One Scientist’s Hopeful View On How to Repair the Planet

 

Ecological crises may be piling up in a seemingly hopeless cascade, but Swedish scientist Johan Rockström says the next few decades offer an unparalleled opportunity to undo the damage. by diane toomey Johan Rockström For a researcher who studies how humanity is pushing the earth close to potentially disastrous tipping points, Johan Rockström is surprisingly optimistic. Although he reckons that our species has crossed four of nine “planetary boundaries” — including those on climate change and deforestation — he believes there is still time to pull back from the brink and create a sustainable future based on renewable energy and a “circular” economy that continually reuses resources. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Rockström — executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Center and author of a new book, Big World, Small Planet — offers his take on the state of the planet and explains why he thinks there has “never been so much reason for hope as today.” He outlines how humanity can step back inside planetary boundaries, which he calls “the safe operating space of the hard-wired biophysical process of the earth’s system,” and describes how an alignment of science, technological advances, and a growing public and political hunger for action will get civilization back on track. “It’s not a journey where we are backing into the caves,” says Rockström. “It’s a journey of high technology, good health, of better democracy, and huge, multiple benefits that [go] well beyond saving the planet.” Yale Environment 360: As you lay out in your book, the period of the Holocene — basically the last 12,000 years — was stable and conducive to the flourishing of human civilizations. Opinions differ on when the earth entered the Anthropocene. Where do you mark the beginning point? Johan Rockström: What does the Anthropocene really mean? It means, strictly speaking, that we humans have become a global force of change at the planetary scale, surpassing the magnitude and frequency of natural changes to the planet. If you look back over the past 12,000 years, over the entire Holocene period, it’s true that we started domesticating animals and plants, we started to move out from our hunter and gatherer society to cut down forests and start the transformation of land. But it’s clear that through that entire period — from 8,000 years back all up until the mid-1950s — we see no evidence of humans affecting the resilience and stability of the entire earth system. Then something happens in the mid-1950s, which is clearly the exponential rise of human pressure on the planet. And then these exponential rises are multiple, from greenhouse gases all the way to loss of biodiversity, eutrophication, deforestation, land degradation, pollution of water. So essentially the whole set of parameters putting pressure on the earth system kicks off in the 1950s. So to me, that’s the entry of the Anthropocene. If you would push me really hard, I would actually say perhaps we didn’t enter the Anthropocene truly until the end of 1989. Because from 1955 up until the late 1980s, the earth system was clearly so resilient that it could buffer even that exponential rise in pressure. So even though we were the largest pressure point, it didn’t result in abrupt shocks and stresses. It didn’t lead the earth system to start sending big shocks and waves — or what I often call invoices — back. It’s not until 1989-90 that we start to see big collapses. The codfish fished out of Newfoundland in 1990, big freshwater systems flipping over from oxygen-rich to anoxic, the Baltic Sea flipping over, the accelerated melt of Arctic sea ice, ecosystems going from productive to degraded states. e360: You and colleagues have determined nine planetary boundaries — safe operating zones, as you put it. We’ve already exceeded four of them, including the climate boundary of 350 parts per million of CO2. Where else are we doing badly? Rockström: It’s our most recent assessment, which was published in Science in January 2015, which concludes that we’ve transgressed four boundaries. So apart from climate change, it’s on biodiversity loss, eutrophication — interference with the global nitrogen and phosphorous cycles — and it’s on deforestation, or global land-use change. These are the ones that are already in the danger zone. e360: Your other planetary boundaries include ocean acidification, freshwater consumption, and a few others. You write that adhering to these boundaries won’t hinder economic growth, even with an expected global population of 9 billion. Lay out how that’s possible. Rockström: To begin with, it’s important to understand what the planetary boundary framework is. As a thought experiment, we can take humans away from planet earth, and place every human being on another planet for a moment. And what we do is simply try to interview Mother Earth, and ask her, “Where are your biophysical boundaries beyond which we see changes in feedbacks that lead to crossing of thresholds that can take us out of the Holocene equilibrium?” And science has now advanced so far over the last 30 years, in particular, that we are able to translate the voice of earth into quantified bounds. These nine processes are the ones that regulate the stability of the earth system. Once quantified, they give us the safe operating space of the hard-wired biophysical process of the earth’s system. They have nothing to do with humans. It’s really the biophysical boundaries. Once these are defined, we can put humans back. And then something quite interesting may occur, because the question arises, “Is there anything in the planetary