direct benefit to them; in fact, most of these populations are likely to face competition for land/water use from globalised markets (for biofuels or commercial farming).  In short, what builds food resilience in one nation might be exposing the most economically vulnerable in another.
In fact, when properly mobilised for the benefit of the community, access to new energy sources – even if in the form of fossil fuels – can be transformative and facilitate the economic growth needed to access increasingly globalised food markets [p12].    Domestic access to gas reduces the need to collect wood for fires, reducing deforestation, improving air quality, and freeing up time for communities to address other development needs.
This is not an argument against mitigation of climate change, far from it!  We must continuously and aggressively try to minimise the harm that climate change will cause.  But it does need to be balanced against human development needs, and this represents one of the world’s most profound challenges. In some circles, we consider this a ‘wicked’ problem: a problem that has multiple causes, probably in interaction, and where information is incomplete, such that proposed solutions might be incomplete, contradictory, complex and work across multiple causes in complex systems.
Challenges and Opportunities

Wicked problems are not intractable, however, and previous studies of land use for biofuels provide clues as to how a complex solution could be more sustainable for all; well planned switches to biofuels which consider local custom in land tenure can provide more land for agriculture, and reduce deforestation pressure.

In such situations, we argue, solutions which focus on halting or slowing climate change alone, and then coping with the business and development problems that they might create answer the wrong question.  Our challenge to the business (and academic) community, then, is to engage with some wicked questions:

  • What are the business opportunities in improving the social and physical environment?
  • Can the global agricultural system be a single resilient network, rather than a competition?
  • What technology or innovation is needed to support a resilient food network?
  • How can innovative solutions to these challenges generate local income, allowing reinvestment in education and development?
These are difficult questions but they also represent opportunities for development and growth in poor communities.  A world with increasing environmental uncertainty is a challenge for both businesses and vulnerable communities.  But it could also be a shared opportunity for growth and development: to innovate and identify new solutions, to co-invest in local resilience and risk reduction, and to share the growth that arises from more stable communities.

[i] Z Kundzewicz, L Mata, N Arnell, P Doll, P Kabat, K Jimenez, K Miller, T Oki, Z Sen & I Shiklomanov, Freshwater Resources and their Manegemtn. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaption and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press2007
[ii] R Buddemeier, S Smith, S Swaaney & C Crossland, The Role of the Coastal Ocean in the Disturbed and Undisturbed Nutrient and Carbon Cycles,  LOICZ Reports and Studies Series2002, 84
[iii] P Etchevers, C Golaz, F Habets & J Noilhan, Impact of a Climate Change on the Rhone River Catchment Hydrology,Journal of Geophysical Research2002, 4293
[iv] J Kim, T Kim, R Arritt & N Miller, Impacts of Increased CO2 on the Hydroclimate of the Western United States, Journal of Climate2002, 1926
[v] M Hulme, R Doherty & T Ngara, African Climate Change, Climate Research2001, 145
[vi] J Christensen, B Hewitson, A Busuioc, A Chen, X Gao, I Held, R Jones, R Kolli, W Kwon, R Laprise, V Magana Rueda, L Mearns, C Menendez, J Raisanen, A Rinke, A Sarr & P Whetton, Regional Climate Change, The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,2007, 847
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This blog is written by Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute and Dr Patricia Lucas, School for Policy Studies, both at University of Bristol.
Dr Patricia Lucas
Prof Rich Pancost
This blog has kindly been reproduced from the Business Fights Poverty blog.

Ancient global warming caused extreme rainfall events

Some reflections by my co-authors and me on our recent paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, showing that ancient global warming was associated with an increase in the number of extreme rainfall events and this had a profound impact on the land and coastal seas.

The Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which occurred about 56 Million years ago, is of great interest to climate scientists because it represents a relatively rapid global warming event, with some similarities to the human-induced warming of today.  Although there have been many investigations of how much the Earth warmed at the PETM (about 5 to 8C), there have been relatively few studies of how that changed the hydrological cycle.  This newly published work shows that rainfall increased in some places and decreased in others, according to expectations, but that much of the world experienced more intense and episodic (or ‘flashy’) rainfall events.

Lead author Matt Carmichael (School of Chemistry and School of Geographical Sciences) explained: ‘With the same climate models used to study future climate change, we studied how a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations would affect rainfall patterns on a world with Eocene geography. This increased the overall global precipitation – warmer air holds more water.  But it also changed the pattern and frequency of extreme events.  The tropics became wetter and the incidence of extreme events increased, by as much as 70% in some tropical regions. In other places, total annual precipitation and the number of extreme events became decoupled; in other words, those areas became drier, with less frequent but more extreme events.  All of this illustrates the complexity of how global warming will affect our local, regional and global rainfall patterns.’

Co-author Professor Rich Pancost (School of Earth Sciences), explained how these findings agree with a range of geological and chemical features of the Palaeocene-Eocene global warming: ‘This warming event is associated with major changes in how soil and sediment were eroded and moved around the landscape.  In many places, river systems that had been transporting silt or sand became associated with fist-sized rocks or even boulders; and more sediment was transported to and buried in coastal margins. In some locations, the rate of sediment accumulation increased by a factor of ten. But at the same time, there is also evidence that these systems became more arid.  Our climate simulations reconcile this; many locations do experience an increase in aridity but also more intense rainfall events.  Those events were likely responsible for increased energy in these systems, moving around more material and larger objects. Ultimately it flushed more sediment to the ocean, causing eutrophication, blooms of algae and in some cases hypoxia.’ [Analogous but less severe than Oceanic Anoxic Events.]

Photo of the Claret Conglomerate by Rob Duller, University of Liverpool.  I wrote about this here: “In central Spain, outcropping on dusty hillsides overlooking apparently endless miles of gnarled olive trees, is the Esplugafreda Formation. The Formation consists of hundreds of metres of rusty-coloured palaeosols and the remains of ancient channels, part of a more-than-55-million-year-old braided river system. What is particularly striking about these rocks is that atop them sits the Claret Conglomerate, a unit not of silt, sand and ancient soil, but of pebbles, fist-sized stones and even boulders. These stones are part of the same river system but were deposited under conditions with far more energy: the Conglomerate represents a relatively transient moment in Earth history of remarkably intense rainfall events. And these events were probably caused by ancient global warming.”

Co-author Professor Dan Lunt (School of Geographical Sciences) elaborated on this: ‘There are many similar events in Earth history, where warming appears to have been associated with changes in rainfall and sedimentary systems.  Although we have not investigated them here, it is very likely that our results are translatable – because the physics that underpins them remains the same.  Thus, the collective body of research confirms that global warming in the past and the future will be associated with more ‘flashy’ rainfall, with implications for flooding and water management.’

Professor Pancost elaborated: ‘Past climate has lessons for our future.  Not only do the models show evidence for more intense rainfall events – with all of the associated implications – but they are consistent with all of our other data. In fact, they explain inconsistencies in our other data and confirm some long-established hypotheses. In doing so, they foreshadow our potential future with complex and dramatic changes in rainfall, more flooding and more soil erosion.’

Response of the hydrological cycle to doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations:

Fig. 2

From the paper: Figure a shows the expected impact of a doubling of CO2 on global precipitation patterns – dry areas get drier and wet areas get wetter. However, (b) shows that the number of actual precipitation events decreases almost everywhere.  Both (c) and (d) show different mathematical expressions of ‘extreme’ events, and both show that nearly global increase in the number of extreme events.

The article is: Carmichael, M., Pancost, R.D. and Lunt, D.J. (2018) Changes in the occurrence of extreme precipitation events at the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum.  Earth and Planetary Science Letters 501, 24-36.

It is available here: https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0012821X18304643