Bees and bilinguals and big massive update

Its been such a busy few months since the Chagos story that I've not had time to update these pages.

At the start of March I published, a short item tracking the further inevitable rise in fish farming: Green.view Depths of bounty More people eating more fish means more farming Mar 2nd 2009 Web only

Then came this counter-intuitive piece suggesting there may be a glut of bees in California this spring. I was surprised to learn that a large chunk of the country's agricultural bees are shipped to California each year for the almond harvest, and there being lower demand for almonds this year and also less water there were too many bees. I was amazed to discover a category of job called a "pollination broker" who negotiates between almond growers and beekeepers. The whole story also shed light on the idea that trouble with these agricultural bees is actually indicative of a broader problem with pollinators at large. That isn't to say that there is no global pollination crisis, only that the highs and lows of the agricultural bee population isn's a meaningful indicator given the lack of data on wild pollinator populations.

The bees are back in town
The economic crisis has contributed to a glut of bees in California. That raises questions about whether a supposed global pollination crisis is real
Mar 5th 2009

A few days later, and I was taking a trip to the utterly amazing Santa Cruz island off the coast of California to give a presentation to scientists from The Nature Conservancy about how to communicate with journalists. A couple of days spent on this stunning and extremely pristine bit of nature was well worth the lurching, nausea inducing, two-hour ride over. The journey isn't that long if the boat goes direct, but sorry to say that there was the opportunity to do a bit of whale watching if one wasn't retching at the back of the boat.

I was transfixed by Santa Cruz island and wrote this little item:

Green.view Point, shoot and save
Like nature, conservation can be red in tooth and claw
Mar 16th 2009

Also, these days we are now all multi-media journalists. I took my trip to the island armed with a flashmic and instructions to collect "actuality", so I also recorded material that was mixed into a couple of podcasts by our inhouse audio team. I'm told it turned out well but I'm ashamed to say that I find the whole process of listening to my own voice rather too excruciating, so I've not listened to find out ]whether it was any good. Should you be inclined to listen to this sort of thing, I'll post a link here later when the economist's creaking website can be induced to cough one up.

Meanwhile, in April brought a couple more green stories. The green.view on environmental values published last Monday was one of the most well-read pieces today, according to our web poll. Thank you to the media people at the World Bank for making their webcast available to me so that I could cover their meeting on environmental valuation.

Biofools
Farming biofuels produces nitrous oxide. This is bad for climate change
Apr 8th 2009

Green.view Environmental values
How to ensure the environment is properly accounted for
Apr 13th 2009

Finally, I wrote this nice little story, just a journal story from PNAS that I thought deserved a little attention.

Twice blessed
Bilingual babies are precocious decision-makers
Apr 16th 2009

This week I'm working on a story on John Maddox, which is a tough thing to do in the wake of all the amazing obituaries, and export control (which is far less dull and nerdy than it sounds).

Other news, although I'm not sure this is still news, is that I'm going to be the next chair of the Association of British Science Writers. The handover, from the current chair Ted Nield, will be at start of the World Conference of Science Journalists at the end of June.

Other science-journalism-related news is that Oliver Morton is leaving Nature, and rejoining The Economist as our energy and environment person. Welcome back Ollie!

Ocean blues on the Chagos Islands

I picked up a big scoop at the end of last week on plans to turn the Chagos Islands into a giant marine reserve, which was published on our website on Monday. Our PR people tipped off the Telegraph and the Independent in exchange for a mention of Economist.com. You can see the results below.

The Economist story is here:

Green.view: Ocean blues
A new conservation plan for the Chagos Islands
Feb 9th 2009 Web only

Other outlets:

The Daily Telegraph – ‘Turn disputed Chagos Islands into marine reserve, say conservationists’
William Marsden, chairman of the Chagos Conservation Trust, told Economist.com that the 250,000 square mile reserve would be "in the big league". He said: "It is going to be compatible with defence and do something for the Chagossians".

The Independent– ‘Giant marine park plan for Chagos’
A Foreign Office spokesman told Economist.com that the Government "welcomes and encourages recognition of the global environmental importance of the British Indian Ocean Territory", adding that it would "work with the international environmental and scientific community to develop further the preservation of the unique environment".