boundary research that hinders growth?” And the answer is no. Because we have a safe operating space, which is the safe playing ground for humans. So I give you one example: Is it possible to think of a world economy growing, but powered by the sun instead of fossil fuels? Meaning that we would stay safe on climate, and still have a high degree of modern energy use that could power economic development in the world. And the answer is yes. Now, if you define growth in GDP terms, where you have no consideration whatsoever of the deterioration and use of natural capital, then of course you are always at risk of pushing us outside of the boundaries. But if you combine a zero-carbon economy — an energy system that is entirely renewable — with a circular economic logic, where you try to recycle all the resources and all the ecosystem functions and services that you’re tapping out of the earth system, you can actually think of a world that has good economic development within a safe operating space. Now, at the end of the day, you can’t be 100 percent sustainable. But I think it’s fair to say today that we have enough evidence that we can actually deliver sustainable economic development. We’re saying that people and the planet can go hand-in-hand. There is therefore not, in the strictest sense, a limit to growth. e360: Is the vision of a stable Anthropocene dependent on technologies that have yet to be developed? Rockström: Well, yes and no. To me, a good Anthropocene is that we stay within Holocene-like conditions. Technologies will play a fundamental role in allowing a transformation to a zero-carbon future. I don’t believe, though, that that transition will easily be accomplished through large-scale geoengineering. It’s rather about innovations in the energy system, in mobility, in energy efficiencies, construction. And also, fundamentally, in the way we produce goods and services. So I think the innovation towards circular economic models is absolutely fundamental and, in particular, for the food system to produce food in sustainable ways that can deliver to nine, ten billion people. But I wouldn’t exclude some large-scale technological innovations to help us. For example, carbon storage and capture, or a breakthrough in fuel cell technology that can go to scale in ways that we do not see today. You can think of next-generation nuclear power, which we haven’t seen yet. So, technologies will, and do already, play a very important role. Just five years back you couldn’t say that renewable energy could be delivered to scale. Today we can with solar and wind, which is quite remarkable. But technology alone will not do the job. It will require behavioral change and new values. We need a mind shift. We need to reconnect our human societies with biospheres, and we need to work with nature, not against it. e360: Are there strategies that you would encourage that could expedite such a mind shift? Rockström: We need to work with the humanistic dimension of ethics, of responsibility, of thinking inter-generationally and, quite frankly, to nurture the love of our planet, the beauty in nature. At one point in this book we say that we don’t believe that any human being wakes up in the morning with a deliberate attempt to destroy the planet. It’s simply that we are stuck in a logic, where, despite our love for our planet, we destroy her anyway, because we are stuck in a path that, just to live our lives, we cannot be fully sustainable. And the mind shift is really about putting the planet first, and then evolving from there to allow us to be much smarter about resolving these current conflicts between sustainability and development. It’s not a journey where we are backing into the caves. It’s a journey of high technology, good health, of better democracy, and huge, multiple benefits. It’s really about a high-tech — what I call a Tesla — future. It’s a future that is techier, cooler, desirable, healthier, and therefore a very exciting journey. e360: When President Obama visited Alaska recently to sound the alarm about climate change, critics pointed to the irony of that trip, considering his decision to allow Shell to drill for oil in the Arctic. In response, the President’s senior adviser on science and technology said, quote, “We might wish for an instantaneous transformation that was drastically less reliant on oil and gas. But we don’t live in a magical world.” What’s your reaction to that? Rockström: There is of course, a fundamental contradiction here. And the contradiction is so blatant because, on the one hand, both [Secretary of State] John Kerry and President Obama point out very clearly that the climate risks in the world are not only urgent, they’re potentially catastrophic, and things are moving too slowly because we need a transformation to an essentially zero-carbon world economy by 2050, 2070. And then secondly, they like to point out that this is not a journey of sacrifice, it’s a journey of opportunity. But then Kerry says, “Oops, we cannot phase out oil in the short term, because we simply need a transitional phase, and we don’t have this magic wand that would enable us to abruptly shift out of oil.” And that to me is problematic because either you ride on the risk analysis and on the description of this huge opportunity arising, or you ride on the argument that, in fact, these renewable technologies are not scalable. So because we need cheap energy, we need to continue on oil. And I think the reason why you’re hearing these contradictory arguments is that we are in a very exciting transitional phase right now. Just three, four years back, the argument that we needed cheap energy, fossil fuel energy systems, because