The real nightmare – much realer than being stung by a bee – is the silence that sets in after those whirring sounds fail to reappear. While the daisy ceases to flower, a multitude of other plants – many of which are vital to our own food security – also begin to suffer. Staple crops such as wheat, corn, rice and soybeans require pollination to grow, and bees are arguably the leading insects in this role.

Over the past ten years however, honey bees have been in steady decline across North America and in Europe. In Canada, national bee colony losses over the winter increased from a historical average of 10 to 15 per cent to 35 per cent in 2008, and then ranging from 15 to 29 per cent between 2009 and 2014, according to Health Canada. Although the parasitic mite “V. destructor” is the biggest detriment to the survival of the species today, the exact explanation to the bee crisis varies by location and involves a combination of other issues, including environmental management practices and a quickly changing habitat.

Bees spend most of their on to ten month lifespan gathering nectar and pollen. They attract pollen with the electrostatic force generated by their hair. The hair on the legs of a bee is particularly stiff, allowing the bee to groom the pollen into pockets on its body until it has returned to its nest. Through such foraging activity, pollen gets redistributed across the ecosystem and transferred from the male part – the anther, to the female part – the stigma, of a flower of the same species, in a process called pollination. This results in the fertilization of the flower and the growth of seeds and fruits. The plant has produced offspring and the cycle of life is perpetuated.

As world population and the global demand for food continue to grow, the act of pollination is tightly intertwined with our own food security. Between 1961 and 2006, the dependence of the agricultural industry on pollinators in the developed world increased by 50 per cent between 1961 and 2006, and an extra 10 per cent in the developing world. In the face of this development, recent bee colony losses are forcing us to ask ourselves some difficult questions.

The V. Destructor mite must harbour in a bee colony to reproduce. It latches on the body of the bee and sucks its hemolyph – the equivalent of blood in vertebrates. Without treatment, the bee begins to show disease symptoms such as malnourishment, weight loss, and saddest of all, the inability to fly. The German Bee Monitoring Project – one of the most significant experiments on honey bee colony health – studied more than 1200 colonies from 120 apiaries over a four year period and found a clear link between high varroa mite levels and the deformed wing (DWV) and acute bee paralysis viruses (ABPV), as well as reduced lifespan of the queen and weakness of colonies in autumn.

As world population and the global demand for food continue to grow, the act of pollination is tightly intertwined with our own food security.

Professional Canadian apiculturists identify resistance to acaricides – chemical substances poisonous to mites – as being the main cause of mortality among honey bee colonies – most common among these synthetic compound is fluvalinate, which is commercially known as Apistan. This belief among the community is reflected in research published by the Journal of Apiculture in 2008: “The level of infestation of varroa mites that cause colony damage appears to have decreased over time.” They go on to say, “in the early 1980s, in Europe, a bee colony could harbor several thousand mites without dramatic symptoms. Today, a fall infestation rate of 10 per cent, corresponding to about one thousand mites in a colony of 10,000 bees, is considered to be a critical threshold for winter survival of the colony.” Attempts to control the pest since it was first recognized have surely been in the best interest, but the fact remains that the threat of the Destructor has evolved greatly during this time.

The growing number of extreme weather events across the globe puts unforeseen stress on colonies, both directly and indirectly.

Solutions to the pesticide resistance of Varroa mites have been explored – such as selectively breeding the honey bees who are resistant to the pathogen or creating non-chemical control methods, but some aspects of honey bee colony loss are inextricably tied to larger environmental and social questions.

The growing number of extreme weather events across the globe puts unforeseen stress on colonies, both directly and indirectly. A lack of precipitation, or an inconsistency in rainfall patterns, reduces nectar production, which in turn can seriously limit honey bee activity. Moreover, when the temperature reaches unusually cold levels, the honeycomb brood – the beeswax structure of cells where the queen bee lays eggs – is chilled, and while some bees become more susceptible to pathogens in the long-term, others die immediately. On the flip side, warm and humid weather helps sustain pathogen loads in a honey bee colony and foster disease.