Blog coverage linking to Economist.com

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009410.html

http://www.rosecolorednews.com/2009/02/10/the-politics-of-respecting-humans-and-protecting-the-oceans/

http://aidresources.theroadtothehorizon.org/post/77043756/the-politics-of-respecting-humans-and-protecting-the

Blog coverage linking to The Independent or The Daily Telegraph

http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=117823

http://wildsingaporenews.blogspot.com/2009/02/giant-marine-park-plan-for-chagos.html

http://www.naider.com/noticias/detalle.asp?id=7311

http://www.naider.com/noticias/detalle.asp?id=7311b

http://www.popmartian.com/politrix/2009/02/giant-marine-park-plan-for-chagos/

http://digg.com/environment/Giant_marine_park_plan_for_Chagos_Nature_Independent_co

http://hihiscience.blogspot.com/2009/02/environmentalists-demanded-to-make.html

http://dillidreams.com/latest-news/ocean-blues/

http://content.usatoday.com/topics/article/Natural+and+Physical+Sciences/Environment/Royal+Society/082VcQe1Z13cF/1

http://www.newstin.co.uk/tag/uk/103068262

Unfinished business

For Darwin's anniversary we published a three page essay about why his revolution in thought was unfinished. This essay was drafted last year, and at the time had rather a different ending. It basically aired the same point argued by Stephen Jay Gould, that life is just an accident and if you replayed evolution with just a few things different, the outcome (humans, for example) would be different.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to a science breakfast with Prospect magazine towards the end of the year with a number of other science journalists and writers. We were asked to talk about some of the ideas we thought were important over the following twelve months and I explained what I had in mind for the Darwin anniversary. Alun Anderson, the former editor of New Scientist, was also at this breakfast. He asked me if I had read Simon Conway Morris's book. I had not. He said that Conway Morris has a very different idea about how evolution works.

I followed this tip up, and picked up a copy of the 2003 book: Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe. I will not tell you a lie and say that I have read all of it, but the parts I have paint an exciting and new picture of how evolution might work. I revised the Darwin piece to take account of this new idea, and The Economist asked Professor Conway Morris to record an audio interview. I heartily recommend the podcast. If you have even a passing interest in evolution, Professor Conway Morris is a fascinating individual.

I've also got a couple of broadcasts coming up on Marketplace, a programme on American Public Media, on the subject of Darwinism, business and the markets.


Updated 13th February, 2009: Marketplace broadcast: Why the markets are not Darwinian.

Unfinished business
Charles Darwin’s ideas have spread widely, but his revolution is not yet complete. Feb 5th 2009

Podcast with Simon Conway Morris, a paleontologist from the University of Cambridge.

Daily chart, belief in evolution.

PETA's dangerous new campaign

Just hot off the press, this story has just gone live about PETA's campaign to rebrand fish as cute and cuddly, and what it means for children's health. I'm expecting one or two comments on this story.

Green.view: Deep-fried kittens

Jan 26th 2009
PETA's dangerous new campaign

PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS (PETA) claims 2m “members and supporters”, making it the world’s largest animal-rights organisation.

Much of its popularity likely derives from some important work it has done improving the welfare of farm and research animals around the world. But there is another side to animal-rights organisations. Many of them, PETA included, advocate that animals should not be regarded as property (no pets), and should not be used for food (even milk, honey and fish are out), clothing or research. Those who take such a hardline view are a distinct minority. (More...)

Rethinking tropical destruction

A debate has emerged about the true extent of biodiversity loss on the planet within the Smithsonian. This is because secondary growth forests turn out to be far better homes for biodiversity than had been thought.

Second life

Jan 15th 2009
Biologists debate the scale of extinction in the world’s tropical forests

A RARE piece of good news from the world of conservation: the global extinction crisis may have been overstated. The world is unlikely to lose 100 species a day, or half of all species in the lifetime of people now alive, as some have claimed. The bad news, though, is that the lucky survivors are tiny tropical insects that few people care about. The species that are being lost rapidly are the large vertebrates that conservationists were worried about in the first place. (more...)

