wilkes-news | College of Science

Rethinking Carbon Offsets

July 18, 2024

Libby Blanchard

It was the dawn of carbon-off-setting, emitting one place and then reducing or removing emissions elsewhere and calling that climate neutral.

Following the Kyoto Protocol negotiations in 1996/97, industrialized countries, including the U.S., picked up on the idea of carbon crediting and carbon off-setting and explored flexible market mechanisms that, according to Libby Blanchard, would potentially make it more economically feasible for industrialized countries to meet the goals and carbon-reduction metrics of the 2015 United Nations-brokered Paris Agreement.

Three and half decades after that first experiment in Guatemala with carbon off-sets the idea seems to have hit an inflection point. “A carbon credit becomes an offset when it’s used to trade against emissions somewhere else,” reiterates Blanchard, a postdoctoral research associate at the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy and the School of Biological Sciences here at the University of Utah. “And a carbon credit is supposed to be one ton of carbon dioxide equivalent reduced or removed from the atmosphere over a predetermined period of time. The big problem with carbon credits is a large majority are not real or are what we call over-credited, or both, meaning that they’re not representing or are over-representing the amount of carbon dioxide equivalent actually reduced or removed for the atmosphere."

In this episode of the Talking Climate podcast, produced by the Wilkes Center for Climate Sciences & Policy, Ross Chambless, Wilkes Center community engagement manager, interviews Blanchard on a new “Contribution Approach” replacement of the struggling carbon offsets market.

Read more about the Nature-based climate solutions in an article published in One Earth.

Listen to the full podcast and view the transcript.

Watch a video with Libby Blanchard below.

Restoring the GSL & Environmental Justice

June 24, 2024

Using the Great Salt Lake in Utah as a case study, researchers show that dust exposure was highest among Pacific Islanders and Hispanic people and lower in white people compared to all other racial/ethnic groups, and higher for individuals without a high school diploma. Restoring the lake would benefit everyone in the vicinity by reducing dust exposure, and it would also decrease the disparities in exposure between different racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups. These results are reported June 21 in the journal One Earth, co-authored by University of Utah researchers in the College of Science and the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences.

"People here in Utah are concerned about the lake for a variety of reasons -- the ski industry, the brine shrimp, the migratory birds, recreation -- and this study adds environmental justice and the equity implications of the drying lake to the conversation," says first author and sociologist Sara Grineski of the University of Utah. "If we can raise the levels of the lake via some coordinated policy responses, we can reduce our exposure to dust, which is good for everyone's health, and we can also reduce the disparity between groups."

The Great Salt Lake has been steadily drying since the mid-1980's, exposing its dry lakebed to atmospheric weathering and wind. Previous studies have shown that dust emissions from drying salt lakes produce fine particulate matter (PM2.5), which is associated with numerous health effects and is the leading environmental cause of human mortality worldwide.

"We know that the dust from these drying lakes is very unhealthy for us, so the question becomes, what does that mean in terms of people's exposure to the dust, and what does it mean in terms of inequalities in exposure to that dust," says Grineski. "Are some people more likely to have to suffer the consequences to a greater degree?"

To answer this question, Grineski teamed up with a multidisciplinary group of, among others, U atmospheric scientists, geographers, and biologists, including Derek V. Mallia, Timothy W. Collins, Malcolm Araos, John C. Lin, William R.L. Anderegg and Kevin Perry.

You can read the full story in ScienceDaily.
Read more about this research in an article by Brian Maffly in @TheU, and stories in The Standard Examiner and at Fox 13.

Utah’s fir trees at risk from balsam woolly adelgid

June 20, 2024

Introduced from Europe into the Pacific Northwest about a century ago, the balsam woolly adelgid (BWA), or Adelges piceae, was first detected in Utah in 2017 and has been spreading around the Wasatch Mountains, visibly affecting many of the popular recreation canyons outside Salt Lake City.

New research from the University of Utah, conducted in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, has documented the current extent of the adelgid infestation and created a model for predicting its severity around the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest.