Increased international trade over the last several decades has presented additional challenges to honey bee populations – as it has for many other organisms caught in the web of globalization. The Varroa mite migrated from its original host, the East Asian bee Apis cerana to A. mellifera colonies imported to East Asia, and since then, they have spread across the globe. Small producers used to be the bread-and-butter of the apicultural industry, but in today’s changing landscape, the competition is tilted in favor of industrial-scale apiaries, who simply have more resources in dealing with adversity.

The post What’s all the buzz about? appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Micheal Mann, a leading figure in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, suggested earlier this year that a global warming of 2°C could be reached as soon as 2036. The expectation is that, as this threshold is surpassed, Earth’s climate destabilizes to a point where phenomena such as tsunamis, cyclones and other extreme weather events, as well as rising sea levels from melting glaciers become a threat to human life.

The smart grid lays the foundation for emerging technologies to develop symbiotically and make the most of each other’s potential. In the new world of the smart grid, no longer does the electricity flow in a single direction. Instead, the energy exchange is bidirectional, which means, for instance, that homeowners with rooftop solar panels can sell power back to utilities companies during periods of peak demand and help flatten out energy demand in general. While the pricing scheme could be different depending on the utilities company, the idea of having this extra revenue stream will surely be an incentive for sustainable energy technologies to be installed in unexpected places.

A little know fact is the part played by electricity production on greenhouse gas emissions. According to the American Environmental Protection Agency, electricity alone contributed to nearly a third of emissions in the U.S. in 2014. This is a higher figure than that of transportation or industrial energy use.

Technologies such as solar cells and electrical transportation offer great potential for the future, but an important piece of the puzzle – the infrastructure that supports these innovations – often gets lost in the conversation: the electrical grid. It is the network that connects electricity suppliers to consumers, and without it, it is unimaginable that we could power our electronic devices, light our homes, and distribute energy to our industries all at once.

The grid is involved in so many aspects of our lives, yet it rarely enters our consciousness. With world energy consumption predicted to increase by at least 50% within the next twenty five years, the modernization of this network is inevitable if we are to meet the needs and aspirations of the 21st century.

A traditional grid begins at the power plant station, located close to an energy source such as a dam, a coal bed or a windmill. When electrical power enters the transmission network, it can travel along large distances at high voltages via overhead power lines. These lines are typically suspended on towers and in an aerial view; they stand out as wire lines through forests and fields.

A substation receives its power from the transmission network, and a transformer steps the power down to a lower voltage. At this point, electricity is circulating through the distribution network. With the exception of customers requiring large amounts of power, the voltage is then lowered again to the “utilization” voltage of home appliances. The reason the voltage is downsized is mainly economical: the average consumer, in contrast to his industrial counterpart, simply does not require large amounts of power to fulfill his energy needs.

The golden rule of the grid is that the demand for electricity at a given time must never surpass its production, or else a power outage ensues. When the grid is at peak demand – when power consumption is at a substantially higher level than the average supply level – additional electricity must be generated. The Ontario Energy Board (the OEB) states that 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. is the on-peak time range on weekdays because it coincides with business hours. During the winter, the demand shifts to mornings (7 to 11 a.m.) and evenings (5 to 7 p.m.) for heating needs.

The additional power is usually provided by ‘peakers’ – power stations that are only active at these moments, and produce electricity more rapidly. The catch is that these emergency stations do not operate as efficiently, and impart a higher price per kilowatt hour onto the consumer’s bill. Efficient power plants are expensive to design, and since ‘peakers’ are only active occasionally, they are built cheaply and less efficiently.

The integration and distribution of new sources of power such as the sun and the wind help address this conundrum of varying demand. However, most forms of renewable energy are intermittent, forcing us to rethink the electrical grid in ways that optimize the functionality of renewables. Moreover, the fact remains that the power generation efficiency – how well raw energy is converted into electricity – of some clean energy technologies has yet to surpass traditional modes of production. Oil fired plants and gas turbines can, on average, yield 10-20 % more output than devices such as solar cells or wind turbines.

Micheal Mann, a leading figure in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, suggested earlier this year that a global warming of 2°C could be reached as soon as 2036.

