Newsletter of the Environmental Science and Policy

Program at Michigan State University

green ink Gull Lake, Michigan. Photo by Andy Balaskovitz

ESPP serves as an umbrella for environmental research and graduate education at Michigan State
University. ESPP’s newsletter and Web site - www.environment.msu.edu - highlight the
interdisciplinary environmental work of faculty, staff and students at MSU.

Volume 4 Issue 2 June 2009

Kellogg Biological Station

Michigan State University’s hub for environmental research
The Kellogg Biological Station is
relatively close to Michigan State’s
main campus, but few people ever
make the trip. Spartans who run
with an environmental crowd will
have heard the acronym KBS, but
what goes on there? What’s the
place all about?
ESPP web assistant Andy Bal-
askovitz and I wanted to know,
and suspected we weren’t alone
in our curiosity, so early this
spring we made the hour-and-
change drive to find out.
The station sits on 3,065 acres
in the rolling farmland between
Battle Creek and Kalamazoo,
where retreating glaciers left a
patchwork of kettles and kames,
moraines and marshes, forests
and fens. It’s primarily a place
for agricultural research, but the
diversity of its landscape makes
KBS suitable for all sorts of envi-
ronmental studies.
sort,” Gross said. Researchers
from MSU’s main campus are
also involved in projects there.
KBS is home to 20 to 40 gradu-
ate students, depending on the
season, and nearly as many un-
dergraduate interns and research
fellows. Not to mention the staff it
takes to keep the place running.
Mornings, ecologists on bicy-
cles pedal the area’s quiet roads
from their homes or rented lodg-
ing to the university’s largest off-
campus education facility, a clus-
ter of buildings huddled along the
edge of cold, deep and clear Gull
Holstein cows grazing at KBS’s new Pasture-Based Dairy Project. Lake. There are dormitories and
Researchers are studying the effects of getting cows out of barns apartment buildings, a confer-
and milking them with robots. Photo courtesy of Mat Haan, project ence center, research buildings
coordinator. and even an old-fashioned wind-
“We care about understand- members at the station, each of mill, but the visual centerpiece of
ing the ecology of natural and whom also teaches periodically the complex is the Tudor-inspired
Manor House, once the summer
manmade landscapes, and the in East Lansing.
home of cereal tycoon W.K. Kel-
interactions between them,” said Some study microbes, others
logg, now a popular venue for
Director Kay Gross. are interested in plants or animals,
There are a dozen faculty but “they’re all ecologists of some Continued on next page

environment.msu.edu
274 Giltner Hall stories by Andy McGlashen
East Lansing, MI 48824 design by Andy Balaskovitz
t: 517-432-8296 edited by Maya Fischhoff
f: 517-432-8830
Inside this issue... KBS INTRODUCTION continued
weddings and other events.
Feature: Much of the station’s work takes place at
Kellogg Biological Station its Long Term Ecological Research site, one
of 26 such sites funded by the National Sci-
Introduction 1 ence Foundation, and the only one dedicat-
ed to the study of agricultural ecosystems.
Flipping the carbon switch 3 Researchers at the LTER simulate four dif-
on ponds ferent cropping arrangements, ranging from
intensive, high-input agriculture to an organic
Algae research heats up 4 system, to see how each influences and is
influenced by the surrounding plants, ani-
mals and microbes.
Plants adapting to climate 4 There’s a strong emphasis at KBS on
change
fieldwork, Gross said. While some re-
searchers are busy studying crops, oth-
Cows assume new 5 ers try to better understand succession in
responsibilities as KBS fallow fields and forests, propagate plants
shifts to pasture-based dairy in a greenhouse or sample water from lo-
cal lakes. Some observe cow behavior at
the station’s dairy, while others use artificial
ponds to explore processes occurring in
Letter from the editor............ 2 lakes and estuaries.
A great deal of outreach work also goes on
at KBS. There are public lectures and tours,
Five ESPP student profiles...... 6
programs for K-12 education and for everyone
else. Ornithology courses at the station’s bird
Faculty profile: Sandy sanctuary are so popular there’s a waiting list.
Marquart-Pyatt..................... 6 Gross said there’s also an increasing fo-
cus on living up to the KBS motto: “A legacy
ESPP’s class of 2009........... 7 of conservation, a commitment to sustainabil-
ity.” For instance, she said, “the conference
MSU helps international ef- center is becoming more and more engaged
fort to fight poverty, climate with our overall mission of sustainability.”
change................................... 8
News briefs.......................... 9
MSU students prepare for
A&WMA environmental
challenge.............................. 10
Perspective: Comics and
the environment: the case of
the ‘Swamp Thing’............... 11
Kitchen scraps are composted for use in a
community garden, and the cafeteria’s fare
on Thursdays is mostly locally grown.
The station exudes a collegial atmo-
sphere. The labs in the sunlit academic
building are interconnected to allow the free
flow of bodies, equipment and ideas. “We
have a philosophy here of shared use of
equipment,” Gross said.
Graduate students gather for soccer
games after working in their shared office
space, their cubicles decorated with post-
ers depicting freshwater fish and Charles
Darwin (in the fashion of a famous Barack
Obama poster, with the slogan “Very Grad-
ual Change We Can Believe In”). Students
and faculty from different disciplines lunch
together in the cafeteria; sometimes they
discuss science, sometimes not.
But whether they’re researching in the
field or just relaxing on the soccer field, ev-
eryone at KBS is part of “a community of
scholars,” Gross likes to say, and students
there get the opportunity to “live and interact
in a world of ecology.”
“Some of the barriers that students
sometimes feel between the professional
part of the university and the student part
get removed, and I think that helps,” she
said.
“That’s what’s unique about it for gradu-
ate students, really being able to be im-
mersed totally in the culture of research.”
A view of
the Kellogg
Manor
House
from below
the hill.
Photo by
Andy Bal-
askovitz