The study documented a clear relationship between the infestation’s severity and temperature, according to lead author Mickey Campbell, a research assistant professor in the Department of Geography (soon to be merged with the Environmental Studies program and renamed the School of Environment, Society, and Sustainability.)

PHOTO CREDIT: MICKEY CAMPBELL The crowns of infested fir trees exhibit crown deformities.

“We took that climate-to-severity relationship along with a series of climate projections and we were able to map current and future exposure to BWA damage at a high spatial resolution,” Campbell said. “The idea [is], in 2040, 2060, 2080 and 2100, based on these different climate projections, determining how exposed these areas are to the potentially damaging effects of BWA. And indeed, we find that for an insect that prefers warmer areas, a warming climate is going to provide it with more opportunity to cause damage.”

The role of climate change

The study appears this month in the journal Forest Ecology and Management. Co-authors include U Biology Professor William Anderegg, director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy. [The center hosts its annual Climate Summit on May 14-15, where Anderegg will give opening remarks.]

According to Anderegg, the new study suggests climate change is playing a role in Utah’s adelgid infestation.

“The main pieces of evidence are how strongly temperature is related to the spread and severity of BWA,” said Anderegg, a specialist in forest ecology. “That tells us at the very least as temperatures go up, we should be concerned about more spread and higher severity infestation.” Covering the Wasatch, Uinta, Bear River and a few lesser mountain ranges in northern Utah, this national forest is among the nation’s busiest for recreation. It features five major ski areas that border several others and sees more visits than all of Utah’s national parks combined.

Conscious of the Planet

June 13, 2024

Hannah Rogers, co-founder of the climate app Conscious

A student at the University of Utah, she along with co-founders Hannah Rogers and Ishita Juluru have been awarded the prestigious Wilkes Student Climate Innovation Prize. The prize was awarded at the second annual Wilkes Climate Summit at the U in May.. The innovative project aims to reform consumer behavior towards sustainability by empowering individuals to make informed choices and take meaningful action against climate change.

Conscious seeks to bridge the gap between producers and consumers in the realm of sustainable consumption. Set to undergo development this summer, the app will provide users with essential information about the environmental footprint of products through a simple barcode scanning feature. From carbon emissions and water usage to sustainable alternatives, Conscious will equip consumers with the knowledge needed to make eco-conscious purchasing decisions.

"Basically, we just want to make climate conscious consumption really easy for people because there's a huge information gap between producers and consumers," explains Frances Benfell, one of the Conscious’s creators. "So we're creating an app that will allow you to scan a barcode and see a product's carbon footprint, how much water was used, where it was made, and where it's shipping from. And then it will give you a list of third-party vetted alternatives that have a lower carbon footprint that you can purchase directly within the app."

Beyond its goal to provide consumers with easily accessible information, Conscious aims to foster engagement among its users to drive real change. In addition to its barcode scanning feature, the app will incorporate gamification elements, allowing users to participate in challenges and competitions with friends, colleagues, and community members.

"We're also ‘gamifying’ the process so you can be on different leaderboards, at your workplace or at your school or with your friends," adds co-founder Ishita Juluru who graduated in May in computer science with honors and a minor from mathematics "and also compete with your friends in different challenges, like a Clean Air Challenge or sustainable Christmas shopping challenge. You’ll be able to see your contributions in comparison with others, which will motivate people to be more engaged."

Reducing ego anxiety

The project started with its creators’ frustrations surrounding the difficulty and hopelessness they felt trying to take climate action. "I think climate change is really isolating sometimes, especially in Utah," shares Benfell. "There's a lot of times where I feel like I'm in a room where I'm the only person who cares. And it's really nice to be able to see all the other efforts people are making. You can reduce ego anxiety by making better decisions, but also seeing that other people are trying too, and not feeling like you're alone in the fight."

The Wilkes Student Climate Innovation Prize will provide crucial support for the development and launch of Conscious. Despite initial setbacks with their software developer, the team is now back on track with two dedicated software engineers, including Juluru.

Launching initially in the U.S., Conscious will focus on wealthy industrial countries where companies and consumers play significant roles in driving climate change. With plans to expand globally, the app will eventually provide tailored resources and information unique to every state.