we cannot scale novel technologies, was correct when solar was 0.2, 0.3, or up to 1 percent of the energy mix. Today that’s not true at all. China, Germany, parts of the U.S., Denmark are going to scale with wind and solar and biomass in ways that were impossible to predict. In fact they’ve gone totally through the roof compared to any optimistic assessment just three, four years back. So now we’re in a transitional phase where, for the first time, we can say, “Yes, we have the largest planet risk ever, and yes, we have a solution that is scalable.” So I think he [President Obama] is making a cold calculation that, “I cannot domestically go head-on with all of my desired arguments on a phase-out of fossil fuels — I have to make some compromise.” What he has decided is to allow for exploration. And then count on, in three or four years, oil will not be very attractive. I mean, with current oil prices, there’s no way at all that any oil will be taken out of the Arctic, which is now under sea ice. e360: Later this month, the U.N. will meet to formally adopt 17 sustainable development goals that will address a wide range of issues. Do you see the concept of planetary boundaries being taken into account in those goals? Rockström: Yes, I do. The Sustainable Development Goals say that we want world development within quantitative, scientifically defined, global environmental goals. And four of the 17 goals are planetary boundaries. What keeps me awake at night is the slow pace of change, and that we win one, and then lose one.’ There is a climate goal, a freshwater goal, a biodiversity goal, and an ocean goal. But actually all the other five boundaries are inside the sustainable development goals. We’re really in a dire state in terms of both social and environmental risks in the world, and we need a new logic where people and planet operate in harmony, and if you translate that to the goals, it’s clear that it’s a world that develops within a safe operating space. It is a shift toward a logic that aligns itself with the planetary boundary framework. e360: With climate negotiations set to begin in Paris in about three months, you’ve said that we’ve reached a “Montreal moment in climate.” What do you mean by that? Rockström: In 1987, the world agreed to come back to the safe operating space on one of the nine boundaries, namely the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer — the layer that protects us from dangerous ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Scientists identified the risks from chlorofluorocarbons from refrigerators and cooling systems. And the Montreal Protocol was a phenomenal success. The world actually took itself from a danger zone back into the safe operating space. How did this happen? Well, the industry actually had technologies that it went to scale with and, moreover, actually delivered not only a safer future, but cheaper and more advanced technology. And when you analyze that success, you find that three criteria were in place. One, the science was established, and policy makers and industry believed in the science. The second is that technology was available, and industry was ready to move. And third, you had policy makers that were ready to act. For climate, these criteria have never been fulfilled. So you’ve had debates on science. You have never been able to talk convincingly about solutions. They’ve never been scalable. Shell and BP will say, “We trust the science, but we are forced to drill for oil, because it’s the only way to power the world economy.” And third, we haven’t had a kind of an alignment in terms of policy. And now, in 2015, for the first time, you actually see that we’ve seen a Montreal moment on climate. Because the science is now so well established, and the technologies are available and scalable. And we have a completely new policy and business recognition that this is not only a risk we need to solve but it’s an opportunity that we can grasp. And that was not there just a few years back. e360: Your book has quite an optimistic tone. By your estimation, though, we’ve got a decade to accomplish the mind shift and begin operating within the planetary boundaries. You’ve also said that if bold decisions are taken this year, you’re optimistic that the future will be bright. But what keeps you up at night? Rockström: I’m convinced that the world has crossed a social tipping point. We’ve tipped over to a logic where it’s clear that sustainability is the future for humanity. But what keeps me awake at night is the slow pace of change, and that we win one, and then lose one. We see Australia investing in coalmines. We see Canada being a slow mover. We see India with an uncertain position. We see a world that is in a very nervous state with regards to terrorism, fundamentalist Islamic movements, and the economy. So with all of this social, geopolitical turbulence and ups and downs, when it comes to really moving forward on solving the climate challenge and grasping the opportunities, will we really be able to turn the tide in five to ten years? Will we be able to avoid the earth system pushing these hard-wired “on” buttons that will take us irreversibly in the wrong direction? So it’s a very interesting moment right now. There’s never been a reason to be so nervous as today, but never has there been so much reason for hope as today. And the question is where will we take it. POSTED ON 23 Sep 2015 IN Biodiversity Business & Innovation Climate Climate Energy Policy & Politics Sustainability Africa Europe   http://e360.yale.edu/feature/one_scientists_hopeful_view_on_how_to_repair_the_planet/2913/

When a tree falls in the forest, what’s the impact on water resources?