KBS in photos...................... 12
Environmental Science and
Policy Program at MSU
Thomas Dietz director
Joe Arvai associate director
Maya Fischhoff assistant director
Marcy Heberer assistant to the director
Derek Moy webmaster
Andy McGlashen news writer
Andy Balaskovitz assistant web editor
From the Editor
Members of the ESPP community study the environment ev-
erywhere from the Alaskan taiga to African savannas and
Asian megacities, but just down the road at the Kellogg Biologi-
cal Station, researchers are trying to answer some of the most
important questions about our state’s ecological future.
That’s why this issue of Green Ink highlights some – but only a small frac-
tion – of the environmental research at KBS. We hope it offers a glimpse of
the place, but we encourage everyone to plan a visit.
And, as always, we urge you to send news about environmental re-
McGlashen search at MSU to amcglashen@gmail.com, and to check in with us peri-
odically at environment.msu.edu.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy the summer!

2 green ink | vol. 4 issue 2 june 2009

KBS Feature

Flipping the carbon switch on ponds

In aerial photos, the Experimental
Pond Facility at KBS looks a bit
like an empty egg carton: a three-
by-six grid of near-perfect circles,
each about 30 meters across and
two meters deep.
The ponds’ uniformity provides
control for experiments, and their
artificiality lets scientists alter
them without disrupting natural
systems. “They’re easily ma-
nipulable, unlike a lake system,”
said Stuart Jones, a postdoctoral
researcher at the pond lab.
Jones and microbial ecolo-
gist Jay Lennon are beginning
a National Science Foundation-
funded round of manipulations of
the ponds to see how freshwater
ecosystems respond to different
amounts of dissolved organic
carbon from land plants.
Anyone who has visited the
Upper Peninsula’s Tahquame-
non Falls or a backwoods bog
pond and remarked on the tea-
colored water has seen dissolved
organic carbon – decomposed
plant matter that stains water
bodies. Some is normal in lakes,
ponds and streams, but over the
past decade or so, concentrations
have been increasing around the
world. “People have noticed on
a global scale that lakes are be-
coming browner,” Lennon said.
As microbes munch on the
carbon dissolved in water bodies,
they convert it into, among other
things, carbon dioxide that’s re-
leased to the atmosphere, con-
tributing to climate change. The
researchers want to find out at
what point inputs of dissolved or-
ganic carbon can turn freshwater
systems from sinks that absorb
carbon to sources of carbon
emissions.
To find out, they’ll dose the
ponds with different amounts of
rich, molasses-like, organic goo
that Lennon said is “on its way
Researchers use these
water tanks (top) to do aquatic
research at a scale “between
a pond and a test tube,” says
microbial ecologist Jay Len-
non. Bottom: One of the six
demonstration ponds with
remnants from one of the
researchers’ controlled burns.
Photos by Andy Balaskovitz
to becoming coal,” while sen-
sors monitor the ponds’ oxygen
concentrations. As algae photo-
synthesize, they release oxygen,
but as microbes use organic ma-
terial, they consume oxygen, so
the sensors will indicate whether
carbon-sequestering photosyn-
thesis or carbon-emitting micro-
bial respiration dominates each
pond.
Relatively speaking, Lennon
said, lakes are fairly small sinks –
and, potentially, sources – of car-
bon, but the same processes he
and Jones observe in the experi-
mental ponds occur in wetlands
and estuaries, so their findings
could have broad implications for
biogeochemical cycles.
“There’s still a lot of basic sci-
ence that needs to be done,” he
said.

For more coverage of KBS research...

Visit the web site of the Environmental Science and Policy
Program at www.environment.msu.edu.
The online package of stories includes all of the original text
and photos in Green Ink, as well as short videos produced
by ESPP’s Andy McGlashen and Andy Balaskovitz. Hear re-
searchers discuss their work first hand and take a journey to
their outdoor laboratories.