“We want to have comprehensive resources that show, ‘here’s all the places you can learn about the legislative session; here's where you can learn about where your representatives stand on climate issues,” says Benfell.

Disrupting the status quo

The Conscious team

Conscious aims to disrupt the status quo of consumerism by empowering individuals to leverage their purchasing power against major climate contributors. By steering consumers away from unsustainable companies, Conscious seeks to send a powerful message and drive systemic change. “The idea is not about people ‘righting their wrongs’ or not being ‘sustainable enough.’ It's more about sending a message to those major climate contributors. Because if we're shifting demand away from high-polluting companies, then we're hurting their bottom line, which they care about a lot more than the environment,” explains Rogers. “There is huge value in putting your money where your mouth is. Yes, you can vote for change in our government. But the biggest way that you vote is what you buy.”

Conscious represents a new frontier in sustainable consumerism, where every purchase becomes an opportunity for positive environmental impact. As the app gears up for development, its creators are poised to lead a movement towards a more sustainable future, one purchase at a time.

Cataract Canyon Comes Back to Life

March 21, 2024

Brenda Bowen. Professor of Geology & Geophysics | Chair of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences | Director, Global Change and Sustainability Center

“I cannot emphasize how amazing, and important, it is that Returning Rapids [a small group of river-rafting enthusiasts who consider Cataract Canyon a second home] is convening the science community around this, and bringing in agencies and tribal communities and people from different backgrounds,” says Brenda Bowen, a geoscientist with the University of Utah who’s been coming on Returning Rapids trips since 2019. “It’s already changed the trajectory of the outcomes of this landscape because they’ve brought more attention to it, and they’re helping people organize around it.”

And yet many river rafters, conservationists, and scientists see these lower reaches of Cataract Canyon, for all of their scientific, cultural, and recreational significance, as falling through the cracks of government-agency management, where no precedent seems to exist for who takes responsibility for a reservoir turned returning river. Eric Balken, executive director of the Glen Canyon Institute, which focuses on restoring the Glen and Grand canyons, says that “many land and water managers treat the emerging landscape as an area that will one day be under water again, even though the data suggests the opposite. This management approach of ‘That’s just where the reservoir used to be, it’s not important’ is so misguided. As the reservoir comes down, what’s emerging has similar qualities to all the popular and cherished parks and monuments in this area, like Bears Ears, Grand Staircase Escalante, and Grand Canyon.”

A recent environmental impact report by the Bureau of Reclamation, which is in charge of dams, implied erroneously that mostly invasive species were returning as Lake Powell’s water level dropped. But Returning Rapids has brought scientists down Cataract, who find native plants returning, birds returning as shorelines emerge, beavers returning as willows and cottonwoods sprout on those shorelines. In response to a request for comment, the Bureau of Reclamation directed me back to the report with the erroneous implications.

Canyonlands National Park, which manages the river, and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (NRA), which manages the reservoir, tell me in a joint statement that the agencies are aware of the landscape emerging in Cataract; staff see it on routine river patrols and receive Returning Rapids’ trip reports. Both agencies “maintain active programs for resource monitoring throughout the park, including monitoring of archaeological sites, monitoring for invasive vegetation species, and monitoring of various plants and wildlife species. As the lake level drops, areas of shoreline are incorporated into the park’s existing science-based monitoring and research programs to understand and respond to the changing lake environment.”

Returning Rapids regularly shares its observations and data collected from scientists on its trips with these and other agency managers, and has invited and brought Canyonlands officials on its science expeditions. Mike DeHoff [a river runner and local from Moab, Utah, has] invited officials from the NRA, but none have yet accepted. Although Returning Rapids recently attained a new degree of credibility in becoming a project under the Glen Canyon Institute, often when DeHoff shares real-time data of changing conditions with agency decision-makers, he says, he’s usually greeted with some iteration of “Wait, who are you guys?”

Read the entire article by Cassidy Randall with photographs by Len Neceferin in

Where the Wild Things Went During the Pandemic

March 18, 2024

Austin Green

In the early months of the Covid pandemic, when every bit of news seemed bleak, there was one heartwarming narrative that took hold: With humans stuck in their homes, the world was safe again for wild animals, which could now wander freely through cities, parking lots or fields that once might have been crowded with people.

