Video
Climate of Doubt | FRONTLINE | PBS
53 mins.
Transcript:
Transcript | Climate of Doubt | FRONTLINE | PBS
Like what these clowns say is 'just' 'the Theory evolution', this is just another
political position for them.
Pandering to Red State politicos.
This is like a sporting event for low brows.
The fact:
Just a political position while there are concerns that global climate change may harm bacteria. A certain kind of bacteria named cyanobacteria that can photosynthesize thereby making other also useful bacteria dependent on them (i.e., King bacteria?). Two of such cyanobacteria exist, but the one named M. Vaginatus is special since it helps with fertility (hence the name?) on soil and develops a crust that prevents erosion (Garcia-Pichel et al, 2013).
The thing is M. Vaginatus does not tolerates too much heat! Hence there could be global changes on soil (i.e., our food) also if temperature goes up. These concerns related to what we may or may not eat in the future are real potential developments while some political parties treat it as a political "position" instead!
Ironically this threat to our food due to climate change finding comes along right with the breakthrough to stop Ug99 wheat stem rust pathogen (i.e., fungal pathogen). Plant pathology scientists have found a gene named Sr35 that can now trigger awareness in wheat towards the threat that the fungi is taking over them and cause the plants to react defensively against the fungi. This will boost food supply for our increasingly growing worldwide populations (Saintenac et al, 2013).
So what you have is a threat to the soil due to temperature dependent bacteria that promote the soils fertility like M. Vaginatus (so easy to remember this name), while you have protection against fungi in wheat development on the other hand. You may prioritize between these developments which one should stand as first area of serious engagement. After all what good is protection from fungi if both fungi and wheat may not be raised due to lack of M. Vaginatus to fertilize the soil and stop erosion, right?
Hence may lack enough food if the climate disturbs M. Vaginatus. But at least we may have more desalinated water. Chemical scientists have discovered a cheaper way to desalinate water by using 3.0 volts to a plastic chip where seawater resides. After it neutralizes some of the chloride ions in seawater it creates an ion depletion zone that increases the local electric field. This added electricity then branches salt in one direction and pure from salt water in another direction. They managed to get out 25% (out of required 99%) of 40 nanoliters of water in a minute per those 3.0 volts with their device. They admit that it still needs working to make it of greater use to people but the potential is high (Knust et al, 2013).
As a summary, we may have no food due to higher temperatures in the future, but greater protection from fungi whom may also otherwise die for the same reason. Unless the Knust et al (2013) device becomes in so much greater use so as to use sea water for irrigation of soil and keep M. Vaginatus cool and happy enough to stay.
References:
Garcia-Pichel, F., Loza, V., Marusenko, Y., Mateo, P., & Potrafka, R. M. (2013). Temperature drives the continental-scale distribution of key microbes in topsoil communities.
Science, 340 (6140): 1574 DOI: 10.1126/science.1236404
Knust, K. N., Hlushkou, D., Anand, R. K., Tallarek, U., & Crooks, R. M. (2013). Electrochemically mediated seawater desalination.
Angewandte Chemie International Edition, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201302577
Saintenac, C., Zhang, W., Salcedo, A., Rouse, M. N., Trick, H. N., ... Dubcovsky, J. (2013). Identification of wheat gene Sr35 that confers resistance to Ug99 stem rust race group.
Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1239022
Global warming may affect soil microbe survival, with unknown consequences on soil fertility and erosion
Potential boost for world's food supply: Resistance gene found against Ug99 wheat stem rust pathogen
Chemists work to desalinate the ocean for drinking water, one nanoliter at a time