By Sonia A. Hall Managing manure is a big part of what goes on at the “back end” of a dairy. Doing it well is important to avoid impacts on surrounding neighbors due to odors, impacts on air and water quality, or the release of unnecessary amounts of greenhouse gases such as methane or nitrous […]
By: Brooke Saari “No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow” Proverb from Guinea Winter is in its final stages and spring is knocking on our door. As a Florida native living in Washington, I for one am ready for some sunshine, flowers and warmth! While I dream of that glorious spring, […]
By Liz Allen Back in March of 2016, a group of agriculture sector stakeholders– including researchers, policy makers and producers– met in Tri-Cities, Washington, for the Agriculture in a Changing Climate Workshop. The three-day workshop was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Northwest Climate Hub and National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Facilitators from […]
By: John Stevenson Reprinted From: The Climate CIRCulator YOU’VE PROBABLY SEEN the charts from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. For the past seventy years, the observatory has been monitoring atmospheric carbon dioxide levels (CO2). Along with revealing how this important greenhouse gas has grown steadily year after year, the observatory’s month-by-month data has also […]
By Liz Allen These days I call the Northeast home, but my research is planted solidly in the Pacific Northwest. Trips west always involve a flurry of meetings with colleagues in Washington and Idaho and visits to my family in Oregon. My most recent visit began with lambing season at my brother’s farm in the […]
By Sonia A. Hall I’m not very good at telling people what they should do (my sons excepted, as I’m sure they’ll be happy to tell you). However, I am by nature a problem-solver, so I can’t help but get excited about things—ideas, tools, practices, approaches—that have the potential to solve multiple problems at the […]
By: Sonia A. Hall We have just wrapped up 2015, a year where we discussed agriculture’s contributions to a changing climate, and what the sector suggests for solving the problem. We’ve had lots of discussion about drought, dust bowls, water shortage, heat stress, changes in the growing season, and other signs of what’s to come. […]
By CIRCulator Editorial Staff Reprinted from: The Climate CIRCulator FORESTS’ ABILITY to “breathe in” carbon dioxide (CO2) is widely understood to act as a kind of offset or buffer to human-caused climate change. Put simply, forests are essentially picking up the slack—at least some of it—for our heavy carbon-emitting lifestyles. However, forests’ capacity to act […]
By Liz Allen No one can definitively predict how human behavior and decision-making will affect greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale. Considering human actions, however, is key to understanding what future climate change impacts may occur. This is why developing scenarios based on a range of different storylines about how society might change in […]
By Chad Kruger Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability Anaerobic digestion (AD) with methane capture and conversion is the most straight-forward, bankable strategy for reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, it is the only agricultural carbon mitigation strategy that has achieved wide-spread acceptance in a variety of voluntary and mandatory carbon mitigation policies. […]
