Triple Bottom Line or Trilemma? Global Tradeoffs Between Prosperity, Inequality, and the Environment

This is the final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordData availability: All data used in the paper is openly available. Replication code is provided on the GitHub repository https://github.com/juanrocha/trilemma/A key aim of sustainable development is the joint achievement of prosperity, equality, and environmental integrity: in other words, material living standards that are high, broadly-distributed, and low-impact. This has often been called the “triple bottom line”. But instead, what if there is a “trilemma” that inhibits the simultaneous achievement of these three goals? We analysed international patterns and trends in the relationships between per-capita gross national income, the Gini coefficient for income distribution, and per-capita ecological footprint from 1995 to 2017, benchmarking them against thresholds from the existing literature. A “dynamic” analysis of the trajectories of 59 countries and a “static” analysis of a larger sample of 140 countries found that none met the triple bottom line, and that instead there were widespread tradeoffs among the three indicators. These tradeoffs, leading to divergent national trajectories and country clusters, show that common pair-wise explanations such as Kuznets Curves do not adequately capture important development dynamics. In particular, while only a few countries simultaneously met the thresholds for prosperity and equality on the one hand and equality and environment on the other, none did for prosperity and environment. Moreover, inequality likely makes resolving this critical tradeoff more difficult. Our findings suggest that mitigating the sustainability trilemma may require countries – especially those that are already prosperous – to prioritize economic redistribution and environmental stewardship over further growth.FormasSwedish Research Counci

DNA from Plant leaf Extracts: A Review for Emerging and Promising Novel Green Corrosion Inhibitors.

With growing global awareness and concern for environmental protection through the use of less hazardous and environmentally-friendly extracts of plant origin, there has been a plethora of green corrosion inhibitors research with far reaching contributions to the science of corrosion prevention and control. Attention has increasingly turned towards green corrosion inhibitors, compounds of natural origin with anti-oxidant activity towards metals and their alloys. Green inhibitors have been investigated for their corrosion and adsorption properties with good results. The findings from these research works provide evidence of the adsorption behavior of green inhibitors which was confirmed by the adsorption isotherms that were proposed. Adsorption is the first step of any surface reaction and since corrosion is a surface phenomenon the effectiveness of green corrosion inhibitors is related to their ability to adsorb on metal surfaces. This review proposes the potential of plant dna as an emerging and promising novel inhibitor for mild steel. It begins with a list of plants that have been used in studies to determine corrosion inhibition properties and moves on to establish the adsorption behavior of bio macromolecules; protein, polysaccharides (chitosan) and dna. It reviews studies and investigation of dna interaction and adsorption on inorganic surfaces before focusing on the use of salmon (fish) sperm dna and calf thymus gland dna as green corrosion inhibitors for mild steel. It concludes that plant dna is a promising candidate for green corrosion inhibitor given the similarity between the plant and animal dna structure and function, and the fact that the use of plant is more environmentally sustainable than animal-based produc

A Net Energy Analysis of the Global Agriculture, Aquaculture, Fishing and Forestry System

The global agriculture, aquaculture, fishing and forestry (AAFF) energy system is subject to three unsustainable trends: (1) the approaching biophysical limits of AAFF; (2) the role of AAFF as a driver of environmental degradation; and (3) the long-term declining energy efficiency of AAFF due to growing dependence on fossil fuels. In response, we conduct a net energy analysis for the period 1971–2017 and review existing studies to investigate the global AAFF energy system and its vulnerability to the three unsustainable trends from an energetic perspective. We estimate the global AAFF system represents 27.9% of societies energy supply in 2017, with food energy representing 20.8% of societies total energy supply. We find that the net energy-return-on-investment (net EROI) of global AAFF increased from 2.87:1 in 1971 to 4.05:1 in 2017. We suggest that rising net EROI values are being fuelled in part by ‘depleting natures accumulated energy stocks’. We also find that the net energy balance of AAFF increased by 130% in this period, with at the same time a decrease in both the proportion of rural residents and also the proportion of the total population working in AAFF—which decreased from 19.8 to 10.3%. However, this comes at the cost of growing fossil fuel dependency which increased from 43.6 to 62.2%. Given the increasing probability of near-term fossil fuel scarcity, the growing impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, and the approaching biophysical limits of global AAFF, ‘Odum’s hoax’ is likely soon to be revealed

Aquatic Foods to Nourish Nations

Despite contributing to healthy diets for billions of people, aquatic foods are often undervalued as a nutritional solution because their diversity is often reduced to the protein and energy value of a single food type (‘seafood’ or ‘fish’)1,2,3,4. Here we create a cohesive model that unites terrestrial foods with nearly 3,000 taxa of aquatic foods to understand the future impact of aquatic foods on human nutrition. We project two plausible futures to 2030: a baseline scenario with moderate growth in aquatic animal-source food (AASF) production, and a high-production scenario with a 15-million-tonne increased supply of AASFs over the business-as-usual scenario in 2030, driven largely by investment and innovation in aquaculture production. By comparing changes in AASF consumption between the scenarios, we elucidate geographic and demographic vulnerabilities and estimate health impacts from diet-related causes. Globally, we find that a high-production scenario will decrease AASF prices by 26% and increase their consumption, thereby reducing the consumption of red and processed meats that can lead to diet-related non-communicable diseases5,6 while also preventing approximately 166 million cases of inadequate micronutrient intake. This finding provides a broad evidentiary basis for policy makers and development stakeholders to capitalize on the potential of aquatic foods to reduce food and nutrition insecurity and tackle malnutrition in all its forms.Additional co-authors: Pierre Charlebois, Manuel Barange, Stefania Vannuccini, Ling Cao, Kristin M. Kleisner, Eric B. Rimm, Goodarz Danaei, Camille DeSisto, Heather Kelahan, Kathryn J. Fiorella, Edward H. Allison, Jessica Fanzo & Shakuntala H. Thilste

