University of Arizona researchers unveil new model for desert farming in warming world

As the amount of farmland decreases in the United States and climate change brings hotter and drier conditions, many farmers are turning to agrivoltaics — growing crops and installing solar panels on the same land — as a way to make ends meet. Research on a garden in Arizona showed that certain crops like tomatoes and chiltepin peppers were able to thrive under the shade of solar panels, while also improving the solar panels’ productivity. “It’s a very unique positive feedback,” said one of the researchers.

Canopy works to preserve the untouched Broadback Forest, which stores twice as much carbon as the Amazon and is central to the Cree Nation. The nonprofit works with 750 corporations, including fashion brands, commercial printers, and publishers to reduce the amount of packaging they use and eliminate sourcing from biodiverse, ancient, and endangered forests. They help source waste from grain and other food harvests for packaging, paper, and fabric production and enlist companies’ support of conservation initiatives. They also partner with other groups to lobby the government to protect the Broadback forest.

Alaska has deployed a state-of-the-art, multi-agency monitoring system at Barry Arm featuring seismic stations, radar, and tidal gauges that can successfully predict tsunami risks after one year of data collection. Working with community businesses allowed the system to adapt operations and demonstrate how real-time landslide detection can provide crucial location data within minutes of an event.

A greenhouse that is cooled by seawater and the wind is allowing farmers in Somaliland to grow crops like tomatoes and vegetables despite extreme heat. By creating an environment that is higher in humidity and cooler in temperature, plants don’t need to drink as much water — almost 10 times less water because of the cooling system. There are challenges to scaling the response, but these greenhouses offer farmers the potential to increase their revenue in Africa.

Stonyfield, an organic dairy company, is working with six of its suppliers to pilot how farms can measure the amount of carbon it’s trapping in soil through regenerative farming practices as a way for the company to achieve its goals to cut carbon emissions. The OpenTEAM initiative is working to demonstrate how a dairy farm could improve its soil health to reach carbon net zero and, eventually, have food companies pay its farmers to adopt the new practices.

Environmental scientists are using modern computing software to correct, orient, and analyze satellite images from the Corona spy project, launched in the 1960s and ’70s to monitor the Soviet military. The images have revealed human environmental impacts, challenged long-held assumptions, and helped predict future challenges. Within the last two years alone, the images have contributed to new information about climate change including rock glacier movements in Central Asia, shoreline changes in Saudi Arabia, and ice loss in Peru, helping scientists fill in knowledge gaps.

In Paris, about 7,500 buildings are heated using geothermal energy, a cost-saving and carbon neutral energy source. Water is drawn from deep below ground at a central location and heated by the earth, and then sent via underground pipes to individual buildings. The Bagneux and Chatillon district has scaled up the system, providing heat to over 40,000 people. Districts created joint ventures to reduce construction costs and residents do not notice the energy source shift because when the temperature drops to a point where geothermal energy is not viable, gas boilers automatically keeps the heat flowing.

A multi-year experiment in Detroit is looking at environmentally sustainable ways to build urban soil. Some urban farmers are concerned about the high alkalinity levels in their soils, which can lead to potentially contaminated produce. The project is studying how cover crops, compost, and tillage can improve a piece of land. Early results suggest that these techniques can improve soils for agriculture but also improve the soil’s capacity to absorb carbon to mitigate climate change in major cities.

Climeworks is focusing on pulling carbon dioxide directly out of the air to store or reuse in some capacity as a way to lower global greenhouse gas emissions. The Swiss company has 16 plants around Europe, with their biggest one in Switzerland that removes 900 tons of carbon dioxide a year that is then sold to Coca-Cola Co. to put in soft drinks or to local industrial greenhouses for plant growth. Scaling the operations to capture more carbon is costly, but the startup recently raised $76 million from investors.

The Kara Solar Foundation is looking to connect indigenous communities in Achuar territory in Ecuador to learn about solar power as an alternative to oil. By building solar-powered canoes, they can replace vessels that burn fossil fuels into the atmosphere. While the two boats in operation have run into technical problems, the intercultural training programs are instructing Achuar people on how to fix the technology. “Sustained and truly intercultural collaborations can create technological solutions that serve indigenous communities, rather than destroying them,” says Oliver Utne, the foundation's founder.