3 green ink | vol. 4 issue 2 june 2009

KBS Research
Algae research heats up in Litchman lab
There’s a lot of climate change
research happening at KBS,
so you might mistake the clear
plastic tubes filled with wa-
ter and stored in a small room
just down the hall from Elena
Litchman’s lab for ice cores that
some absentminded professor
allowed to
melt.
T h e
contents
of these
tubes aren’t
cross-sec-
tions of gla-
ciers, but
Litchman
of lakes –
or, more accurately, simulations
of lakes. Litchman, a KBS-affili-
ated professor of zoology who
KBS Research
Lau’s lab studying potential effects of climate change on plants
Algae aren’t alone in heading
northward as the planet gets
hotter; all kinds of creatures are
on the move. The pika’s retreat
up the mountains of the Ameri-
can West has been covered in
the news because it’s cute and
furry. But even though they lack
big eyes and endearing manner-
isms, plants, too, are threatened
by climate change.
“In some cases we think it
could even cause extinctions,”
said Jennifer Lau, an assistant
professor of plant biology at KBS.
“But there’s really not a whole lot
of good demographic data show-
ing those effects.”
To fill that gap, she and col-
leagues are studying how Ara-
bidopsis lyrata, a small member
of the mustard family and a close
relative of what Lau calls “the lab
rat of plants,” responds to warm-
ing temperatures. Their goal is
“to get an idea of how these en-
4 green ink | vol. 4 issue 2 june 2009
specializes in aquatic ecology,
is interested in how shallow and
deeper waters mix in lakes, and
she uses the tubes to see how
different environmental condi-
tions, like nutrient concentra-
tions and light levels, affect that
mixing.
Mixing brings oxygen and nu-
trients to different depths, so it
helps determine a lake’s water
quality, what types of fish can
live in it and – most interesting
to Litchman – the kinds and con-
centrations of algae it supports.
Poorly mixed lakes promote the
growth of toxic algae, she said.
“When there’s no mixing, they’re
the king, basically.”
Harmful algae blooms are
common, Litchman said, but in-
vironmental changes like global
warming impact plant popula-
tions immediately,” she said, “but
then also whether there might be
effects over longer time scales,
because they might be evolving
in response to these novel condi-
tions.”
Plastic trays full of Arabidopsis
specimens cover a row of tables
in a greenhouse at KBS. Lau
and others gathered seeds from
all over the plant’s range, and are
performing controlled matings to
produce seeds for future experi-
ments.
The researchers will then
plant those seeds out into a field
warming experiment. To mimic
predicted future temperatures
due to global warming, they have
suspended small heaters above
the soil to increase temperature
by 2 or 3 ºC.
Comparing how well the plants
do in warmed plots versus control
creases in average temperature
and in nutrients from farm runoff
have made them more common
in recent years. And as the
region’s average temperature
rises, the blooms are expected
to become even more frequent.
In addition to the laboratory
simulations, Litchman spends a
lot of time sampling actual lakes
around KBS. “It’s a really nice
place to do aquatic research,”
she said, “because there are so
many different lakes.” She then
analyzes the samples in her lab
to determine how well-mixed or
nutrient-rich a lake’s water is,
and how those factors relate to
algae blooms.
By sampling year after year,
Litchman is also able to see a
plots will help them understand
whether populations in different
regions are adapted to local tem-
correlation between the blooms
and weather data. “We can re-
ally mechanistically explain this
connection between the tem-
perature and the occurrence
of the blooms, which is really
cool,” she said.
Litchman and her colleagues
are also monitoring the spread
of an invasive type of toxic cya-
nobacteria, or blue-green algae,
that’s native to tropic and sub-
tropical regions but is increas-
ingly common in Michigan.
“It produces toxins, and it
fixes nitrogen, so it can have a
big impact on ecosystems, on
lakes and rivers. And what is
interesting is that it’s spreading
northwards because of chang-
ing climate,” she said.
A lab where
Jen Lau
is growing
Arabidopsis
lyrata. She
will study how
its growth
responds to
warming tem-
peratures.
Photo by
Andy
Balaskovitz
peratures, and whether some will
be more susceptible than others
to climate change.
KBS Research
Cows assume new responsibilities as KBS shifts to pasture-based dairy
If you’re one of the 90 or so Two
Holstein cows at Kellogg Bi- heifers
ological Station’s dairy op- grazing
eration, you’re in for some on the
real changes in 2009. new KBS
The existing dairy at pasture.
Below: the
KBS, in operation since
new barn
the mid 1980s, is shifting housing
from a typical confinement the robotic
dairy operation to a pasture- milkers.
based model, with attendant
freedoms and responsibili- Photos
ties for the cows. courtesy of
Previously, a typical day Mat Haan,
for the KBS cows was spent coordinator
of the Pas-
in the dairy building, where
ture Based
cows roam around large Dairy
pens. Cows had three daily Project.
milkings, and were fed a
corn silage-based diet har-
vested at KBS. Their ma-
nure was spread on fields to drawbacks. milking the robot also dispens- useful feedback on milk quality
cycle nutrients. Cows will leave their ma- es a food reward, as incentive and cow productivity.
Starting this summer, cows nure across the pasture, for the cows to return to the The Kellogg Biological Sta-
will travel widely, fertilize meaning less human la- milker. tion will host a Grand Open-
pastures themselves, and har- bor to spread the manure. “They learn pretty well,” ing for the new dairy facility
vest some of their own food. A pasture diet also means Haan said. “It’s impressive to on August 19. From 1 to 4:30
They will also choose when less need to harvest corn. A watch.” PM the public will witness
they want to be milked, by ro- drop in milk production will KBS is the second dairy op- the dairy first hand and visit
botic milkers. likely be offset by a drop in in- eration in Michigan to employ those involved with the
“They’ll take care of all put costs, Haan said. robotic milkers, a technology project.
that on their own,” said Mat Cow control extends to the originating in Europe during
Haan, coordinator for the milking experience. Holsteins the early 1990s. The machines This story was written by
new Pasture Based Dairy Proj- will come to be milked in the free up time for farmers, de- ESPP assistant web editor
ect. barn at their convenience. crease crowding, and provide Andy Balaskovitz.
The changes are needed to They’ll enter the
modernize the dairy operation robotic milking
and connect it to other sus- stall, which will
tainable agriculture initiatives identify each cow
at KBS, Haan said. The opera- by its electronic
tion intends to provide an ex- tag. A mechani-
ample for small and mid-sized cal arm will reach
dairy farms in Michigan. beneath the cow
The cows will have a new and brush the ud-
barn and 200 acres of pasture. ders clean before
They’ll transition from a corn milking. The ma-
silage diet to a pasture-based chine identifies
diet. when a milking
The lower-energy pasture is complete, de-
diet will likely result in a drop taches itself, and
in milk production, Haan said, sends the cow on
but benefits will outweigh her way. During

