We're at war. Democracy is crumbling. People are dying. But we still have to care about why research on ultra-processed foods is complete garbage. So here is a thread about why that is. Start with this WSJ piece. (gift link) 🧵 www.wsj.com/health/welln...

Oh no, here we go again.

Americans are always blaming Brazil for failing to protect the Amazon. But we deforested our Amazon in the 1800s! Indiana was once 85% forest, and Indiana’s soy is farmed the same way as Brazil’s. Stop pointing fingers, start helping Brazil protect the Amazon.

As the EU’s deforestation-free regulation takes effect in 2026, companies will lean on satellite maps to prove their supply chains are compliant. But a new review warns most maps can’t meet EUDR standards, risking misclassification in places where agroforestry and forests look alike.

By focussing on charismatic large fauna rather than restoring ecosystem functions, there is the danger that some rewilding projects are less about radical processed-based conservation and instead are a reinvention of species-centric approaches www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Ça avance

Oogst vernield door Insectenplaag 🥲.

“We are eating the Earth…Carbohydrates will be an even tougher problem to solve than hydrocarbons.” - @mikegrunwald.bsky.social

New paper out in Ecology Letters! Led by Ennia Bosshard and Chris Kaiser-Bunbury, we show that proximity to natural habitat doesn’t consistently support pollination in tropical smallholder farms. Landscape complexity matters more than distance. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Stop making excuses for unclear writing open.substack.com/pub/bigifftr...

Published today in Earth System Science Data: The Global Carbon Budget 2025 essd.copernicus.org/preprints/es...

The obvious economics of preserving the Amazon www.economist.com/the-americas... From The Economist

NEW: Biofuels globally emit more than the fossil fuels they replace, our latest study shows. The first-of-a-kind study looks at global biofuels production today and the potential impacts of government biofuel targets. 🧵⤵️

We are doomed.

📢 Vacancy: I am urgently recruiting a PhD candidate to join a project on selection processes in pedunculate oak. 📅 Start date: no later than December 1st.

Pissed off at that bonkers press conference confusing correlation and causation, and warning women off Tylenol? Yeah me too. But think of that next time a nutrition study makes headlines because, say, artificial sweeteners are associated with cognitive decline - to pick an example at random.

Fertilizer DOES NOT burn up soil organic matter. Long-term study finds "NP fertilization substantially augments both the quantity and stability of soil organic carbon stocks." scienmag.com/long-term-n...

Waarom moeten we zo nodig wolven hebben in de Lage Landen? Opinie in De Standaard 3/9/25

Just found out that ChatGPT effortlessly converts every thinkable old Flemish measure into English ones and the metric system 🙂. 1 Bruges hoet of wheat = 172 l ≈ 4.88 Winchester bushels.

Grime's CSR theory revisited: A whole-plant view of vascular plant functioning across contrasting environments besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Fascinating list of the scientists who have saved the most lives, via @maxroser.bsky.social at @ourworldindata.org , 2 of the top 3 are food related: #1 - Haber & Bosch, for synthetic nitrogen (2.3 billion) #3 - Norman Borlaug, for high-yield crops (245 million) Data source: www.scienceheroes.com

Gezocht: lector #natuurbeheer #ecologie #wetenschappen bij @odiseehogeschool.bsky.social Agro- en biotechnologie in Sint-Niklaas. www.odisee.be/lector-agro-... Start: het nieuwe academiejaar Solliciteren: asap! Diverse opdracht, 50-100% ifv invulling.

“We’re clear-cutting and broiling the planet to stuff our faces.” @theguardian.com did a deep dive into WE ARE EATING THE EARTH! www.theguardian.com/environment/...

To grow food you need two things: some land and some of your time. Land and labor are two of agriculture’s primary inputs. To build a food system that works for people and the planet, humanity needs to achieve high productivity in both of them.

@hannahritchie.bsky.social explains why increasing agricultural productivity across Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the world’s most pressing problems: ourworldindata.org/africa-yield...

“Probing how and why the atomic bombs were deployed against Japan has become a cottage industry all of its own.” The War Room, our defence newsletter, recommends seven of the best books about the country’s defeat in the second world war

How Ethiopia avoided colonization in the late 19th century but then lagged behind in the 20th century: www.africanistperspective.com/p/how-ethiop...

