Climate change may not be good news for the Californian wine industry, according to a paper published in the open-access journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America). California is the UK's third largest source of wine after Australia (no 1) and France (no 2). An extract from the paper states: ‘…we estimate that potential premium winegrape production area in the conterminous United States could decline by up to 81% by the late 21st century.

For an analysis of nitrogen flows through the UK economy see Nitrogen UK. The report notes: ‘Of the 3.4Mt reactive nitrogen that we either create or produce per annum, over 1Mt is returned to the environment without any benefit being realised from it.'

New maps by researchers at the University of Wisconsin show how our demand for agricultural land has grown dramatically over the last three hundred years; from covering 7% of the global land area in 1700 to around 40% today.