5 green ink | vol. 4 issue 2 june 2009

NEW STUDENT profiles
ESPP welcomes five newly affiliated specialization students. Find expanded profiles of these and other students at www.environment.msu.edu.
Wu
Wu Yang
Fisheries & Wildlife
Wu Yang earned his bach-
elor’s degree from Zhejiang
University, the top-ranked uni-
versity for environmental sci-
ences in China. His research
experience there ranged from
ecological economics and ur-
ban ecology to environmental
modeling and conservation
biology. He has been primary
author of two papers, one of
which was accepted by “Eco-
logical Economics.”
At MSU, Wu plans to earn
his master’s and Ph.D. in fish-
eries and wildlife. He has
Faculty Profile
Newest CHANS hire brings sociology, environmental modeling expertise
Sandy Marquart-Pyatt arrives at
MSU this fall as part of a hiring
cluster in Coupled Human and
Natural Systems (CHANS), the
study of complex interactions
within and among natural and
human systems.
In her work, Marquart-Pyatt,
who is jointly appointed in So-
ciology and ESPP, has particu-
larly unpacked the human side
of the dynamic. Many layers are
involved in articulating relation-
ships between societies and en-
vironments, including individuals,
households, communities, states,
regions, and nations. She uses
multi-level or nested modeling to
articulate these dynamics.
6 green ink | vol. 4 issue 2 june 2009
Nordin Rober
joined a study of human inter-
action with giant pandas in Si-
chuan province, China, led by
MSU professor Jack Liu.
Wu is interested in inter-
actions between human and
natural systems, which he
said have become unavoid-
able. “Today, I think, there are
no pure natural systems,” he
said.
He said he hopes to inte-
grate ecology, socioeconom-
ics, management and environ-
mental modeling in the study
of those interactions.
Yet, no matter what specific
project he’s working on, Wu’s
Marquart-Pyatt’s interest in
questions of scale and compari-
son has led her away from her or-
igins as an English major; today,
she’s a self-professed “statistics
geek” and expert in stats-heavy
modeling.
This toolkit has allowed her
to explore a
diverse set
of issues re-
lated to envi-
ronment and
politics. Most
recently, as
an assistant
professor
at Utah State, she has studied
what influences environmental
Kelly
overall purpose is clear: “The
final goal is sustainability,” he
said.
Norbismi Nordin
Packaging
Norbismi Nordin is at work on
a Ph.D. in packaging, having
earned a master’s degree in
packaging from MSU in 2005.
She majored in chemical
engineering as an undergrad-
uate in Malaysia, but wanted
her graduate work to connect
her engineering knowledge to
food packaging.
Nordin became part of the
attitudes and behaviors cross-na-
tionally, and how these intersect
with political beliefs and actions.
She works on topics both local
and global, from the sustainabil-
ity of communities in Utah to en-
vironmental concerns compara-
tively. She’s also interested in
environmental issues in Poland.
“I’m a sociologist by training,”
Marquart-Pyatt said, “but my ar-
eas of interest within sociology
are pretty diverse.”
This fall, in addition to teach-
ing a course in political sociology,
she’ll work with Laura Schmitt
Olabisi (Community, Agriculture,
Recreation and Resource Stud-
ies) and Arika Ligmann-Zielinska
Perdinan
ESPP specialization to learn
more about social science,
and her research examines
packaging through that lens.
She’s especially interested
in establishing labeling guide-
lines for sustainable packag-
ing, and for products that con-
tain nanotechnology.
“People have a right to
know what’s inside,” she said.
“It’s their right to decide to buy
what’s in a package.”
Nordin’s studies are spon-
sored by the Malaysian gov-
ernment, so when she finishes
see STUDENTS on next page
(ESPP and Geography), also
members of the CHANS hiring
cluster, to see how her expertise
fits into broader environmental
modeling efforts at MSU.
Marquart-Pyatt said she “ab-
solutely fell in love with the cam-
pus” on a visit to MSU, and she’s
excited about working at a school
with a commitment to interdisci-
plinary work.
“I’d heard a lot about MSU as
an institution, and about ESPP as
a program. There are so many
great things going on at MSU that
I thought my research would fit in
well, and would also benefit from
it. I’m really looking forward to
the collaborative opportunities.”
STUDENTS continued
her work here, she’ll return to
her home and teach at Universiti
Putra Malaysia, where she’ll turn
the school’s few courses on food
packaging into a comprehensive
program.
“I intend to bring more perspec-
tive on packaging than just food,”
she said.
“It’s exciting, but it’s going to
be a lot of work.”
Allison Rober
Zoology
Allison Rober conducts her re-
search in the Bonanza Creek
Experimental Forest, just outside
Fairbanks, Alaska. She studies
the role of algae as a food source
in wetlands. “Algae are like little
packets of sugar,” she says, im-
portant food for numerous organ-
isms.
As climate change causes per-
mafrost to melt, more nutrients
will be released into wetlands,
Rober said, and she hopes to
study what the effects will be.
Nutrient-loaded algae in north-
ern wetlands could potentially
become inedible, making things
tough for snails and other algae-
eaters.
With little background in policy,
Rober said the ESP specializa-
tion suits her career plans well.
“I’ve always had this goal of
learning to communicate science,
and then to go into an environ-
mental policy arena, to move
things forward,” she said.
“That’s still the plan – I’m jus
taking it one step at a time.”
Jennifer Kelly
Sociology
In her final undergraduate year,
Jennifer Kelly took a class that
covered major environmen-
tal issues like climate change,
biodiversity loss, and overpopula-
tion.
“And it changed my life,” she
said. “I thought it was the most
astonishing thing, and I felt like
I’d been in the dark.”
She now holds a master’s de-
gree in environmental science
7 green ink | vol. 4 issue 2 june 2009
and policy from the University
of Wisconsin, Green Bay. Her
thesis examined changes in civic
engagement with environmental
issues among a group of college
students after they spent time
studying ecosystems in Costa
Rica.
She plans to do doctoral re-
search in environmental citizen-
ship, but will include a focus on
animals, since she’s also special-
izing in animal studies.
Jennifer said the dual spe-
cialization is well-suited to her
broad interests, and that she’s
excited to work with ESPP
director Thomas Dietz
and with sociology profes-