The pace of development in information and communication technologies (ICTs) has been a profound force in reshaping the grid’s network and its connectedness. Our use of ICTs is providing us with an unprecedented understanding of energy consumption patterns. Demand response programs are already in place for industrial activity, but with the advent of smart meters and smart appliance that can precisely record energy consumption patterns, and affordable sensors that can monitor the condition of electrical equipment, a transformation is now occurring in residential sectors. To illustrate this, think of your neighbourhood. Sensors could be collecting energy consumption data throughout the area, enabling real-time pricing – meaning that the price would continuously adjust to the demand for energy, rather than following a common two or three tier pricing scheme. Consumers could automatically have some of their electricity usage diverted to ‘off-peak’ hours by having their dishwasher and their laundry machine programmed to run at such times.

The Italian utilities Enel was arguably the first to implement smart grid technology in 2005. Since then, several other initiatives have followed. Southern California Edison’s “Irvine Smart Grid Demonstration” has undertaken “volt/VAR control using distributed energy resources (DER), coordinated operations of several DERs to manage circuit loading and advanced distribution circuit reconfiguration”, in effect improving demand response. The project was leveraged at 790 million dollars in 2013, according to the OEB. Another example is the Electrical Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, which found that “the outages were cut by at least half due to smart grid investments […] saving local businesses and homeowners at least $35 million a year”. Ontario’s Hydro One laid out its own smart grid vision in 2010 and has been referring back to this success story.

Challenges still lay as we modernize our grid. Among these is our capacity to store energy. Improved storage is important both in overcoming the intermittence of renewable energy harvesting and in increasing the operating efficiency of power production from non-renewable sources. Electricity generated by renewables is less attractive to consumers if its access is limited by large periods of inactivity. The progresses of battery technology and of hydrogen fuel cells represent strides in the right direction. Dr. Lucia Gauchia, from Michigan Technological University, states in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Smart Grid Newsletter that “the flexibility of energy storage in supporting renewable energy, avoiding curtailment by storing energy and using it later for peak shaving, among other capabilities, give consumers the combination of increased energy resiliency, efficiency and economic benefit”.

As our electrical grid continues to evolve, we should expect more parties to be involved in power generation and distribution. This may have the effect of decentralizing the grid away from central power stations such as the ‘peakers,’ and relying more on local power generators. Finally, remember how frequently “our” or “we” appears in this topic: smartening the grid is a societal project that has the potential to connect people, technology and nature together in a significant way. While the ‘clean technology’ industry continues to grow in Canada and elsewhere, the government could play a pivotal role in accelerating its development by investing in grid modernization and creating programs that incentivize consumers to make the switch to green energy.

The post Climate change on the grid appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Whereas recent work in this field has focused on the impact of global warming on oxygen depletion in marine environments, the results of this new study suggest the primary cause for the growing number of lakes affected by this condition is not climate change, but rather local human activity. These results highlight the ever-increasing importance of proper environmental monitoring and regulation, especially in industrial sectors such as agriculture and forestry. To estimate how quickly the number of hypoxia cases in lakes had increased on a global scale, the research team looked at the timing of hypoxia at each site to determine when hypoxia began and the extent of the damage.

Geology and our lakes
The study gathered data from previous studies on laminated sediments, also known as varves, from 365 different lakes across the globe. Varves are small-scale light and dark layers of mineral that are deposited in lakes, indicating the time glaciers melted. In most cases, they have been used to record the changes in lake oxygen content starting in the 18th century. By observing the contrast in thickness between the dark layer deposited during the winter and the lighter layer deposited during the summer, geologists can reconstruct when a lake began to melt. The study used the composition of these varves to determine the relationship between anthropogenic activity and the levels of oxygen in the lake.

The study found that the spread of hypoxia coincides with global phosphorus release. Phosphorus is an element that is an important component of fertilizers, and can be transported by water from farms to lakes. When there is a surplus of phosphorus being dumped into watersheds, hypoxia can begin to be a problem, because it stimulates growth of algae and plants to a point where oxygen is excessively being leeched out of the lake. The geographic location of a lake, its water depth, size, and the properties of the surrounding watershed are all physical characteristics that influence the level of oxygen depletion in a lake.

To address the timeframe of sediments and ultimately estimate the rate of hypoxia onset in lakes, geologists typically count the number of varves, or apply radiometric dating to trace elements such as lead, cesium, or americium. Radiometric dating consists of measuring the concentration of a given radioactive isotope to estimate the amount of time for which the element has been decaying.