Environmental performance of blue foods

Fish and other aquatic foods (blue foods) present an opportunity for more sustainable diets1,2. Yet comprehensive comparison has been limited due to sparse inclusion of blue foods in environmental impact studies3,4 relative to the vast diversity of production5. Here we provide standardized estimates of greenhouse gas, nitrogen, phosphorus, freshwater and land stressors for species groups covering nearly three quarters of global production. We find that across all blue foods, farmed bivalves and seaweeds generate the lowest stressors. Capture fisheries predominantly generate greenhouse gas emissions, with small pelagic fishes generating lower emissions than all fed aquaculture, but flatfish and crustaceans generating the highest. Among farmed finfish and crustaceans, silver and bighead carps have the lowest greenhouse gas, nitrogen and phosphorus emissions, but highest water use, while farmed salmon and trout use the least land and water. Finally, we model intervention scenarios and find improving feed conversion ratios reduces stressors across all fed groups, increasing fish yield reduces land and water use by up to half, and optimizing gears reduces capture fishery emissions by more than half for some groups. Collectively, our analysis identifies high-performing blue foods, highlights opportunities to improve environmental performance, advances data-poor environmental assessments, and informs sustainable diets

Photovoltaic-driven microbial protein production can use land and sunlight more efficiently than conventional crops

Population growth and changes in dietary patterns place an evergrowing pressure on the environment. Feeding the world within sustainable boundaries therefore requires revolutionizing the way we harness natural resources. Microbial biomass can be cultivated to yield protein-rich feed and food supplements, collectively termed single-cell protein (SCP). Yet, we still lack a quantitative comparison between traditional agriculture and photovoltaic-driven SCP systems in terms of land use and energetic efficiency. Here, we analyze the energetic efficiency of harnessing solar energy to produce SCP from air and water. Ourmodel includes photovoltaic electricity generation, direct air capture of carbon dioxide, electrosynthesis of an electron donor and/or carbon source for microbial growth (hydrogen, formate, or methanol), microbial cultivation, and the processing of biomass and proteins. We show that, per unit of land, SCP production can reach an over 10-fold higher protein yield and at least twice the caloric yield compared with any staple crop. Altogether, this quantitative analysis offers an assessment of the future potential of photovoltaic-driven microbial foods to supplement conventional agricultural production and support resource-efficient protein supply on a global scale

Global reactive nitrogen deposition from lightning NOx

We present results of the deposition of nitrogen compounds formed from lightning (LNO x ) using the global chemical transport Model of Atmospheric Transport and Chemistry¿Max Planck Institute for Chemistry version. The model indicates an approximately equal deposition of LNO x in both terrestrial and oceanic ecosystems, primarily in the tropics and midlatitudes open ocean, despite much higher intensities of lightning flashes above landmasses. The highest values of deposition are due to wet convective deposition, with highest values concentrated in the tropical continents. Nonconvective wet deposition, associated with large-scale weather patterns, occurs over large areas of the ocean amid lower values per square meter, manifesting the long-range transport of NO y , including long-lived species such as HNO3 at high altitudes and PAN. Dry deposition is concentrated primarily above landmasses, yet oceanic deposition over wide areas is still observed. Combined together, the total LNO x deposition exhibits maximal influx values over land, whereas oceanic deposition over wider areas renders the integrated deposition over both ecosystems almost identical. Peaks of terrestrial deposition values (located in Africa, South America, and Asia) show seasonal variability by meridionally penetrating the northern or southern midlatitude following the corresponding summer hemisphere, in accordance with the migration of LNO x production sites. On land, wet and dry deposition rates are more or less equal with a small bias toward wet deposition, whereas above the ocean, wet deposition is markedly higher because of a small water uptake efficiency and relatively small surface roughness. Further work of modeling additional species and obtaining more information on different compounds is require

Inequality and the biosphere

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is vailable from Annual Reviews via the DOI in this record.Rising inequalities and accelerating global environmental change pose two of the most pressing challenges of the twenty-first century. To explore how these phenomena are linked, we apply a social-ecological systems perspective and review the literature to identify six different types of interactions (or "pathways") between inequality and the biosphere. We find that most of the research so far has only considered one-directional effects of inequality on the biosphere, or vice versa. However, given the potential for complex dynamics between socioeconomic and environmental factors within social-ecological systems, we highlight examples from the literature that illustrate the importance of cross-scale interactions and feedback loops between inequality and the biosphere. This review draws on diverse disciplines to advance a systemic understanding of the linkages between inequality and the biosphere, specifically recognizing cross-scale feedbacks and the multidimensional nature of inequality.National Science Foundation (NSF)VINNOVA-VINMER Marie Curie Incoming gran