sor Linda Kalof, who runs
the animal studies specialization.
And it doesn’t hurt that Jen-
nifer is “a total animal lover.
Domestic, wild – it doesn’t mat-
ter.”
Perdinan
Geography
Perdinan, a new Ph.D. student in
Geography, has a taste for just
about everything related to the
environment: agriculture, forest-
ry, economics, meteorology, ge-
ography – you name it.
“If you want to make a bridge
between science and policy,” he
said, “you have to understand a
lot of things.”
But for Perdinan, it all comes
back to climate. He’s researched
the impacts of climate change on
his native Indonesia, studied the
economics of risks associated
with global warming, and looked
for ways of helping people adapt
to a changing planet.
Perdinan is on the faculty of
Bogor Agricultural University
in Indonesia, and is here on a
Fulbright scholarship. He said
he hopes to learn how to put
his experience to work on Indo-
nesia’s recently adopted climate
policy.
“How that policy can be imple-
mented is a really tough question,”
he said. “I need some tools in or-
der to communicate my research
findings to policy makers.”
Congratulations
ESPP’S CLASS OF 2009
Enthusiastic congratulations to five students gradu-
ating with the specialization in ESPP. We wish
them all the best in the next steps on their journeys.
Stephen Aldrich (Geography),
wrote his dissertation on “Large-
holder deforestation and land
conflict in the Eastern Brazilian
Amazon.” He will be an assistant
professor in the Department of
Geography, Geology, and An-
thropology at Indiana State Uni-
versity.
Aldrich
Marcia JnBaptiste (Crop and
Soil Sciences) studied “Effects
of gypsum, compost and cover
crops on soil nutrient availability,
corn yield and quality and soil
quality.” She will be working with
USDA’s Agricultural Research
Service in Bowling Green, KY.
Jason Karl (Fisheries and Wild-
JnBaptiste life) wrote about “Object-based
image analysis for scaling prop-
erties of rangeland ecosystems:
Linking field and image data for
management decision making.”
He will work for The Nature Con-
servancy, Idaho.
Sara Parr Syswerda (Crop and
Soil Sciences) wrote her disserta-
tion on “Ecosystem services from
Karl agriculture across a management
intensity gradient in Southwest
Michigan.” Her immediate plans
include starting her own farm,
helping to run the green business
Heritage Antique Lumber, and
coaching adult runners.
Pariwate Varnakovida (Geog-
raphy) wrote about “Human-en-
vironment interactions in urban
Parr Syswerda
environment and sustainable de-
velopment: Spatial modeling and
landscape prediction in northeast
Thailand.” He will be an assistant
professor in the Division of Chem-
istry and Environmental Science,
Geology and Physics at Lake
Superior State University. He’ll
pioneer curriculum and classes
for a new Applied Geographic In-
Varnakovida formation Science major.
Research
MSU helps international effort to fight poverty, climate change
Michigan State is a key player
in a new international initiative
to alleviate poverty in the de-
veloping world while slowing
climate change and building
healthier ecosystems.
The Carbon Benefits Proj-
ect, initiated in May in Nairobi,
Kenya, is a partnership among
the university, the World Wild-
life Fund (WWF), the United
Nations Environment Pro-
gramme (UNEP) and other
institutions, and funded by
the Global Environment Facil-
ity.
The project was conceived
in part by David Skole, a pro-
fessor of global change sci-
ence in the Department of For-
estry. It aims to connect the
rural poor with carbon markets
created by greenhouse gas
mitigation agreements so they
can make money from envi-
ronmentally sound land-use
decisions.
The project grew out of
Skole’s research program on
agroforestry, climate mitigation
and carbon markets, called
Carbon2Markets (www.car-
bon2markets.org) and funded
by MSU’s Vice President for
Research and Graduate Stud-
8 green ink | vol. 4 issue 2 june 2009
“It’s not just a way to buy an indulgence. What
we’re trying to show is that this has a social
dimension that benefits the rural poor.”
David Skole, Forestry; ESPP
ies. Skole and colleagues ing countries to build clean
organized a workshop in Nai- energy infrastructure. The
robi two years ago to discuss United Nations may decide at
carbon markets with scientists its climate change summit in
at the World Agroforestry Cen- Copenhagen this December
tre. A WWF representative also to pay developing coun-
attended the meetings, and a tries for keeping their tropical
partnership with the university forests intact, since deforesta-
was born. tion accounts for roughly 20
To help offset their own percent of greenhouse gases
emissions of heat-trapping in the atmosphere, according
gases, some governments to the UN. Indonesia, for ex-
and businesses pay develop- ample, could earn up to $1 bil-
lion annually in carbon offset
payments for slowing its de-
forestation rate by nearly 2.5
million acres per year.
“Farming carbon alongside
farming crops is just one of the
tantalizing prospects emerg-
ing as a result of the world’s
urgent need to combat climate
change,” said UNEP Execu-
tive Director Achim Steiner.
“Managing the land and its
vegetation in more intelligent
and climate-friendly ways may
generate multiple benefits
from stabilizing soils, secur-
ing water supplies, conserving
Top: Dr. Usa (right), col-
league from Thailand at
Mahasarakham Universi-
ty, discusses project de-
tails with two participat-
ing farmers in Thailand.
Bottom: an MSU student
making field measure-
ment of tree height using
LASER hypsometer.
Photos courtesy of David
Skole.
biodiversity and generating
much needed income for poor
and low-income communi-
ties.”
But before farmers in Africa,
Southeast Asia and elsewhere
can collect a check for these
carbon offsets, there must be
a system in place to measure
how much carbon their land
sequesters.
“You’ve got to have sound
science to establish carbon
markets,” said Skole. But
once markets are established,
he added, the payoff is sig-
nificant. “We can double the
income of some of these very
poor farmers.”
Computer models already
exist that can show fairly ac-
curately how much carbon will
be absorbed if a parcel of for-
est is planted, or how much
will escape if the forest is cut
to make way for agriculture.
“The scientific community
has been developing carbon
accounting tools for some
time,” Skole said. “The trick is
when you get into these sys-
tems that have agroforestry.
Then it’s more challenging.”
Agroforestry is a farming
system that combines trees or
see CARBON on next page

