Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666
This is a collection of interesting news articles about the environment and related topics over the last week. This is a Tuesday evening regular post at GEI.
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Healthcare Triage: Where You Live Impacts Your Health – Dr Aaron Carroll – Over the last year, we at Healthcare Triage have taken some deep dives into issues of health policy, especially those that touch on social determinants of health and health equity. The episodes that do so are a bit longer than usual. They look a little different. They also come to you thanks to the support of the RWJF, which has generously supported their creation. We’re excited about this opportunity to really dig in, and we hope you will be, too. For the next four weeks, we’re going to talk about housing. Framing and introducing the issue is the topic of this week’s Healthcare Triage. Where You Live Has a Huge Impact on Your Health – YouTube @aaronecarroll
World’s rivers ‘awash with dangerous levels of antibiotics,’ report finds — Hundreds of rivers around the world from the Thames to the Tigris are awash with dangerously high levels of antibiotics, the largest global study on the subject has found. Antibiotic pollution is one of the key routes by which bacteria are able develop resistance to the life-saving medicines, rendering them ineffective for human use. “A lot of the resistance genes we see in human pathogens originated from environmental bacteria,” said Prof William Gaze, a microbial ecologist at the University of Exeter who studies antimicrobial resistance but was not involved in the study. The rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a global health emergency that could kill 10 million people by 2050, the UN said last month. The drugs find their way into rivers and soil via human and animal waste and leaks from wastewater treatment plants and drug manufacturing facilities. “It’s quite scary and depressing. We could have large parts of the environment that have got antibiotics at levels high enough to affect resistance,” said Alistair Boxall, an environmental scientist at the University of York, who co-led the study. The research, presented on Monday at a conference in Helsinki, shows that some of the world’s best-known rivers, including the Thames, are contaminated with antibiotics classified as critically important for the treatment of serious infections. In many cases they were detected at unsafe levels, meaning resistance is much more likely to develop and spread. Samples taken from the Danube in Austria contained seven antibiotics including clarithromycin, used to treat respiratory tract infections such as pneumonia and bronchitis, at nearly four times the level considered safe. The Danube, Europe’s second-largest river, was the continent’s most polluted. Eight per cent of the sites tested in Europe were above safe limits. The Thames, generally regarded as one of Europe’s cleanest rivers, was contaminated, along with some of its tributaries, by a mixture of five antibiotics. One site on the river and three on its tributaries were polluted above safe levels. Ciprofloxacin, which treats infections of the skin and urinary tract, peaked at more than three times safe levels.
Antibiotics Found in Global Rivers Exceed ‘Safe’ Levels, Study Finds – Some of the world’s most iconic rivers contain antibiotics that exceed safety standards, according to a global study testing hundreds of rivers across six continents. An analysis looking for more than a dozen common antibiotics in 711 rivers in one-third of the world’s countries found that concentrations in some rivers were more than 300 times higher than “safe” levels in what researchers say could lead to more resilient strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria around the world. “Until now, the majority of environmental monitoring work for antibiotics has been done in Europe, N. America and China. Often on only a handful of antibiotics. We know very little about the scale of [the] problem globally,” said researcher author John Wilkinson. “Our study helps to fill this key knowledge gap with data being generated for countries that had never been monitored before.” Nearly 100 testing kits were flown to rivers around the world to water systems such as Thailand’s murky Mekong River, the serene Sein River in Paris and London’s central Thames. At each location, local scientists collected and froze samples to ship back to the University of York to compare against monitoring data with “safe” levels established by AMR Industry Alliance. These typically range between 20,000 and 32,000 nanograms per liter (ng/l). “The results are quite eye-opening and worrying, demonstrating the widespread contamination of river systems around the world with antibiotic compounds,” said researcher Alistair Boxall. Concentrations represent a global concern. Safe levels were most frequently exceeded in Asia and Africa while Europe and North and South America also had levels of concern. By far the worst were levels tested in Kenya, Ghana, Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh – and the discrepancy between wealthy and poverty-stricken nations is evident. For example, metronidazole, a common antibiotic treatment used to treat mouth and skin bacterial infections, clocked in at levels 300 times greater than the safety level. By comparison, tributaries of the River Thames had a maximum total of 223 ng/l of antibiotic material – 170 times less than those captured in Bangladesh. Trimethoprim, a drug mostly used to treat urinary tract infection, was most prevalent and found at almost half of the 711 sites while bacterial-treatment ciprofloxacin was documented as going over the safety threshold in 51 different tested sites.