Reader Ranko Bon, in Croatia, asks "One wonders whether biodiversity can be meaningfully measured in percentages though."

Also see these two related reports at Scidevnet. The second piece talks about the biodiversity value of agriculture, which was another theme in a recent biodiversity meeting at the Smithsonian, and in a previous piece in The Economist about the value of betel nut plantations.

One picture that is emerging from many of the ongoing discussions is that protecting biodiversity requires landscape-level management, where you plan your protected areas, buffer zones where sympathetic agriculture happens, biodiversity corridors and stepping stones to allow species to move from one part of the landscape to another. A stepping stone is a series of pieces of habitat that let airborne animals move from one piece of habitat to another.


'Comeback' forests rich in biodiversity, say scientists. Tropical forests that grow back following deforestation are unexpectedly rich in plant and animal life that can help conservation efforts.

Traditional coffee farms 'improve tree biodiversity'. Shade-grown coffee farms are rich in native tree species and are important corridors of genetic diversity linking forests, say researchers.

Mars rising, and the moon on the wane

Its been a good few months before we reminded the world just what a waste of money NASA's human spaceflight programme is and how there are better ways to explore.


Mars rising?

Jan 22nd 2009

Why NASA should give up its ambitions to send men into space

AS LONG as people have looked up at the night sky, they have wondered whether humanity is alone in the universe. Of places close enough for people to visit, Mars is the only one that anybody seriously thinks might support life. The recent confirmation of a five-year-old finding that there is methane in the Martian atmosphere has therefore excited the hopes of exobiologists—particularly as the sources of three large plumes of the gas now seem to have been located. These sources are probably geological but they might, just, prove to be biological.

The possibility of life on Mars is too thrilling for mankind to ignore. But how should we explore such questions—with men, or machines? Since America is the biggest spender in space, its approach will heavily influence the world’s. George Bush’s administration strongly supported manned exploration, but the new administration is likely to have different priorities—and so it should. ... (More)

Out with the old, and in with the new

This is our first full week back at Economist towers. Last week we ran a weirdly stunted issue, very short on pages and very short on time to produce it. The entire issue was put together on a single day at the end of December, in order to avoid the bank holiday shut downs at various printing presses.

So everyone is back this week and it is a struggle to get into the editor's office for the Monday morning meeting. The talk is of recession, stimulus, manufacturing, Obama, and of course Gaza, Gaza, Gaza.

Over in the science section, we don't often have much to contribute on such worldly and weighty matters, but this week I wrote a lead note looking at Obama's science appointments and what they signal for the new administration. The bottom line is that Obama will be taking scientific information seriously, and it will become an important part of policy making. There will always be a tension between politics and science, but acknowledging the existence of data is a good start.

Looking ahead, if science is now part of policy making this will inevitably raise the profile of scientific information more generally, as well as scientists and science news.

If politicians are asking about what the science says when they form policy, it also means that when scientists discover, invent or achieve things people will also ask well if this is the science, what should the policy be?

While journalists are keenly aware of self-censorship, having a US president that refused to accept scientific data within the context of many an argument could not help but shift the news agenda. Science correspondents and journalists had less to contribute because the arguments were drawn on political lines rather than scientific ones. So for years the arguments about climate change have been booted into the political realm. Reports, facts, scientists have been suppressed. And it is very difficult to report on what isn't there.

Hopefully times are changing. That doesn't necessarily mean that scientists are going to get everything their way. If they assume that, they are in for a big disappointment. Scientific fact is only part of policy making. And there are probably some profound shakeups coming in research funding, as priorities change and economic hard times bite.

But arguing over scientific facts will be so much more satisfying. I am looking forward to 2009.


Blessed are the geeks, for they shall inherit the Earth

Barack Obama is making good his promise to welcome scientists into his administration
Jan 8th 2009


My second story takes a brief look at the new marine reserves announced by Bush. For a fuller take on this story, check out the weekend edition of The Economist website. Next week's green.view will take a look at green New Year's resolutions.


Green Bush

The departing president tries to burnish his environmental halo
Jan 8th 2009