But a new global study, which used wildlife cameras to track human and animal activity during the Covid lockdowns, suggests that the story was not that simple. Austin Green HBS'16, PHD '22 , currently post-doctoral researcher in the College of Science's Science Research Initiative, is one of the many co-authors and a leader in Utah in the collection of data of wildlife as it intersects with urban environments.

“We went in with a somewhat simplistic notion,” said Cole Burton, a wildlife ecologist and conservation biologist at the University of British Columbia, who led the research. “You know, humans stop, animals are going to breathe a sigh of relief and move around more naturally. And what we saw was quite different.”

Although humans disappeared from some places during the lockdowns, they surged into others, like parks that remained open when little else was, the researchers found. And there was enormous variability in how wild mammals responded to changes in human behavior. Carnivores and animals living in remote, rural places, for instance, were more active when people faded from the landscape, while the opposite was generally true for large herbivores and urban animals.

The study, which was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution on Monday, deepens and complicates scientists’ understanding of what has been called the “anthropause,” when pandemic lockdowns radically altered human behavior. It also highlights the nuanced ways in which humans affect the lives of wild animals, as well as the need for varied and multifaceted conservation efforts, the authors said.

“There’s no ‘one size fits all’ solution when it comes to mitigating the impacts of human activity on wildlife,” said Kaitlyn Gaynor, a wildlife ecologist and conservation biologist at the University of British Columbia. “Because we see that not all species are responding similarly to people.”

2024 Wilkes Climate Hackathon

March 6, 2024

https://wilkescenter.utah.edu/

On January 26 and 27, the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy held its second annual Climate Solutions Hackathon, with wildland fire as this year’s theme.

The challenge posed to U students of any major was to propose an innovative, data-driven solution in one of five categories: 1) prediction and forecasting; 2) risk mitigation; 3) alert systems and evacuations, 4) community resiliency and rehabilitation, or 5) health hazards.

The hackathon organizers encouraged undergraduate and graduate students to form teams and submit a proposal in a slide deck within 24 hours. During the in-person portion of the event, U faculty from various departments along with local representatives from the US Forest Service engaged the different student teams with feedback and guidance.

The Wilkes Center also provided a Video Mentoring Space with short, pre-recorded videos of researchers sharing suggested solution pathways.

Ultimately, the Wilkes Center received 17 submissions. Below are the top three winners.

Team Wildfire Resilience Collective: (from left to right) Elizabeth Williams, Hannah Meier, Tegan Lengyel, Rebecca Senft.

First Place ($3,000)
Wildfire Resilience Collective

Rebecca Senft (Ph.D. graduate student, School of Biological Sciences)
Hannah Meier (Ph.D student, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Tegan Lengyel (Ph.D. graduate student, School of Biological Sciences)
Elizabeth Williams (Undergraduate, biomedical engineering and pediatric clinical health)

Rebecca Senft was noncommittal about the hackathon until a week before. “Then I was like, yeah, I'm going to do it! I'm going to sit down and actually spend this time with my cohort members, and bond, and learn about this problem, and see what I can throw at the wall that will stick.”

Her teammate, Hannah Meier, said she had already been thinking about resilience a lot. “I lived in California during the big 2020 fires and then moved to Oregon and came here from Oregon. So, I'm very familiar with wildfires.”

Team Fire Nest: (from left to right) Suhaani Shelat, Kalina Manova, Navi Brar and Sarah Choe.

Second Place ($2,000)
Fire Nest

Kalina Manova, (Undergraduate, Biomedical Engineering)
Suhaani Shelat (Undergraduate, Mechanical Engineering)
Navi Brar (Undergraduate, Biochemistry)
Sarah Choe (Undergraduate, Computer Science)

They proposed a fire-safe home development company for communities in the Wildland-Urban Interface and other fire-prone areas. Their idea seeks to address the home insurance crisis where many insurers in wildfire-prone areas like California are pulling back coverage or exiting the state entirely.

