Oh, Soot: The average surface temperature on Earth could increase more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control. The panel places most of the blame on excess carbon dioxide, caused by burning coal, gas and other fossil fuels. But Mark Z. Jacobson, '87, MS '88, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, says the group is underestimating the contribution of another product of fossil-fuel combustion: soot. According to Jacobson's February 8 article in Nature, the powdery black carbonic residue may be responsible for 15 percent to 30 percent of global warming.
Alien Invasions: Invasive species--plants, animals and bacteria that are foreign to a particular ecosystem and can cause economic or environmental harm--are second only to habitat destruction by humans in causing species extinction. Biological sciences professor Harold A. Mooney is working with the Global Invasive Species Programme, a group of scientists, policymakers and lawyers trying to develop a "rapid response mechanism" to counter these intruders worldwide.
Something Fishy: Rosamond Naylor, an economist at Stanford's Institute for International Studies, estimates that every pound of farmed fish raised on processed feed made from wild catches requires two pounds of wild fish. And since one out of every four fish consumed worldwide is from a farm, that's a lot of wild fish. Naylor, PhD '89, is studying ways to make fish farming--which also can spread disease and pollute the ocean--less harmful. Farming shellfish, as opposed to salmon, for example, can filter algae and waste from the water supply and provide protein for humans without depleting ocean populations.