CARBON continued
shrubs with crops or livestock on a single piece
of land. It gives farmers a diversified crop, leav-
ing them less susceptible to marketplace whims.
It also offers a number of ecological services not
provided by more intensive agriculture, such as
cleaner water, decreased soil erosion and an in-
creased capacity to store carbon.
Scientists affiliated with Skole will closely
monitor test sites in Africa and China over the
next 18 months to see how much carbon is
stored in a range of soil types under various
cropping systems. They can observe the net
primary productivity of a parcel – which indicates
how much carbon it captures – by using satellite
observations and on-the-ground measurements
of individual trees.
The protocol they develop can
then be used elsewhere to determine
the offset payments to which farmers are en-
titled.
Critics of carbon offsets claim that measuring
sequestration is too complicated and opportuni-
ties for cheating are too numerous to make it
an effective way to fight climate change. Skole
said he hopes the project can show there are
safeguards against shady accounting, and
“that it’s not risky or as strange as some people
think.”
“It’s not just a way to buy an indulgence,” he
said. “What we’re trying to show is that this
has a social dimension that benefits the rural
poor.”
Thai colleagues demonstrate meth-
ods for measuring forest biomass in
the field in Thailand.
9 green ink | vol. 4 issue 2 june 2009
NEWS briefs
ESPP compiles monthly summaries of environmental news at MSU. These
are available at our web site, www.environment.msu.edu, or by subscription
(contact mayaef@msu.edu). Here’s a recent sampling:
MSU to host federal energy frontier research center
The U.S. Department of Energy tapped MSU in
April to lead a new $12.5 million Energy Frontier
Research Center, one of 46 to be established na-
tionwide. The Center focuses on thermoelectric en-
ergy conversion, which increases energy efficiency
by converting energy currently lost as heat into
electricity. Researchers in the College of Engineer-
ing and College of Natural Science are involved.
Campus greening gains momentum
MSU’s campus-wide environmental stewardship initia-
tive presented its second set of recommendations to the
Board of Trustees this winter. The recommendations,
currently being implemented, address the university’s
use of materials, energy, water, and other natural re-
sources. Actions will have environmental and economic
benefits. More information about the university’s “Be
Spartan Green” effort is available at bespartangreen.
msu.edu. The initiative is led by the Vice President for
Operations and Finance.
MSU unwraps sustainable packaging center
The College of Agriculture and Natural Resources
announced the launch of its new Center for Pack-
aging Innovation and Sustainability in January. The
Coca-Cola Company provided $400,000 for the
center, which will be housed in the School of Pack-
aging and serve as a think-tank for reducing the en-
vironmental impact of product packaging. With planned facilities in Dubai and
Shanghai, the center is expected to have international reach.
MSU to lead rural development in the Midwest
This summer Michigan State will become the hub of rural development and
research in the Midwest, thanks to a nearly $2 million grant from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. MSU will host the Center for Rural Development
for the next five years. The center is one of four in the nation that work to
help land-grant universities develop and strengthen rural communities. “Ru-
see NEWS BRIEFS on p. 10
NEWS BRIEFS continued
ral America serves as the steward for the majority of our nation’s
natural resources,” said Scott Loveridge, transition director of the
center. “An understanding of these resources is critical to develop-
ing programs and policies to improve the quality of life for rural
people.”
Michigan researchers seek greenhouse gas controls
Scores of college and uni-
versity researchers urged
Michigan’s congressio-
nal delegation to support
strong federal policies to cut
greenhouse gas emissions,
including dozens of MSU
scientists.
“We are convinced that
immediate action is neces-
sary to avoid the worst con-
sequences of global warm-
ing on Michigan’s economy and environment, including the Great
Lakes,” the group of more than 170 wrote in late May. “While slowing
the damaging effects of climate change poses enormous challenges,
we also believe such action presents Michigan with real opportuni-
ties to reinvigorate our economy and improve the quality of life for all
Michiganders.”
MSU also had a climate change teach-in on February 2; speaker
videos are available at wmsu.org.
MSU-patented process can reduce the
cost of making cellulosic biofuels
Bruce Dale, associate director of MSU’s Of-
fice of Biobased Technologies, has developed
a way to pretreat corn-crop waste before con-
version into ethanol. Extra nutrients don’t have
to be added, cutting the cost of making biofu-
els from cellulose.