 

With much of snow melt coming from forested areas, NSF-funded hydrologist Mukesh Kumar’s research focuses on balancing forest management and water yield Kumar measures sunlight, skylight, and heat emitted by the trees at various vegetation densities. Credit and Larger Version July 10, 2015 Forest management practices such as cutting or thinning trees reduce the risk of wildfires, and enhance the overall health of the woodlands. However, they also can speed up the pace of snow melt, which in turn may increase erosion and destabilize streams. Too much melt within a short time interval sends excessive sediment and nutrients into streams, harming ecosystems and degrading water quality, which is expensive to treat. Mukesh Kumar, assistant professor of hydrology and water resources at Duke University, thinks there needs to be an equilibrium between maintaining the well-being of the forest through sound forest management practices, and preserving seasonal snow in forested uplands that serve as a critical water source for most of the western United States. It is an issue that assumes added importance now, during a time of severe and prolonged drought in the West. "Generally in most of the western United States and many snow dominated settings in the world, most of the water supply is recharged from snow melt, and much of this happens in forested areas," he says. "At the same time, many forest management practices are done every few years, trying to maintain a certain density of trees that allows every tree to get sufficient nutrients and sunlight…[and] reduce fire risk." As a result, more sun hits the snow on the ground, and it melts faster, causing an increase in so-called "spring stream flow peak," which means "the largest flow in the stream or river during the melt season," he explains, adding: "This can be a problem. What we are trying to do is strike a balance between maximizing forest productivity and minimizing its impact on water resources." The National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded scientist is working at several sites, including the Mica Creek Experimental Watershed in Idaho, the Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory in California and the Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research site in Colorado, taking measurements of direct radiation (sunlight), diffuse radiation (skylight) and longwave radiation (heat emitted by the trees) as it reaches the forest floor at various vegetation densities in the forest. He also will assess snow losses, and how the reflectivity of the snow changes with vegetation density, "because all of these will determine the rate at which snow will evaporate or accumulate, and melt will happen," he says. His project aims to better understand the impact of such practices as thinning and gap creation – an opening in the forest – on snow accumulation, snow melt and the hydrologic response that follows. He and his collaborators, who include Timothy Link, professor of hydrology at the University of Idaho, also are developing fine-scale forest radiation computer models and integrated hydrologic models, which they plan to use to identify optimal tree patterns that will minimize the negative impact on water resources. They will feed their field measurements into their computer models "to ensure the models we built are valid," he says, then put different scenarios into the computer "to evaluate the impacts on stream flow." Ultimately, the computer model should tell the scientists location-specific forest management practices with minimum negative effects on the water. "Hopefully, the computer model will tell us how to do this – should we thin on the north facing slope? Or south facing? How much should we thin?," he says. "If the goal is to reduce the impact on water resources, what specific configuration will take us there?" Moreover, another aspect of the same project seeks "to be able to do forest management that will increase the total amount of water yield from the forest," he adds, especially critical during the current ongoing drought. "Let’s say we have a dense forest, the snow gets intercepted and lost into the atmosphere through evaporation," he explains. "If we can identify optimal tree densities or gap patterns that can increase the snow retention in the forest, it will increase the amount of water in the stream. We are reducing the losses, letting the snow hit the ground. The optimal forest patterns will allow melt at such a rate that it is available during the time we need water, which is in the summer." Kumar is conducting his research under an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, which he received earlier this year. The award supports junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organization. NSF is funding his work with $570,000 over five years. As part of the grant’s educational component, he is incorporating the results of his research into the two courses on hydrologic modeling that he teaches, and he also is developing K-12 outreach programs designed to teach young people about specific water topics and the trade-offs involved in decision-making and science-based solutions. Among other things, he is working with the Morehead Planetarium Science Center at the annual North Carolina Science Festival to bring middle school and high school students into his lab, and is designing a web interface that will provide prototype model simulations of different water and forest settings so that "students will be able to evaluate how certain degrees of deforestation may impact the flood or drought, or availability of water in the summer," he says.   Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation   Maria C. Zacharias, (703) 292-8454 mzachari@nsf.gov   Related Websites On the role of vegetation density on net snow cover radiation at the forest floor: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jgrd.50575/abstract Net radiation in a snow-covered discontinuous forest gap for a range of gap sizes and topographic configurations: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014JD021809/abstract