Banned bread: why does the US allow additives that Europe says are unsafe? – Give us this day our daily foam expander. It may sound odd, but in America, your loaf of bread can contain ingredients with industrial applications – additives that also appear in things like yoga mats, pesticides, hair straighteners, explosives and petroleum products. Some of these chemicals, used as optional whiteners, dough conditioners and rising agents, may be harmful to human health. Potassium bromate, a potent oxidizer that helps bread rise, has been linked to kidney and thyroid cancers in rodents. Azodicarbonamide (ACA), a chemical that forms bubbles in foams and plastics like vinyl, is used to bleach and leaven dough – but when baked, it, too, has been linked to cancer in lab animals. Other countries, including China, Brazil and members of the European Union, have weighed the potential risks and decided to outlaw potassium bromate in food. India banned it in 2016, and the UK has forbidden it since 1990. Azodicarbonamide has been banned for consumption by the European Union for over a decade. But despite petitions from several advocacy groups – some dating back decades – the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still considers these to be Gras or “generally recognized as safe” to eat, though plenty of experts disagree. “The system for ensuring that ingredients added to food are safe is broken,” said Lisa Lefferts, senior scientist at the consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest. Lefferts, who specializes in food additives, said that once a substance was in the food supply, the FDA rarely took further action, even when there was evidence that it isn’t safe. The Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned the FDA to ban potassium bromate two decades ago due to cancer concerns, but the FDA’s response, according to a letter from the agency, was that it couldn’t examine the issue due to “limited availability of resources and other agency priorities”.
From chicken to tomatoes, here’s why American food is hurting you – Maria Rodale – American healthcare spending has ballooned to $3.5tn a year, and yet we are sicker than most other developed countries. Meanwhile, our food system contains thousands of chemicals that have not been proven safe and many that are banned in other countries. How did we get to this point? Unlike much of the developed world, the American regulatory system doesn’t operate on the precautionary principle. In other words, instead of potentially hazardous substances being banned from our food, as they are in, say, Europe, chemicals of concern are typically considered innocent until proven guilty. As a result, we are the guinea pigs in our own experiment. And our desire for food that is fast, cheap and abundant only compounds the speed with which we are introduced to new, untested substances. It has been a deadly race to the bottom. For decades we’ve operated on the principle that if we can selectively kill off the unwanted parts of the natural world, we can control our futures. Farmers operate that way, but also homeowners, highway crews and landscapers. We spread herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, insecticides, fertilizers, antibiotics, hormones and various other toxins which kill everything around. Even good things. We’re becoming aware of the loss of what we can see: bees, butterflies, the diverse plant life of our ecosystems. We also need to worry about the invisible microbiome and fungi in the soil that nurture life above, store carbon and absorb water. In an effort to control and kill nature, we’ve increasingly lost control of it and hurt ourselves. By trying to control crops with herbicides, antibiotics and pesticides, we’ve actually bred bugs, weeds and diseases that are resistant to our control. And our chemical onslaught will have long-term effects. Our fertilizers and pesticides leach into groundwater and streams, head out to sea and create dead zones and red tides. They also leach into our drinking water. Take Atrazine, a weedkiller made by the Swiss company Syngenta (and also banned in Switzerland), which is found in wells all across America. The list of potential health risks of Atrazine causes is too long to list in its entirety, but it includes cancer, poor birth outcomes and developmental defects.