Student Competition

MSU students prepare for A&WMA environmental challenge

MSU graduate students will par-
ticipate in the environmental chal-
lenge at the annual conference of
the Air and Waste Management
Association (A&WMA), which will
be held in Detroit in June. The
team consists of graduate stu-
dents from Environmental Engi-
neering, Biosystems Engineering,
and one from the Department of
Community, Agriculture, Recre-
ation, and Resource Studies, to
keep all the engineers from think-
ing about just bolts and nuts.
Besides their diverse academ-
ic interests and backgrounds, the
composition of this team spans
three continents - Africa, Asia
and North America.
The A&WMA environmental
challenge provides students with
an opportunity to present ideal
solutions to a mock complex en-
vironmental problem. The chal-
lenge this year is to design a mu-
nicipal solid waste management
facility for a town that is running
out of landfill space, but not out
of garbage, and to use the waste
Pictured from left to right, Biao Chang, Felix Yeboah,
Indumathy Jayamani, Becky Larson, and Ziqiang Yin.
as an energy source. Students
are also required to evaluate the
social, environmental and regula-
tory implications of that design.
As luck would have it, the ficti-
tious town in which the challenge
is based is nearly identical to
East Lansing (including a college
just about the size of MSU), ex-
cept that it is located in the Upper
Peninsula.
The students aim to design a
system that reduces waste, in-
creases recycling, provides sus-
tainable energy, and creates jobs
for the community. The prepa-
ration process so far has been
challenging yet exciting.
Industry experts will scrutinize
the team’s design to test its vi-
ability. As part of the scrutiny, an
added complication will be intro-
duced at the conference and will
have to be incorporated into the
design. Teams with the top three
designs will be awarded after the
presentation.
The group hopes to emerge
with a greater understanding of
solid waste and energy sustain-
ability, and of course a big tro-
phy. It is their intent to share their
knowledge and experiences from
the conference with the MSU
community. They are building on
a legacy of Spartan success in
A&WMA competitions; an MSU
team won second place in last
year’s contest.
This story was written by MSU’s
environmental challenge team:
Felix K. Yeboah
CARRS
Becky Larson
Biosystems Engineering
Indumarthy Jayamani
Environmental Engineering
Biao Chang
Environmental Engineering
Ziqiang Yin
Environmental Engineering

10 green ink | vol. 4 issue 2 june 2009

Perspective

Comics and the environment: the case of the ‘Swamp Thing’

Note: Members of the ESPP community know Assistant Professor Louie Rivers as a decision scientist, an officer of the
Society for Risk Analysis, a former NSF program officer and founder of MSU’s pioneering conservation criminology pro-
gram. But Louie also has a deep knowledge of and passionate interest in graphic novels, or as he prefers, comic books.
Here he offers his thoughts on environmental themes in the work of one of the masters of modern comics, Alan Moore.