Finding winners and losers in global land use

The United States added about 7.6 million acres of forests between 1990 and 2010, which may seem like a great environmental gain. But the real question is how the United States achieved that milestone, said Darla Munroe, associate professor of geography at The Ohio State University. "Reforestation in the United States may have come at the expense of some other country's forest," Munroe said. "There isn't any environmental gain for the world if we are saving trees here by simply getting trees for our paper products from some other place." This is just one example of how an increasingly complex, interconnected world makes it difficult to study sustainability and figure out who the winners and losers are, she said. Munroe studies how land is used in a global context, using concepts such as "telecoupling," which involves how humans and natural systems interact over long distances. She discussed some of her research on land use and sustainability and the challenges facing her field Feb. 13 in San Jose at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. While the world has changed significantly in recent decades, the tools and concepts that geographers use to study the world have not, she said. "The way we work and our conceptual framework aren't up to the 21st century world. We need to use ideas about how networks operate to understand connections across the globe," she said. Many of the issues that land-use researchers face have changed substantially in recent decades. One prime example is the rise of global agribusiness, which has major impact because of these companies' size, influence and speed in making decisions. For example, a Chinese food company may need to buy large quantities of soybeans and evaluate three or four sources from around the globe before making a quick decision based on fluctuations in soybean prices. The decision may lead to thousands of acres of forest being cut down in one country to make room for more fields and economically devastate farmers in another country that didn't get the contract. "These corporate decisions can have huge environmental impacts and they are made very quickly. It is hard for research to keep up," Munroe said. The rise of large multinational corporations may make it harder for land-use researchers to make sense of what is happening to the world. Corporations are much less transparent than governments in making their data and decisions publicly available, meaning that researchers may struggle to get all the information they need. But it is not just multinational corporations that have made the work of geographers more complex. Everything, in a sense, is multinational now, from trade and trade agreements to the work of international environmental groups. "We used to think about local land-use decisions filtering up to global markets. But now the global is in the local. They are all related and the challenge for land-use scientists is to keep up with the change," Munroe said. Story Source: The above story is based on materials provided by Ohio State University. The original article was written by Jeff Grabmeier. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Dear Colleague Letter: SEES: Interactions of Food Systems with Water and Energy Systems (nsf15040)

 

NSF 15-040 Dear Colleague Letter: SEES: Interactions of Food Systems with Water and Energy Systems February 2, 2015 Dear Colleagues: NSF established the Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) investment area in 2010 to lay the research foundation for decision capabilities and technologies aimed at mitigating and adapting to environmental changes that threaten sustainability. SEES investments advance a systems-based approach to understanding, predicting, and reacting to stress upon and changes in the linked natural, social, and built environments. In this context, the importance of understanding the interconnected and interdependent systems involving food, energy, and water (FEW) has emerged. Through this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), the NSF aims to accelerate fundamental understanding and stimulate basic research on systems that extend beyond the interests of the SEES Water Sustainability and Climate (WSC) program to include couplings to energy and food systems where the NSF already has established presence. Water and energy are critical for agriculture and food production. In addition, many factors - including changing land-use practices; increased urbanization; population growth and distribution; changing demand and consumer preferences; water contamination; and climate variability - create stresses on water, energy, and agriculture resources and systems in multiple and sometimes unexpected ways. These multifaceted interactions among food, energy, and water systems function according to fundamental scientific principles that govern the coupling of various physical, chemical, biological and social processes. There is a critical need to enhance understanding of the couplings within these complex systems and how they determine the systems-level response of the FEW system. a need for basic research to enable foundational technologies critical to the safety, security, productivity, and resilience of the FEW system and to pursue sustained cyberinfrastructure (data, software, and computational resources) that will support these activities and advances. The NSF supports basic research in nearly all key