A historical perspective
To estimate how quickly the number of hypoxia cases in lakes has increased on a global scale, the research team compiled the timing of hypoxia at each site, and found that in many areas, the onset of hypoxia occurred more than seventy years before oceans began to succumb to similar oxygen deficiencies.

In the end, the study wanted to show how human activity and the temperature of the Earth have each respectively influenced this trend.

Before 1850, the number of known hypoxia cases remained relatively stable. After 1850, hypoxia began to spread as fertilizers were introduced into agricultural practice, causing human population growth to spike. Until World War I, increases in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the U.S., Canada, and in Western European countries coincided with the spread of hypoxia in lakes at a yearly rate of 6 per cent. The quickest spike in hypoxia happened post-World War II; at this time, the impact of humans on the planet was accelerating exponentially as the world continued to industrialize.

The researchers argue that the impact of global warming historically has been less direct in the onset of hypoxia than human activity. They note the fact that, over the last 100 years, the global mean air temperature has risen by 0.6 degrees Celsius, occurring in two main phases: this rise from 1920 to 1945, and from 1976 to the present day. In 1920, 28 per cent of hypoxic lakes were already hypoxic, and this figure reached 82 per cent by 1976. Evidently, oxygen depletion started before periods of global warming developed and has been accelerating faster than the temperature increase.

The bigger picture
While climate change does not appear to trigger hypoxia in the way phosphorus and other nutrients do, the study suggests that temperature “exacerbates” the situation once the process has begun. Such an understanding of the historical origin and progression of lacustrine hypoxia reminds us that environmental detriment caused by humans does extend beyond global warming.

In recent years, the spreading rate of hypoxia should have, in theory, been concentrated in countries that are rapidly industrializing and consequently, increasing output of elements like carbon and phosphorus. However, since environmental monitoring has been scarce in these areas, it is very likely that the number of affected lakes has been underestimated. On the other hand, although the implementation of restoration programs in industrialized countries in the 1980s has slowed down the rate of hypoxic spreading, these measures appear to have been largely ineffective in reestablishing the original oxygenated condition of the lakes.

The bottom line is that there is work to be done. The surprising findings of this study on the timing and causes of lacustrine hypoxia should be useful to specialists in environmental regulation and water control. Lakes are vulnerable ecosystems and they should be treated with utmost care. Water quality and biodiversity are at risk of being irreversibly damaged as a result of the mismanagement of our industries, should we fail to act.

The post Aquatic ecosystems under attack by hypoxia appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Affordable perovskite solar cells are quickly gaining ground, but they are sensitive to environmental factors, such as moisture, air, heat or – yes, strangely enough – too much sunlight, which reduces the panels’ efficiency and lifespan. The inclusion of cesium provides some stability for the solar cell against these forces of nature. “This is really a breakthrough for the field,” says Michael Graetzel, a chemist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, although the life expectancy of these perovskite solar cells is still uncertain.
Six years ago, a group of Japanese researchers developed the first perovskite solar cell, which converted 3.8 per cent of sunlight energy into electricity. Since then, perovskites have come a long way. Only a month ago, South Korean researchers at the Materials Research Society meeting attained an efficiency of 21.7 per cent for perovskite cells, giving silicon cells, which convert 25 per cent of solar energy into electricity, a run for their money. Presently, no other photovoltaic technology has developed at such a quick rate. If the predictions of Moore’s Law on the exponential growth of technology – essentially doubling every two years – stays true in the years to come, who knows how efficient solar cells will be in, say, ten years.

Silicon cells and perovskite cells each absorb sunlight for a specific range of wavelengths. This is because the amount of extra energy required to vibrate an electron and allow it to travel across the material is different for both cells – this is known as the band gap. Perovskites are characterized by a band gap of 1.5 electronvolt (eV), absorbing blue photons; conversely, silicon cells absorb larger wavelengths, such as red photons, due to their lower band gap (1.1 eV). When both are combined in a tandem cell, the solar panel captures more of the solar spectrum, allowing more energy to be harvested. Snaith’s team is attempting to broaden this range even further by substituting some of the iodine with bromine. This increases the band gap of perovskites so that it may absorb more blue light; however, by increasing the band gap the cell also becomes more susceptible to light and heat.