“Unfortunately, a lot of the fire prone areas are not really fire resistant, just due to poor planning,” said Kalina Manova. “There aren't really many laws that enforce it. Even after a wildfire has burned through an area.”

Their idea is to increase awareness about fire-resistant homes and provide a low-cost service system to help communities implement fire-safe housing practices.

“Our development company's goal, at the end of the day, is to help communities become more fire resistant and be able to come back easier economically and wiser from natural disasters like fires,” said Sarah Choe.

Team Fire Smart Educational Program: (from left to right) Xuan Hoang, Gaby Karakcheyeva, Brandon Saavedra, Celine Cardena, (Shreesh Srivastava not pictured)

Third Place ($1,000)
Fire Smart Educational Program

Gaby Karakcheyeva (Undergraduate, Biology)
Celine Cardeña (Undergraduate, Sociology & Gender Studies)
Brandon Saavedra (Undergraduate, Architecture)
Xuan Hoang (Undergraduate, Multidisciplinary Design)
Shreesh Srivastava (Undergraduate, Computer Science)

This team focused on creating a K-12 educational program around wildfire.

“I got like zero wildfire education growing up,” said Gaby Karakcheyeva. “It would be really nice if we could teach people to not start wildfires and teach people to appreciate nature and all that stuff.”

They proposed a citizen-science model for engaging communities to gather data which could be integrated into Utah’s K12 curriculum. They also envision partnerships with the US Forest Service, which currently provides a wildland fire curriculum content, and the local Unified Fire Authority in Utah.

“We want to be able to educate our future generation on the risk of wildfires and wildlife management,” said Celine Cardeña.

Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine

January 29, 2024

University of Utah part of new NSF-funded initiative to ensure regional climate solutions and economic opportunities.

January 29, 2024

The National Science Foundation (NSF) on Monday announced the University of Utah along with six core academic partners will be part of a multi-institutional enterprise to confront the climate challenges facing the desert Southwest and spur economic development in the region.

The effects of climate change are acutely evident in the American Southwest, from the desertification of Utah’s Great Salt Lake to the record-breaking extreme heat in Arizona and the dwindling supply of the Colorado River reaching Nevada.

NSF Engines: Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine (SWSIE) will use these challenges to catalyze economic opportunity and seeks to establish the Southwest as a leader in carbon capture, water security and renewable energy and bring high-wage industries to the region. Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine unites academic, community, nonprofit and industry partners across Arizona, Nevada and Utah that are committed to this goal.

SWSIE is among the first proposals selected by the NSF to establish a Regional Innovation Engine, a first-of-its-kind NSF program to create focused research and technology transfer hubs. The NSF will fund SWSIE’s initial development and growth with $15 million over the next two years. The engine can be renewed for up to 10 years with $160 million in funding available for each Regional Engine.

The U of U’s core academic partners in SWSIE are Arizona State University, who serve as the lead partner of the project, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the Desert Research Institute, the Water Research Foundation, SciTech Institute and Maricopa Community Colleges. The team includes over 20 senior personnel including faculty from Atmospheric Sciences, Biological Sciences, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Communications, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Geography, and Geology and Geophysics. The College of Science's Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy is also part of the consortium.

THE U’S LEADERSHIP TEAM

Brenda Bowen.

At the helm of the U leadership team is Brenda Bowen, co-PI on the SWSIE project and co-lead of the community development working group. Bowen is professor of geology and geophysics, chair of department of atmospheric sciences, and director of the Global Change and Sustainability Center at the U.

“We are so thrilled to have the opportunity to grow academic, industry, and community partnerships that unite Utah, Nevada, and Arizona as we innovate sustainable solutions for water, energy, and carbon,” she says. “This is work that needs to happen, and this award will allow us to align our efforts to maximize the positive impacts across the region.”

Read the entire story by Xoel Cardenas, Sr. Communications Specialist.,Office of the Vice President for Research here.

CO2 changes over past 66 M years

December 8, 2023

Gabriel Bowen

Today atmospheric carbon dioxide is at its highest level in at least several million years thanks to widespread combustion of fossil fuels by humans over the past couple centuries.