Aporkalypse now – The Economist – While the Chinese zodiac celebrates the year of the pig, for the Earth-bound variety it is a terrible time. African swine fever, harmless to humans but fatal to porkers, has spread across the country. Hong Kong’s first case was reported on May 17th. The epidemic has affected colossal numbers of pigs, pushing up pork prices steeply. It has walloped the tens of millions of Chinese who depend on pig-rearing for their livelihood. There is no effective vaccine. Experts say that it may take years for China to control the disease. The virus spreads easily between pigs, which can also catch it from ticks, contact with contaminated surfaces or by eating infected food (cheap animal feed in China often contains pork). It causes haemorrhaging and often kills in less than a week. The death rate is at least 90%. Since 2016 outbreaks have occurred across Europe and Asia. But nowhere have they been more devastating than in China, which at least until recently was home to half of the world’s pigs. China’s first officially acknowledged case was reported in August last year in the north-eastern province of Liaoning. But many people in the industry believe that the virus began spreading, unreported, months earlier. The country (excluding Hong Kong) has a dismal record of transparency relating to animal or human epidemics. In the case of African swine fever, farmers have felt little incentive to report outbreaks. They often reckon it is better to keep quiet and sell their infected animals or meat to unsuspecting customers. And so the disease keeps spreading. By the end of April, out of a total herd that was nearly 500m-strong before the epidemic, the government says just over 1m pigs in China had been culled to stop the disease spreading. That number is oddly low. Vietnam, which reported its first outbreak six months after China and has far fewer animals, says it has culled 1.3m. It is likely that many cullings in China are not being reported. Rabobank, a Dutch bank, reckons more than 150m animals in China may have been infected. It expects that the country will lose one-third of its pigs, roughly the number there are in the European Union. A report this month by the un’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said that the disease’s spread was “unabated” and that its speed and severity “could prove more pronounced than currently assumed.” It said cull rates higher than 20% had been reported in many provinces. It will take a long time for farmers to replace animals by breeding more of them. In March the number of sows was declining nearly twice as fast as that of pigs overall.
Indiana salmon hatchery to raise nation’s first genetically modified animal cleared for human consumption – AquaBounty Technologies, a Massachusetts-based biotechnology company, altered the genetic makeup of the Atlantic salmon to include a gene from chinook salmon and DNA sequence from an eel-like species known as an ocean pout. The result is a salmon that grows to market size about twice as fast as its natural counterpart. The company, which already breeds the salmon in Canada, received its first batch of bioengineered eggs Wednesday at its indoor facility in Albany, Indiana, , and the first salmon fillets raised there could appear in U.S. supermarkets in late 2020. AquaBounty’s decision to raise the salmon in Indiana is a landmark moment for the Midwest, a region known globally for its agricultural prowess but one where land-based fish farming operations have struggled mightily to become profitable. AquaBounty purchased the complex about 10 miles northeast of Muncie where yellow perch and steelhead trout had previously been raised and renovated it for Atlantic salmon. Before Wednesday’s shipment, the 16-person staff, which includes factory workers who were laid off in recent years, had been overseeing 100,000 conventional Atlantic salmon from eggs until they reach market size. With around 150,000 bioengineered eggs currently inside the facility’s incubator trays, production is expected to grow. Commercially raising seafood, a process known as aquaculture, will be necessary to feed the planet’s growing population at a time when rising seafood demand is pitted against plateauing wild fisheries burdened by overfishing, pollution and climate change, according to industry experts. The U.S., which imports over 90% of its seafood, has lagged behind much of the world in aquaculture production, and proponents hope the introduction of genetically engineered fish might help promote the industry, relieve pressure on ocean fisheries and scale back the United States’ $16 billion seafood trade deficit.
After Reading This, You’ll Probably Never Want To Eat Genetically-Modified Food Again – Every single day, most Americans eagerly gobble down foods that contain ingredients that have been genetically-modified without ever considering the consequences. Most of us simply assume that the federal government would never allow us to eat GMOs if they were not safe. Unfortunately, it appears that the federal government has completely failed us. The material that I am about to share with you is deeply disturbing, and after reading this article there is a very good chance that you will never want to eat genetically-modified food ever again. But at this point it is almost impossible to completely avoid GMOs, because they are in almost everything. Unless they are specifically designated “organic”, most corn, soy, canola and sugar beets grown in America today have been genetically modified, and almost all packaged foods contain ingredients derived from at least one of those sources. We’ll get into some of the potential health effects of eating foods derived from GMO crops in a moment, but first I want to discuss a new trend that is potentially even more dangerous. In recent years, researchers have been pushing the boundaries of biology in order to come up with new “plant-based” alternatives to existing food products. Essentially, “synthetic biology” is being used “to create life forms from scratch”…Impossible’s “bleeding” veggie burger, shrimp made of algae, and vegan cheeses that melt are all making their way into restaurants and on to supermarket shelves, offering consumers a new generation of plant-based proteins that look, act, and taste far more like the real thing than ever before.What consumers may not realize, however, is that many of these new foods are made using synthetic biology, an emerging science that applies principles of genetic engineering to create life forms from scratch.But of course nobody really knows what the long-term health effects will be once humans start eating “synthetic proteins” on a massive scale.And once these gene-edited organisms start spreading their genetic material in the wild, it could be a complete and total environmental nightmare. According to Rebecca Burgess, these food companies are “not considering the future of genetic pollution”… Rebecca Burgess, the founder of Fibershed, which last fall produced a report with ETC Group on the hazards of clothing made from genetically modified or synbio-derived materials, questions the efficacy of methods to keep gene-edited material from getting into the environment. “The concern is that they’re using base life forms that grow rapidly and transfer genes rapidly and they’re not considering the future of genetic pollution.”
