Position Paper 2: Sustainability Tech

Imagine the last full meal you ate being the last meal you ever have. This theory may become very real under the prediction that the population will rise to around 10 billion people by the year 2050 according to an article from BBC. For decades, we have been warned about the depletion of our common resources. And although movements pushing for the use of more bio-positive energy sources – wind, water, solar, and nuclear power – are already set in motion, recently a new study has added the lack of biodiversity causing a threat to the future production of food as another loop on our belt. The human species are well known for their overindulgence and their demand for quick and easy access to everything. Unfortunately, on the way, humans have created a trail of destruction within their advancements, and if you look outside you will see a selection of the population running frantically trying to clean it up. In order to reach the promises of our future we must all deal with our present adversaries and form resolutions for our prosperity. But until the majority of the human race can reach a consensus, the least that can be done is to expand the eyes and the ears of the Earth’s inhabitants through awareness and the education of her current and ensuing state.

Biodiversity is defined as “the variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem.” According to the 2019 State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture report, “Of the 6,000 plant species cultivated for food, just nine account for 66% of total crop production. The world's livestock production is based on around 40 species with only a handful providing the vast majority of meat, milk and eggs.” The inclining population relies on only a small portion of “foodstuffs” to provide sustenance, and this fact encompasses quite few of the significant drivers of biodiversity loss. Other elements fall back on the fact that many of the species used to support food and agriculture (plants, fish, and mammals) are decreasing in abundance.

5 Main Causes in the Loss of Biodiversity

• Changes in Land and Water Use and Management
• Pollution
• Overexploitation and Overharvesting
• Climate Change
• Population Growth and Urbanization

Developing circumstances have impacted lives and diets on large enough scale to alarm scientists and researchers of the needed change to the common societal lifestyle. So what is currently being done about it?

There are several projects launched to aid biodiversity like the Map of Life (MOL) and the EarthEnv project. MOL dates back to 2012 and works by adapting to the digital age where all data assets are stored, managed, backed up, and accessed using a hosted cloud instance making it accessible to anyone at any point of interest. The Map of Life project “aims to support effective and global biodiversity education, monitoring, research and decision-making by assembling and integrating a wide range of knowledge about species distributions and their dynamics over time.” The EarthEnv project, supported by the MOL, uses “global, remote-sensing supported environmental layers for assessing status and trends in biodiversity, ecosystems, and climate.” You can think of them as an in-depth subdivision of MOL, providing “accuracy-weighted consensus land cover information on a continuous scale.” Organizations that support the delicate translation of this information include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), iPlant, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and MOL is endorsed by the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON). All institutionalize, explore, monitor the essence of the world’s secrets and ultimately develop and support for protection of the Earth’s ecosystems.


In preparation for a mass conformance, innovators have collaborated with the dispense of this valuable information in order to create what we will soon know as “sustainability tech”. Even though products are still in their early stages, being that they were unveiled early February, people are predicting that these devices will “change our lives the most over the next five years.” The purpose of these new innovations are to use AI technology (what seems to be a future staple) to “dramatically transform the food chain supply.” Its capabilities would range from helping farmers maximize crop yields to developing ways to decrease the epidemic of waste that is said to “destroy 45 percent of our food supply”. According to the Forbes article, the “5 in 5” innovations have been recruited from around the globe and were showcased at the IBM Think 2019 conference respectfully.

CLIMATE CHANGE
1. The Digital Twin

Using AI, IBM will capture all data aspects of agriculture - from the quality of the soil to the skills of the tractor driver to the price of melon sold at the market - known as a Digital Twin. This will help to accurately forecast crop yields, which in turn will give banks and financial institutions the data points they need to provide credit to help farmers expand. In other words, will be able to supervise an exact replica of their physical farm and its fluctuations all from one digital source. For example, “Growers can now film a field of corn from a drone and use Watson-enabled visual recognition analysis to identify crop disease or a pest infestation” using IBM’s new platform “Electronic Field Record”.

OVEREXPLOITATION AND OVERHAVESTING
2. Blockchain

Using blockchain, IBM said it will get rid of many of the costly unknowns in the food supply chain and prevent more food from going to waste, with every participant in the grocery supply chain knowing exactly how much to plant, order, and ship. “Food loss will diminish greatly and the produce that ends up in consumers’ carts will be fresher when blockchain technology, IoT [Internet of things] devices, and AI algorithms join forces,” IBM said. Top tier contendors like Walmart are already thinking of investing and incorporating this method into their manufacturing and distribution processes.

POPULATION GROWTH AND URBANIZATION
3. Microbiome Mapping

The third food tech innovation IBM explained was the ability to use millions of microbes to protect what we eat. The new technique uses DNA and RNA sequencing powered by big data analytics and will enable the analyzing their genetic make-up in a more cost-effective way, meaning they will tell us a lot about the safety of what we consume. The ability to constantly and cheaply monitor the behaviors of microbes at every stage of the supply chain represents a huge leap in food safety.

CHANGES IN LAND AND WATER USE AND MANAGEMENT
4. Food-Detecting AI Sensors

IBM said it’s also developing tech that the world’s farmers, food processors, and grocers – along with billions of home cooks – can use to detect dangerous contaminants in their food. Using a cell phone or a countertop with AI sensors, IBM showed off a prototype where portable AI sensors can detect foodborne pathogens within produce. “These mobile bacteria sensors could dramatically increase the speed of a pathogen test from days to seconds,” IBM explained. “Allowing individuals up and down the food chain to detect the existence of harmful E. coli or Salmonella before it becomes an outbreak.”

POLLUTION
5. VolCat

The last innovation tailed up on stage was the transformation of trash disposal and the creation of new plastics. Everything from milk cartons to cookie containers to grocery bags and cheese cloths will be made recyclable, with polyester manufacturing companies being able to take in refuse and turn it into something useful. This transition will be powered by an innovation called VolCat, a catalytic chemical process that digests certain plastics called polyesters into a substance that can be fed directly back into plastic manufacturing machines in order to make new products. According to IBM, “In five years, recyclers could cut out the fossil fuels, and simply attach a VolCat system to the assembly line and make new plastic directly from the old.”