'Cows just replaced the methane from wild bison' Not even close. At their peak, wild ruminants incl. bison emitted ~15 Tg CH₄/yr Today’s 4+ billion farmed ruminants emit over 100 Tg CH₄/yr That’s nearly 7x more methane. essd.copernicus.org/articles/17/...

Hier komt deze zomer geen festival

Op vakantie in het hol van de leeuw.

6. Then other people say, "we must rewild the world". Yes. But it's not going to happen without major dietary change. Eg we can't have grass-fed beef (the most land-hungry of all products) and rewilding. In fact, it drives a massive de-wilding. At this point, half the enthusiasts shuffle away.

Totally agree. There seems to be the idea that regen ag will do the trick. See our response to a BES report

Can Africa feed itself without further expansion of its agricultural land at a high C and biodiversity cost? => Would require *tripling* current annual yield increase to achieve cereal self-sufficiency. => Big differences between E & W Africa due to differences in nitrogen fertilization regime.

New research from my colleagues out today looking at the environmental and social impacts of food crop-based biofuels in the US, where we now use >30% of the corn supply and >40% of the soybean oil supply (on tens of millions of acres of prime cropland) to produce only ~6% of US transport fuel. 🧪

Fascinating study. For every 1000 bears in an area, there is an associated 4% increased likelihood of a bigfoot sighting. 🧪 zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Many "ultra-processed foods" are basically a trojan horse for getting more fat, sugar, and meat into diets in hyper-palatable form. But the political discourse around "ultra-processed food" and health is a trojan horse for mainstreaming disinfo and junk science and bad policy. Important distinction.

The average American diet requires about 2 acres of land per person per year (and that’s food grown and raised by people who are experts at growing and raising food)

🙄 when gardening gurus recommend applying a 4" layer of compost to vegetable garden beds. From my calculations, that's 260-320 tons/acre, way more than any farmer would apply. It's also over 2000 lb of nitrogen per acre. And then apply 1" annually after this, so another 500 lb of N...😬

Een kleine belasting op grasmaaien en gebruik van hogedrukreinigers zou een milieuvriendelijke manier zijn om een intergenerationele transfer van middelen te organiseren van te vroeg gepensioneerde boomers naar jongeren.

New paper in The Lancet Planetary Health where we show that Nitrogen enrichment not only substantially increases the pollen production of grasslands, but also the pollen allergenicity 🤧.

1. Yesterday I wrote a thread about the dire warnings from food professionals on the state of supply chains. Comfortable folk might find it impossible to imagine an end to the current abundance. But we'd better start imagining it fast. THIS thread is about solutions - false ones and sound ones.

Beaver mikado & ‘Boulaies tourbeuses’ (Vaccinio uliginosi-Betuletum pubescentis), very rare here. Forêt de St Hubert today.

Donald Trump has committed the most profound, harmful and unnecessary economic error in the modern era. Almost everything he said—on history, economics and the technicalities of trade—was utterly deluded econ.st/3YbbFjq

Highly recommend this worthwhile essay coauthored by @garrettbroad.bsky.social for this moment in environmental communication on "nature-based solutionism" (like grass-fed beef), including ai newrepublic.com/article/1933...

Trump is turning out to be a problem for Europe’s most important hard-right leaders. His antics are making life difficult for both Meloni and Le Pen economist.com/europe/2025/... from @Economist

What mediates one's view on wolves? In short: it's likely your global attitude towards nature, but attitude towards hunting is a good enough proxy for that. A short 🧵 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

Oh come on.

Fragmented landscapes consistently have both lower α diversity and lower γ diversity. The whole body of literature on Allee effects makes some sense after all 🙂.

Resolves part of a 1/2 century old debate about whether habitat fragmentation reduces biodiversity, above and beyond habitat loss. We find that it does.

'Input taxes in agriculture: Experiences and perspectives for European agriculture' New paper with Anders Branth Pedersen in Ecological Economics doi.org/10.1016/j.ec.... Free access via this link authors.elsevier.com/a/1kkOq3Hb%7...