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MANAGING THE MELTDOWN

Despite all the bad news—global warming, anyone?—MELINDA MULLEN learned that Ohio State scientists aren’t giving up on old Mother Earth.

With nothing less than the future at stake, Ohio State and its researchers are betting their talents and $22 million on being able to save the planet. That’s how much money the ambitious Climate, Water, and Carbon Program has been allocated through the university’s new Targeted Investment in Excellence initiative.

Overall, 10 programs will receive a total of $100 million in TIE funds. “In terms of impact and world change, the Climate, Water, and Carbon Program is probably the most important one,” said Barbara Snyder, Ohio State’s executive vice president and provost. “It addresses issues . . . that are critical to our environmental health.”

It’s doing that by tapping the  personnel, brain power, and other resources of three colleges—Mathematical and Physical Sciences; Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences; and Social and Behavioral Sciences—along with the university’s Byrd Polar Research Center and John Glenn School of Public Affairs.

In their proposal for TIE funding submitted last year, deans Richard Freeman, Bobby Moser, and Paul Beck noted that “key systems” that support life on Earth “are being rapidly pushed beyond their past ranges in response to a growing human footprint.” To address that, the deans said, scientists with the Climate, Water, and Carbon Program would ponder three related questions:

• Does human intervention have the potential to push the climate system such that abrupt changes become more frequent, intense, and rapid?
• Do we have enough surface water to maintain society?
• How is the carbon cycle being disrupted by human activities, and how can the cycle be re-balanced?

Here are some of the ways scientists and other experts are looking for answers:

CLIMATE PROJECTIONS
An internationally acclaimed team from Ohio State has been studying indicators ranging from ice cores and corals to ocean and lake sediments. In one long-term project, Lonnie Thompson of the Byrd Polar Research Center and colleagues are assessing the rate of water change on Africa’s highest peak, Kilimanjaro. The team has studied  the mountain for decades, using solar ice drills invented at Ohio State.

Thompson believes Kilimanjaro’s famed glaciers will be gone by 2015—or sooner. “It’s a done deal,” he said.  “The goal now is to determine how quickly the meltdown will occur, and how to reduce its impact on the millions of people who depend on [the mountain’s] ice packs for their water supply.”

Next, the scientists will use satellite monitoring to gauge water supplies in  the Andes and the Himalayas. They also plan to conduct studies in the Ohio River basin on the effects of abrupt climate change. Plus, they want to look at how public policies and society in general may have to adapt to cope with those effects. That’s one way experts from the John Glenn School of Public Affairs will contribute to the project’s multidisciplinary approach.

WATER, WATER—NOT EVERYWHERE
Just as the world’s supply of oil is dwindling, water is primed to be the next scarce, coveted resource. Thompson explained: “Glaciers modulate the water supply. Now that glaciers are disappearing, people will have to fill that role. We have to find out how abrupt the changes will be, how people can adjust to different methods of water distribution and other changes, and how to minimize the impact of these changes.” For example, Thompson believes that in earthquake-prone areas, small dams could be used to regulate seasonal water supplies without the dangers created by larger dams.

Several key water projects are under way:

• A team of hydrologists and civil engineers led by Doug Alsdorf of the School of Earth Sciences is seeking answers to two questions: where does water go, and how long is it in transit?
• Thompson and colleagues are collaborating with China’s new Insti-tute of the Tibetan Plateau Research. Thompson finds hope in that country’s investments in environmental issues, even though the current warp-speed industrialization is wreaking havoc on air and water quality.
• “China is creating three new canals to move water from the Yangtze River basin in the south to the Yellow River basin in the north, and is building two new universities to study only the environment,” he said. “They have not made the heavy investments in fossil fuel–dependent technologies that we have, so they have a greater opportunity to invest in alternative energy.”
• Also overseas, William Mitsch, director of the Olentangy River Wetland Research Park at Ohio State, is leading research projects in Costa Rica and Botswana. Among them: evaluating the use of wetlands for wastewater treatment and flood prevention.
• Rattan Lal, who directs the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, is working with three institutions in India on ways to improve the quality of water and how efficiently it’s used on farmlands.
• Back in Ohio, scientists are puzzling out how to prevent floods and enhance water quality in the state’s wetlands and watersheds.

One effort involves the Sugar Creek watershed in Wayne and Holmes counties, considered the second most degraded watershed in Ohio. Sugar Creek is a headwaters of the Muskingum River, which drains about one-fourth of the state. Ohio State scientists have teamed with farming communities in the two counties with the goal of improving water quality as well as maintaining economic viability in the area.

And there’s a trickle-down effect: beginning this fall, thanks to additional funding from the National Science Foundation, members of the research team will mentor graduate fellows, who in turn will collaborate with teachers and students in several local school districts, including Amish schools, to develop and teach a curriculum based on watershed science.
 
