Can feeding pomegranate peel to cows reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

February 23, 2022 by Puchun Niu

Is climate change real? A couple of years ago, when I first came to Norway, winter was a fun season. In winter, much of Norway usually transformed into a snow-clad paradise. This meant I could go skiing nearly every day in the snow-covered field right next to the campus. However, it is oddly enough that there has not been much snow falling in the last few years. It has got me thinking whether this climate phenomenon is a result of global warming due to the increase of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As an animal nutritionist, I have been thinking about what we can do to reduce the GHG emissions from large animals such as dairy cows. Would feeding pomegranate peel to cows reduce greenhouse gas emissions and valorize a food industry by-product?

A Clear and Present Danger: Climate Change and Disrupted Lives

Cebu, Philippines

February 07, 2022 by Joan Oñate Narciso

When we were younger, I remember our parents telling us not to bathe in the first rain of the rainy season, for the simple reason that the first rain would be polluted. Back then, summer was strictly from January to June, and rainy season was from July to December. Even the sky, the clouds, and the weather respected this. Summer meant mangoes and month-long school breaks, whilst the rainy season meant the coming of typhoons and the start of school. I remember that the Philippines once had an alphabetical list of female names to call the annual typhoons: Auring (from Aurora), Juaning (from Juana), Rosing (from Rosa)... According to practice, the names for particularly destructive and deadly typhoons were retired from use to prevent psychological trauma for typhoon survivors. As the years passed, however, the delineation between summer and rainy season became more obscure. Typhoons started appearing even during the summer months, and places and regions in the Philippines where the annual typhoons did not normally visit, such as in the Southern Philippines, were now not spared from the brunt of the annual typhoons. What is worse, the annual typhoons became stronger, much stronger. And more destructive. The culprit? Climate change.

How to sustainably adapt to climatic changes?

Suryalila Retreat Centre

January 27, 2022 by Anna Siegert

It is summer 2021. A hot time of the year to be in the south of Spain. Especially this year. Record-breaking high temperatures of more than 45 degrees Celsius are expected in the Andalusian region. The state recommends staying inside as much as possible. This is nothing new for its inhabitants. They are used to dry and hot summers. And it seems that nature is, too. Brown hills as far as the eye can see. Green colors only appear in winter and spring, just as the first rains arrive. But they do appear, even if this seems impossible that time of the year.

Behavioral economic aspects of agricultural climate change mitigation

Zurich

November 24, 2021 by Cordelia Kreft

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production (mainly methane and nitrous oxide) is crucial for achieving international mitigation targets. Many studies have shown that agriculture indeed has large potential for effective emissions reduction. However, quite some uncertainty remains as to the exact reduction potential of single mitigation measures in crop production and livestock farming. This is partly due to the fact that agriculture is dependent on natural conditions and there can be many (sometimes not foreseeable) interactions within the ecosystems involved. Some mitigation measures can also lead to a conflict of different policy goals, e.g. in terms of other pollutants or animal welfare. Moreover, there is large heterogeneity of mitigation costs and reduction potential of single farms and consequently of farmers’ adoption of measures. Here is where my doctoral thesis in the Agricultural Economics and Policy Group (AECP) at ETH Zurich comes in.