But where does 419 parts per million (ppm) — the current concentration of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere—fit in Earth’s history?

That’s a question an international community of scientists, featuring key contributions by University of Utah geologists, is sorting out by examining a plethora of markers in the geologic record that offer clues about the contents of ancient atmospheres. Their initial study was published this week in the journal Science, reconstructing CO₂ concentrations going back through the Cenozoic, the era that began with the demise dinosaurs and rise of mammals 66 million years ago.

Glaciers contain air bubbles, providing scientists direct evidence of CO2 levels going back 800,000 years, according to U geology professor Gabe Bo wen, one of the study’s corresponding authors. But this record does not extend very deep into the geological past.

“Once you lose the ice cores, you lose direct evidence. You no longer have samples of atmospheric gas that you can analyze,” Bowen said. “So you have to rely on indirect evidence, what we call proxies. And those proxies are tough to work with because they are indirect.”

How Microbes Combat Climate Change

December 5, 2023

While carbon dioxide gets much of the focus in the climate debate, methane, the main flammable component of natural gas, also drives planetary warming. Molecule for molecule, CH4’s heat-trapping potential is 34 times greater than that of CO2 (on a 100-year time scale) and it’s pouring into the atmosphere from both human and natural sources, posing a significant threat to global climate systems.

Now scientists from around the world are exploring various strategies for removing methane from the atmosphere in the hopes of slowing climate change.

University of Utah chemist Jessica Swanson has retooled her lab to help develop a process that would harness methane-eating bacteria, known as methanotrophs, which naturally break down methane into carbon dioxide and organic compounds. She aims to discover ways to enable methanotrophs to effectively pull methane from the air at low concentrations in next-generation bioreactors.

“I’m hopeful that the more we understand methanotrophs, the more we can also facilitate open-system, nature-based solutions,” Swanson said.

Methane accounts for at least 25% of planetary warming, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. The gas is naturally oxidized in the atmosphere resulting in a shorter half-life than CO2, but methane sources are surpassing the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere at a shocking rate—partially due to a positive feedback cycle between warming and natural emissions from wetlands and permafrost. The consequence is rapidly increasing atmospheric methane concentrations that pose a serious risk of near-term warming.

Rethinking the Carbon Offsets Market

Around 1989 an energy company was trying to see if they could plant trees in Guatemala and then use the absorption of carbon from those trees to offset their emissions of a new coal-fired power plant in the United States.

THe social & Ecological IMPACTS of GSL REstoration

Inland seas around the world are drying up due to increasing human water use and accelerating climate change, and their desiccation is releasing harmful dust that pollutes the surrounding areas during acute dust storms.

Utah's fir trees at risk from balsam woolly adelgid

A nonnative tree-killing insect is invading northern Utah, attacking subalpine fir and potentially triggering yet another die-off of the region’s long-stressed conifer forests.

The role of climate change

'Conscious' of the Planet

Reducing ego anxiety

Disrupting the status quo

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Cataract Canyon Comes Back to Life

Damming the Colorado River wiped out a magnificent stretch of rapids for half a century. Now, incredibly, they’re returning — on their own

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Where the Wild Things Went During the Pandemic

A new study of camera-trap images complicates the idea that all wildlife thrived during the Covid lockdowns.

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2024 Wilkes Climate HackathoN

First Place ($3,000) Wildfire Resilience Collective

Second Place ($2,000) Fire Nest

Third Place ($1,000) Fire Smart Educational Program

>> HOME <<

Regional Innovations Engine

THE U’S LEADERSHIP TEAM

CO2 Atmospheric changes

Carbon dioxide has not been as high as today's concentrations in 14 million years thanks to fossil fuel emissions now warming the planet.

How microbes can combat climate change

Chemist Jessica Swanson works with bacteria that eat methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, out of the atmosphere.

Utah's fir trees at risk from
balsam woolly adelgid

First Place ($3,000)
Wildfire Resilience Collective

Second Place ($2,000)
Fire Nest

Third Place ($1,000)
Fire Smart Educational Program