Snaith estimates that these tandem cells should sooner or later surpass 30 per cent efficiency. Gallium arsenide cells are, at the moment, the only solar cells that have exceeded 30 per cent efficiency, but they will likely never be commercialized, as they are quite expensive to produce. Cesium-altered perovskite, on the other hand, are built of relatively cheap materials, such as lead and iodine, in a layered crystalline structure with a simple organic compound – either methyl ammonium or formamidinium. The fact that no high-temperature apparatus nor clean room facility is required to design these cells makes them even more attractive.

Naturally, as solar panels become more energy efficient, they will be an ever better alternative to utility companies for average consumers and, all in all, a wiser investment. For manufacturers, the barrier posed by the cost of materials and assembly should become smaller, allowing mass production to become more feasible. The moment at which a solar energy source can generate power at a levelized cost of electricity which is no higher than the price of power from an electrical grid, called grid parity, has already been reached in several Western European countries and Latin American countries, such as Chile and Argentina. A number of states in the U.S. are on the verge of doing so as well. This could be the birth of a new age of energy, one that no longer eats at the unsustainable resources of the earth and preserves the integrity of the environment for future generations.

The post Super solar cells appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Proportional representation systems are not universal; the system has been adopted in various formats in different countries. In some proportional representation systems, like Finland’s or Norway’s, each electoral district has multiple seats, with the representatives selected from ordered lists provided by parties in proportion to the number of votes received. Alternatively, the entire country can be a single electoral district. Sometimes, a portion of seats are allocated through proportional representation, while another is allocated through FPTP; this is known as a mixed-member proportional system.

In Canada, a multi-partisan grassroots movement known as Fair Vote Canada has been advocating for proportional representation since 2000 and has gained incredible momentum in the past year. Electoral reform is a complex procedural challenge, but we need to remind ourselves why the issue has surfaced nationwide: Canadians are frustrated that their vote is too often “wasted” in the current FPTP system. This simply adds insult to injury for all those who are already disenchanted with Canadian politics. It is no secret that voters too often behave strategically in the hope that they can influence the outcome of an election, sacrificing their right to vote for the representation they feel truly reflects their conscience.

Democracy was not designed to be a winner-takes-all contest where the ruling party gets to play monarch for four years.

History shows that proportional representation leads to a more equitable composition for legislative bodies, and it encourages voter turnout by eliminating “wasted” votes. According to accuratedemocracy.com, proportional representation often leads parties to nominate more women candidates – as unbalanced party candidate lists are more obvious than a disproportionate number of male nominees in scattered FPTP districts – which ultimately leads to more women being elected. Further, smaller parties representing other special interest or minority groups are more likely to succeed. For example, one study published in the Journal of Politics in 2004 showed that the introduction of proportional representation in New Zealand drastically improved Maori representation in parliament.

The Fair Vote Canada campaign alone is not sufficient to push the current Liberal government to act on its promise to introduce electoral reform legislation. Citizens should be having open discussions – at school, at work, on social networks, or in town hall meetings – on the way in which we vote in Canada. Political parties are less likely to put their full effort behind issues, like electoral reform, that may not lead to more votes for their party in particular. Indeed, the Liberals were only able to gain a majority government because of the distorting effects of FPTP on the popular vote. However, democracy advances through strong social pressure. A nationwide conversation is needed to encourage the Liberal government to put ‘business-as-usual’ politics aside and to act in good faith on its promise.

Democracy was not designed to be a winner-takes-all contest where the ruling party gets to play monarch for four years. Under a proportional representation system, the more diverse group of decision-makers in the House of Commons would need to cooperate and make concessions to enact policies, rather than operate on partisanship. As Swiss political scientist Ernest Naville said in 1865, “In a democratic government, the right of decision belongs to the majority, but the right of representation belongs to all.”

Louis Warnock is a U2 Earth and Planetary Sciences student. To reach him, email louis.warnock@gmail.com.

