October 26, 2023: The keys to solving the climate crisis, what dogs see and do we really need to eat so much meat? —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | The global challenge of climate change seems overwhelming at times. But the world has solved large environmental problems before that seemed insurmountable at the time, writes Hannah Ritchie, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford. A key example is acid rain. Acid rain was the leading environmental problem of the 1990s, causing devastating ecological damage. Plus, it was an international problem. Government officials signed international agreements, placed emissions limits on power plants and started to reduce coal burning. Interventions were incredibly effective. In Europe, sulfur dioxide emissions fell by 84 percent and in the U.S. by 90 percent. Some countries have reduced them by more than 98 percent.
Key lessons: What can we learn from the acid rain success? Low-cost technological solutions are key. It's also important to recognize that agreements and treaties take time and evolve through multiple negotiations and iterations. And, individual efforts of policy makers and politicians matter more than their political party or affiliation.
What can be done: Climate change is more complicated than acid rain or other previous environmental challenges, like curbing the ozone hole. Addressing a warming world means rebuilding energy, transport and food systems. It will involve every country, and almost every sector. "To accelerate action, we need to have the expectation that things can move faster," says Ritchie. "That's where past lessons come in; we should use them to understand that these expectations are not unrealistic." | | | Credit: John Knight; Source: Data Explorer: Air Pollution, Our World in Data | Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is a cause of acid rain. This chart shows the dramatic rise and fall of SO2 emissions relative to the peak of emissions in each country or region, which occurred at different times. | | | What do dogs see? Dogs possess two types of color-sensing receptors, called cones, in their retinas (unlike humans, who have three cones). They can see blues and yellows but not reds and greens. Most dogs have 20/75 vision–blurry by our standard–but have evolved to see well in both daytime and nighttime. They have fewer color-sensing cones than humans, yes, but have more rods, the cells that help with night vision. They even have a unique structure in their eyes called the tapetum lucidum, a mirrorlike membrane that allows them to see in six times less light than humans can.
Secret Weapon: The eyes are only part of their equation. A dog's sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times more powerful than that of an average human (and true across all dog species). They can pick up odors as far as 12 miles away. This mighty sense is inextricably linked to how they see the world. In the canine brain, the olfactory bulb, which processes smell, is directly connected to their occipital lobe, which processes vision, a study last year showed. This integration of sight and smell had not been observed before in any other animal species.
What the experts say: The results raise the question of whether dogs' sense of smell is orienting their sight, says Paul Miller, a veterinary ophthalmologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. "It's pretty wild." This also means that letting dogs sniff every hydrant, tree and grass patch, no matter how slow the walk becomes, gives them a full picture of the world around them. | | | • Users absorb bias from AI models they interact with, and that bias can persist in a person's behavior—even after they stop using the AI program. | 7 min read | | | • Tropical Storm Otis rapidly intensified into a Category 5 hurricane and slammed into Mexico yesterday--a region that has never seen landfall by a storm of such power before. | 3 min read | | | Hurricane Otis. Credit: NOAA/NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research | | | • For at least 2.4 million years, people have been eating animals, evidenced by cut traces on fossil animal bones, surviving stone tools and analyses of our ancestors' teeth. But experts from such diverse fields as paleoanthropology and nutrition are starting to question whether we still need to eat as much meat as we do, writes Katharina Menne, an editor at Spektrum der Wissenschaft. | 8 min read | | | Hanna Ritchie's article about our success fighting acid rain leaves me feeling optimistic about our future. Yes, the challenges are great, but we humans can come up with solutions if we decide we really want to. IF.
Two collections of articles that are full of innovative solutions to our biggest problems:
The Age of Humans: Where we came from, the world we've created, and where we're going (Download here) | If you have any feedback, suggestions, or spot any errors while reading this newsletter, please let me know: newsletters@sciam.com. My colleague Robin Lloyd will be filling in for me tomorrow. | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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