Environmental-Biology in the News

Bringing back the Victory Garden:	By Ed Bobich, Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
	Historically, Victory Gardens were planted by citizens to help aid food production during World War I and World War II. The idea was that if private citizens could produce their own potatoes, tomatoes, etc., that food costs would decrease, allowing the Armed Forces to buy food more cheaply and allocate more money to building planes and tanks. The plan worked, because over one-third of all of the fresh produce consumed in the United States during these wars was produced in Victory Gardens of one kind or another. Currently, we are facing a situation that may threaten human existence as much as any war and that threat is the rapid climate change the planet is currently experiencing. Climate change is predicted to be especially devastating where we live in the Southwestern North America, because the region is already characterized by low rainfall and high 2007-10-17 nditions are predicted to become more extreme and our region will become so dry and hot that we may experience dust bowl-like conditions in the next 50 years. With these conditions, current agricultural practices will be impractical and it may be impossible to support the landscaping of the typical yard, which usually includes grass and trees, shrubs, and herbs that require a great deal of water.

Bringing back the Victory Garden:

By Ed Bobich, Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences

Historically, Victory Gardens were planted by citizens to help aid food production during World War I and World War II. The idea was that if private citizens could produce their own potatoes, tomatoes, etc., that food costs would decrease, allowing the Armed Forces to buy food more cheaply and allocate more money to building planes and tanks. The plan worked, because over one-third of all of the fresh produce consumed in the United States during these wars was produced in Victory Gardens of one kind or another. Currently, we are facing a situation that may threaten human existence as much as any war and that threat is the rapid climate change the planet is currently experiencing. Climate change is predicted to be especially devastating where we live in the Southwestern North America, because the region is already characterized by low rainfall and high 2007-10-17 nditions are predicted to become more extreme and our region will become so dry and hot that we may experience dust bowl-like conditions in the next 50 years. With these conditions, current agricultural practices will be impractical and it may be impossible to support the landscaping of the typical yard, which usually includes grass and trees, shrubs, and herbs that require a great deal of water.

Thus, it appears the time has come to reintroduce the idea of the Victory Garden, but with a different slant: we need to promote gardens that are productive, decrease water use, and increase the uptake of carbon dioxide and the storage of carbon, because excess carbon dioxide, as well as other gasses and particulates, are responsible for the “global warming” that we are witnessing today. The development of such gardens will not only help us cope with the predicted drought and help us combat climate change through increased carbon storage in roots and stems, but will also decrease carbon emissions resulting from long-range transport of crops and, if incorporated with native plants, will provide habitat for animals and other organisms that have lost much of their native habitat to urban encroachment. My lab, in conjunction with the John T. Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies, will begin conducting research this year on how modern-day Victory Gardens should be organized and constructed to address all of these goals.

Carbon Balance: Can we become Carbon-neutral?	By Ed Bobich, Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
	There is perhaps no bigger global issue than the surprisingly rapid climate change the earth is currently experiencing. Although the climate of the earth is constantly changing, the changes the planet is experiencing are happening faster than most scientists ever predicted. The current change, often referred to as “global warming”, is primarily the result of increased concentrations of “greenhouse” or “energy-trapping” gasses in our atmosphere, which is due to the increased carbon emission of human activity the loss of natural habitat to human development, which usually includes the replacement of vast areas of vegetation with buildings and roads. Recently, many public and private institutions have taken on the responsibility of minimizing their carbon emissions through a combination of technological advances and by practicing conservation. Here at Cal Poly Pomona, our President, Michael Ortiz, signed the American
College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, which has a goal for colleges and universities to become “climate neutral”. Much of the commitment hinges on the assessment of emissions through an inventory of how much energy is used by the institution, the source of that energy, and the emissions of the vehicles associated with the institution. One of the most direct methods that can be used to help determine whether an institution is actually “climate neutral” is to establish one to several eddy covariance towers throughout the campus. Eddy covariance towers are like weather stations, but in addition to measuring temperature, wind velocity, and other typical climatic variables, they are also used to measure concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses at various heights above the ground. With this information, scientists can calculate the net movement of the gases and determine whether an area is a sink (an area where gasses are being absorbed) or a source (an area that is releasing gases to the atmosphere). There are several sites on the Cal Poly Pomona campus that would be great for such towers and, combined with the plant-level measurements of CO2 uptake that are already being conducted in my laboratory, would aid in determining whether this campus is a source or sink for greenhouse gases.