The post Toward democratic reform appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The urban foraging community is admittedly small, but avid forager Vanessa Waters is attempting to introduce people to the art of urban foraging through her Montreal tour “13 Weeds to Live By.” The tour introduces participants to a variety of edible plants that can commonly be found in urban spaces. Her tour’s website description reads, “Weeds are still considered to be something you kill, eradicate, make war on, get rid of. But weeds are the plants that thrive.”

As a youth, Waters accompanied her First Nations grandmother to scavenge for wild plants, and in her adult years, she would fall back on foraging when she was strapped for cash. “[Foraging] gave me a sense of abundance, but slowly it turned into a knowledge hunt,” Waters told The Daily. “I turned to it and got more into it when I was struggling financially. I would think, ‘What would my [grandmother] do?’ because she was so self-sufficient.”

The process of foraging involves identifying whether the plant is poisonous or not and knowing the harvest season for different plants. One of the weeds discussed during Waters’ tour is lamb’s quarters, sometimes called pigweed, which is easy to identify, making it a good plant to start with for beginner foragers. Its leaves have a white coating, and small green flowers form clusters toward the top of the plant. It grows in nitrogen-rich soil, which means it has a high nitrate content.

Despite this, the plant remains a favourite among foragers and is even cultivated in some parts of the world. “[It’s] like your local quinoa,” Waters explains, referring to the seeds, which can be collected and dried to eat. The seeds, along with the spinach-like leaves, make lamb’s quarters a high-protein food. Weeds have long roots, which helps them reach deeper for minerals, but more importantly, if a small portion of the root remains in the ground, it will release seeds by the millions to reproduce itself.

Another wild plant Waters discusses and that you can find around Montreal is milkweed pod, which tastes like green beans, though as it matures it supposedly becomes cheese-like in texture. The plant’s leaves are similar to broccoli.
Waters noteed that thistle roots are steeped, they make a nice chai tea. One can make a preserve with high bush cranberries. Dandelions reach their most tender stage in May and taste bitter like arugula and radicchio.
After gathering a basket of weeds, you can make a green salad, which will have a strong taste perhaps foreign to people who live in the city, or even put the weeds in a blender and have them as a smoothie.

The merits of foraging

It may seem strange to learn about wild foods if you are accustomed to eating commercial foods from the supermarket. There is, however, more to a healthy diet than simply fulfilling the daily requirements of carbohydrates and lipids. Micronutrients, which include vitamins, minerals, and amino acids, are required in smaller quantities but are vital as well. Wild foods are especially known for their diversity and abundance of phytonutrients, a type of micronutrient. These are not life-sustaining chemical compounds but they do nonetheless perform important physiological functions. Carotenoids, for instance, are thought to reduce the risk of cancer. Salicin is both anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving and constitutes the active ingredient in aspirin.

In a commercial setting, such as with cash crops, it only takes about a year for the soil to be depleted of nutrients. Producers use fertilizers to provide energy for growth, but this does not improve the nutritional value of the crop. Foraged foods, on the other hand, generally grow in environments that have an abundance of microorganisms, minerals, insects, compost, and manure, providing good soil fertility. Weeds have developed strong defensive mechanisms against predators and against humans constantly pulling them. Weeds have also succeeded in evolving in harsher conditions than plants growing on a farm or in a garden, a testament to their incredible resilience. Praise of kale as a superfood dims when it is juxtaposed with a couple of edible weeds.

When foraging in the city, one usually follows a couple of general rules: stay at least twenty feet away from rails and ten feet away from roads, and if the plant smells like dog urine, it’s probably best left alone – though, Waters argues, the toxins on food at the supermarket are equally unhealthy. Also, when picking wild parsnips or carrots, you must be confident that you are not in fact preparing your own deathbed with poison hemlock, which looks similar but produces an unpleasant odor.

In a time when many are living fast-paced lifestyles in densely populated areas built of concrete and steel, it is easy to become detached from the land and forget the importance of living in harmony with it. As Waters explained, foraging is not only an environmentally friendly, healthy alternative to commercial foods – it can bring us closer to the land we live on. “I really feel like if we learn about local food […] that we walk over every day, that we pull out and make war against, we could really become more sustainable,” she said.

The post Wild food in the big city appeared first on The McGill Daily.