scientific and engineering disciplines which can further the understanding of these physical, chemical, biological, and social interactions, as well as the integration of heterogeneous data and uncertainties. In addition, the NSF supports the building of knowledge and educational advances to foster a broad and diverse next generation workforce. The NSF defines the FEW system very broadly, incorporating physical processes (such as new technologies for more efficient resource utilization), natural processes (such as biogeochemical and hydrologic cycles), biological processes (such as agroecosystem structure and productivity), social/behavioral processes (such as decision making and governance), and cyber elements. Understanding these complex, dynamic coupled systems will require new or enhanced partnerships across many disciplinary research communities. The NSF requests innovative proposals in the form of (1) supplements, to build upon existing NSF-funded research activities; or (2) conferences of typically 30-80 attendees that stimulate debate, discussion, visioning and collaboration across research communities, and enable a higher appreciation, visualization and understanding of food systems and their couplings to energy and water systems. Such conferences are typically identified as "workshops" and will hereafter be referred to as simply "workshops". All NSF Directorates/Office listed below are interested in receiving inquiries. These proposals should address the coupled nature of the food, energy, and water system and the interdisciplinary dimensions of physical, natural, biological, cyber, and social/behavioral processes of relevance. Workshop proposals should facilitate and enable interdisciplinary partnerships among natural science, physical science, social science, computing and engineering researchers and develop innovative, interdisciplinary research approaches to understanding the FEW system. Workshop projects should culminate in deliverable white papers that define scientific, engineering and data challenges in understanding the FEW system. In addition to academic researchers, workshop participants may include scientists, engineers, educators, and practitioners from industry, local, state, and federal agencies (e.g. EPA, DOE, USDA, USGS, NOAA). For any potential NSF follow-on effort in the FEW system, NSF anticipates some Federal agency partner participation. Workshop proposals may be submitted to any appropriate program, with prior approval of the program's manager, and may be additionally discussed by other relevant programs. Prior to submitting a proposal the PI must contact one of the individuals listed below to ensure that the proposal fits the goals of this DCL. PIs will then be directed to appropriate Program Directors for submission through the normal submission process outlined in the NSF Grants Proposal Guide. Workshop proposal budgets must be less than a total of $100,000. The title of workshop proposals submitted under this DCL should begin with "FEW." Supplements to existing NSF active grants may be proposed with prior permission of the appropriate managing Program Officer. These requests must enhance existing projects by incorporating or exploring the concepts described in this DCL. For example, a project focusing on energy and water might propose to add a component related to food production. In addition, proposed supplements may provide an opportunity to broaden the project's interdisciplinary dimensions to incorporate physical, natural, biological, cyber, and social/behavioral processes of relevance. All supplement requests must include costs associated with use of facilities or other infrastructure. Supplements whose focus is to foster and strengthen interaction among scientists, engineers, and educators, to advance research or education in the FEW system, across disciplinary, organization, geographic, and international boundaries, will also be considered. Workshop proposals and supplement requests must be submitted by March 30, 2015, for consideration. Workshop proposals should focus their activities and deliverables in the September to December 2015 timeframe. For supplements that foster new collaborations and partnerships to address interdisciplinary topics, it is strongly encouraged to have initial activities during 2015. Proposals or requests where PIs have not contacted the relevant program officers, as described in this DCL, will be returned without consideration. MPS will also consider EAGERs following specific discussion with the MPS point of contact below. Investigators are encouraged to review the six "bottleneck" areas of research identified in the July of 2014 report of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Advisory Committee - Subcommittee on Food Systems "Food, Energy and Water: Transformative Research Opportunities in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences." This report can be found at: http://www.nsf.gov/mps/advisory/mpsac_other_reports/nsf_food_security_report_review_final_rev2.pdf Points of contact for participating Directorates: ENG: JoAnn Lighty, FEW Working Group co-Chair Division Director Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, & Transport Systems GEO: Thomas Torgersen, FEW Working Group co-Chair Program Officer, Division of Earth Sciences BIO: Alan Tessier Deputy Division Director (Acting), Division of Environmental Biology SBE: Leah Nichols Program Officer, Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences OIIA: Audrey Levine Program Officer, Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research MPS: Colby Foss Program Officer, Division of Chemistry CISE: David Corman Program Officer, Division of Computer and Network Systems EHR: Amy Chan Hilton Program Officer, Division of Undergraduate Education