“There is a red and angry world, red things happen there.

The world eats your wife, eats your friends.
Eats all the things that make you human, and you become a monster”

-- The Saga of the Swamp Thing #23 by Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben

These are the opening lines of a
comic book. (Some people pre-
fer the term “graphic novel,” but
to me this phrase is pretentious.)
Without the beautiful yet disturb-
ing illustrations that accompany
them, they can seem overly
dramatic and the stuff of dime-
store novels.
And yet, these
words repre-
sent the begin-
ning of a bold
and mature
exploration
of humanity’s
Rivers
fundamental
nature and our potentially tenu-
ous relationship with the natural
world. Heady content for a comic
book.
The Swamp Thing was initially
created and marketed as a hor-
ror comic. Dr. Alec Holland was a
government researcher working
on a crop growth formula. When
his experiment was sabotaged,
the resulting explosion sent
Holland and his chemical soup
into the swamp where they
mixed together to form the
Swamp Thing.
The Swamp Thing has a
man’s basic form, but is com-
pletely composed of plant ma-
terial and stands over eight feet
tall. If Frankenstein’s monster
was made of a wetland’s rem-
nants, it would look something
like the Swamp Thing. Despite
his horrific visage, the Swamp
Thing is good at heart and fights
evil scientists and super-villains.
The Swamp Thing’s convention-
al comic book feel was forever
changed, however, when a new
creative team,
helmed by
“Watchman’s”
Alan Moore,
took the reins in
1983.
Moore’s run
on Swamp
Thing can still
be classified as
horror, but in a
way that veers
away from the
monster-movie
tropes of earlier
issues. Moore
almost com-
pletely removed
any traces of Alec Holland’s
consciousness from the Swamp
Thing. Instead of being a man
trapped in a monster’s body, the
Swamp Thing became a creature
with an intimate link to the natu-
ral world and a weak memory of
its human origins. As the series
progresses, the Swamp Thing
becomes increasingly removed
from its human friends and finds
solace in solitary communion
with nature. Its focus becomes
environmental protection.
The separation of humanity
and nature is reinforced by Ste-
phen Bissette’s and John Totle-
ben’s art. When they portray
the Swamp Thing in natural set-
tings, the scenes have an organ-
ic beauty and calming presence.
In contrast, the Swamp Thing’s
interactions with humans feature
images that are
awkward, and
increasingly
grotesque. The
artists show
humans funda-
mentally clash-
ing with the
natural environ-
ment, a concept
they illustrate by
their choice of
color palettes.
While nature
and the Swamp
Thing are de-
picted in earthy
tones of brown,
green and yellow, Bissette and
Totleben portray humans in
bright, garish colors such as red,
blue and orange.
The dissimilarity of nature and
man is highlighted in an early
story of the new Swamp Thing
that featured the Justice League
(the super hero group composed
of Batman, Superman, Wonder
Woman, Green Lantern and oth-
ers). The Swamp Thing, as the
environment’s guardian, con-
trasts with the Justice League,
the protectors of mankind.
While the Swamp Thing lives in
swamps and damp forests, the
Justice League’s headquarters
is a sterile, technologically ad-
vanced structure on the moon’s
surface made of steel and glass.
During Moore’s tenure, his focus
eventually strays from nature to
questions of morality and the
nature of evil (another column
completely), but there is always
an underlying theme that the
Swamp Thing is not human and
hostile to humanity’s constant in-
trusions into its world.
The Swamp Thing’s divorce
from humanity and complete
acceptance of the natural en-
vironment can serve as a com-
mentary on humans’ relationship
with nature, and it’s not a positive
one. Moore suggests that there
is a fundamental divide between
humans and nature, and any
relationship that exists between
the two is one of necessity, at
best. He suggests that humans
are not part of the natural envi-
ronment, but complete outliers,
mistakes which have no place
in a world that does not under-
stand or welcome them. This no-
tion and its ramifications for hu-
manity and the environment are
what truly make The Saga of the
Swamp Thing a horror book.
Note: The newsletter’s Per-
spectives column is a chance
for ESPP affiliates to share in-
sights and opinions. If you’d
like to write a column, contact
Andy McGlashen (mcglash3@
msu.edu)

11 green ink | vol. 4 issue 2 june 2009

KBS in Photos

Clockwise from top: one of

the locations for the Long-
Term Ecological Research
(LTER) Program. A pet
turtle in Elena Litchman’s
lab. Pathway along the
shoreline of Gull Lake on
KBS property. A view of
Gull Lake from the KBS
shore. The Pagoda and
lakeshore gardens at KBS.

Photos by Andy
Balaskovitz

michigan state university

274 giltner hall
east lansing, mi 48824

12 green ink | vol. 4 issue 2 june 2009