Beth Hall, director of the nine-state Midwestern Regional Climate Center, will talk about the center and its work from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. today (May 7) in 130 Research Services Building, OARDC, 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster. A live video link of her presentation also can be viewed in 333C Kottman Hall, 2021 Coffey Road, on Ohio State’s Columbus campus. The Champaign, Ill.-based center works to continuously monitor the region’s climate and to assess changing climate trends and impacts. OARDC is CFAES’s research arm. Information: kinney.63@osu.edu. (Photo: MRCC.)
Month: May 2014
Report: Climate change affecting every U.S. region, key parts of economy
The White House on Tuesday released its third National Climate Assessment. The bottom line? “Global climate is changing and this is apparent across the United States in a wide range of observations,” the report says. “The global warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human activities, predominantly the burning of fossil fuels.” Read the full report here. “Climate change is not a distant threat,” John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a CNN story yesterday. “It already is affecting every region of the country and key sectors of the economy.”
‘We have this tremendous potential for reimagining how the land is used’
Mark your calendar: Free screening of urban farming film
CFAES’s outreach arm, OSU Extension, in June will host a free screening of the documentary “Growing Cities: A Film About Urban Farming in America.”
Ohio State-led food security project wins Emerging International Engagement Award
Ohio State’s Office of Outreach and Engagement on May 1 presented the university’s 2014 Emerging International Engagement Award to iAGRI, the Innovative Agricultural Research Initiative. The award was given during the annual Outreach and Engagement Recognition Ceremony at the Ohio Union in Columbus.
Administered by CFAES’s Office of International Programs in Agriculture, iAGRI is a five-year food security project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and is a major Feed the Future project in Tanzania. Ohio State leads five other U.S. land-grant institutions in the effort to build the long-term training and research capacity of Sokoine University of Agriculture and Tanzania’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives. Mark Erbaugh, director of International Programs in Agriculture, and Dave Hansen, iAGRI project coordinator, gratefully accepted the award.
Pictured at the ceremony are, from left, Peter Magrath, former president of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities; Valerie Lee, Ohio State’s vice president for outreach and engagement; Erbaugh; Hansen; and Kelechi Kalu, the university’s associate provost for global strategies and international affairs.
Sustainability gets posterized (in a good way)
Butanol production. Biobased polyurethane production. Farming practices’ impact on (mostly helpful) soil invertebrates. Domestic rubber from guayule and Buckeye Gold dandelions. Lots of sustainability-related efforts took honors when CFAES’s research arm, OARDC, announced the winners of its 2014 research poster competition for graduate students and staff. (Photo: K.D Chamberlain.)
Study finds big link between state renewable energy standards, lower carbon emissions
New research by a former CFAES graduate student and a professor in the college finds that state-level implementation of renewable portfolio standards (RPS) in the U.S. reduced national carbon emissions by 4 percent in 2010, with more substantial cuts expected in the future. Read the story.
Fish farm facility to offer free tours; first one is Friday, May 2
CFAES’s Ohio Center for Aquaculture Research and Development, located at the Ohio State University South Centers in Piketon, is offering free monthly tours of its facilities, including its fish hatchery. New, beginning and experienced fish farmers, and anyone else interested in fish farming, are welcome. “Aquaculture,” says a webpage by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “is currently playing, and will continue to play, a big part in boosting global fish production and in meeting rising demand for fishery products.” (Photo: USDA.)
Global Innovation Initiative grant has CFAES, sustainability connections
Ohio State will partner with universities in the UK, Brazil and China on three grants awarded by the Global Innovation Initiative, a new program funded by the U.S. and UK governments, and one of the three involves both sustainability (new ways to recycle polymers?) and CFAES scientists. Go here and scroll down to the second bullet to learn more.