“Just like everything else we do in the Sugar Creek project, this will be a grassroots effort,” said Richard Moore, an associate professor in the Department of Human and Community Resource Development. “In the case of the Amish schools, for example, we will adapt the curriculum to reflect their approach to education and their values.”

Moore stressed that Ohio’s schools are under pressure to improve science proficiency. Ohio State president Karen Holbrook recently co-chaired an advisory group that made clear the urgent need for stronger math and science education—a crucial part of the picture if Ohio expects to attract and retain businesses and skilled workers.

A CARBON CIVILIZATION
When you talk about water, you’re also talking about soil, because water finds its way into the soil. According to Lal, carbon—and the water affected by it—is the Big Issue.

“We’re a carbon civilization,” he said. “We’re hooked on carbon—in our homes, in transportation, in our food supplies. A hundred years from now, people will look at us and say, ‘They were so primitive.’ We must become de-carbonized, which requires change.”

Some 3.5 billion tons of carbon is absorbed into the atmosphere annually, Lal said. He believes a multipronged strategy could reduce that amount. Sequestration—the storing of carbon in plants and soil to reduce or slow its buildup in the atmosphere—is the key.

One culprit is plowing. Every year, farmers plow about 370 million acres, destroying the soil’s ability to sequester carbon. About 90 million of those plowed acres—one-eighth of the world’s agricultural land—are in the United States, Argentina, Australia, and Canada. If those countries would use a no-till technique instead of traditional plowing, it would sequester 1 billion tons of carbon.

The world loses 32 million acres of forests each year. A billion tons of carbon could be sequestered by planting 520 million acres of trees in the tropics. Fifteen rain forest nations have proposed a plan for industrialized nations to pay them to protect their forests, an idea endorsed by the World Bank and the United Nations.

Lal added that the carbon sequestered in soils and trees can  be traded as a farm commodity on the Chicago Climate Exchange, providing another income stream for land managers and farmers. Ohio State economists will be studying the intricacies of carbon trading as part of the Climate, Water, and Carbon Program.

• Another billion tons of carbon could be handled if the 20 percent emission cap proposed this year in George Bush’s State of the Union speech were implemented, Lal said. Ohio State scientists and the organization Green Energy Ohio are collab-orating on projects to demonstrate the viability of alternative energy. Other carbon initiatives are up and running. Among them:
• A plan to use plantings and carbon monitoring to restore the landscape in Iceland, where erosion and denudation have swept away the once-plentiful grasses and forests.
• A win-win mine reclamation project in which coal companies pay farmers for replanting land. Lal and colleagues also are monitoring soil reclamation of mine lands dating to the 1950s, and collaborating with mining companies to come up with more efficient techniques.
• A search for an alternative biofuel feedstock, the material used by the ethanol industry. Lal testified in Congress recently on the matter. “It takes more energy to create corn ethanol than the process creates, and cellulosic ethanol doesn’t sequester carbon in the soil,” he explained. Lal prefers switchgrass, poplar, willow, and other crops that can be efficiently produced on energy plantations.
• “Ethanol is another stop-gap measure,” he added. “It’s designed to buy us some time to explore other energy sources.”

SHOW ’EM THE MONEY
What would it take to turn things around? Just about any environmental scientist would tell you: “political will.” Only governments can make significant changes fast. Before your optimism fades, remember: governments listen to the economy, and only sustainable resources can deliver sustainable economies.

Andrew Keeler, director of the John Glenn School of Public Affairs, and his team of economists are studying issues related to the business side of environmental policy. The truth is, if saving the planet meant cutting profits and destroying economies, we could say goodbye to Mother Earth. The good news: it doesn’t. And businesses are beginning to get the message. While many corporations used to pay lip service to earth stewardship, they are now finding good reasons to walk the talk. Technology has made corporate activities transparent to the consumers whose brand loyalty they need. Increasing regulations, insurability, and the rising costs of raw materials provide further incentives. Always risk-averse, investors, too, are concerned about sustainability. In short, green business  is becoming profitable.
 
SAVE THE EARTH
Understanding and solving such a complex series of interconnected problems will take the expertise, hard work, and courage of millions of people around the world. Through its Climate, Water, and Carbon Program, Ohio State is bringing its resources as a major research institution to the task. The goal is to find innovative, sustainable solutions to one of the most profound threats our planet has ever known. 
Learn more:  oaa.osu.edu/documents/CWCproposal

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MIRKO ILIC.

Story originally published in the May/June 2007 issue of Ohio State Alumni Magazine. The magazine is a benefit of membership in the Ohio State Alumni Association.