Glyphosate Use Surges in Midwest, Lawsuits Mount: What Will the Supremes Say? Farmers’ use of glyphosate is surging throughout the midwestern United States. Glyphosate is a key ingredient in Roundup, the controversial herbicide that is the subject of more than 13,000 pending lawsuits against Bayer. The first three of these to reach a verdict resulted in judgments against the company. (For further background and details, see my two previous posts this litigation, EPA Says Glyphosate Is Safe, But Lawsuits Loom and Bayer’s Woes Mount, and Second Roundup Decision: Jury Finds Weedkiller a “Substantial Cause” of Plantiff’s Cancer.) As the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting revealed in this May 26 article, Controversial pesticide use sees dramatic increase across the Midwest: A review of the agency’s data by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting shows that farmers across the Midwest used an estimated 188.7 million pounds of glyphosate in 2016 – nearly 40 times more than in 1992 when they used a total of 4.6 million pounds. The data for the year 2016 is the latest available. Glyphosate is now the primary way farmers manage weeds that would otherwise reduce the amount of grain they can produce. The Midwest accounts for 65 percent of the nation’s use of glyphosate for crops, according to the Center’s analysis. The Midwest Center article discusses how since the introduction of genetically modified cotton, corn, and soybean seeds that could withstand the weed killer, its use has skyrocketed – despite its environmental and health consequences: “I think growers locked on to the simplicity, and the effectiveness of using glyphosate as your primary, or in many cases your only means of weed control,” [Sarah Ward, associate professor of plant genetics at Colorado State University] said. Meanwhile, Bayer has not been faring well in court. Earlier this month, Bayer lost its third Roundup lawsuit since it acquired Monsanto in August 2018 – against no wins – resulting in a $2 billion damage award in Pillod v. Monsanto, as reported by Successful Farming . In the first case, the jury awarded $289 million in damages, and in the second, $80 million.) Bayer shows no sign of backing away from its position that glyphosate is safe – and does not cause cancer – and released the following statement just after the Pillod verdict, according to Successful Farming. I include it in full for interested readers – and have highlighted key sections for those who prefer to focus on the highlights: Translated into plain English: the company is relying on the business-friendly US courts – especially federal appellate courts and the United States Supreme Court – to reverse these verdicts. Not just slice the damages awards. Reverse the verdicts and declare, game over.
Food packaging is full of toxic chemicals – here’s how it could affect your health – We’re just beginning to understand some of the short- and long-term risks associated with the chemicals in packaging: obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease and other health issues. Some consumer advocates say phasing out some of the riskier substances that come into contact with our food is long overdue. “Avoiding the use of these chemicals of concern in packaging is a great step forward,” said Leonardo Trasande, pediatrician and author of Sicker, Fatter, Poorer: The Urgent Threat of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals to Our Health and Our Future and What We Can Do About It.“The question is: what replaces these materials?” Convenient food delivery apps, such as Seamless and Postmates, have made it easier than ever before to order food to the couch. It’s so convenient that 26% of Americans eat takeout at least once a week. But when hot products are placed in containers, chemicals from the box can leach into the food and, in turn, our bodies. There are the more obvious culprits: for example, polystyrene, commonly called Styrofoam, a known carcinogen that’s also an environmental nightmare. Cities such as New York, Washington and San Francisco have banned Styrofoam coffee cups, plates, and to-go boxes. Progressive food establishments have traded it and other hazardous packaging for safer, plant-based alternatives.But many of those seemingly safe containers may have hazardous chemicals lurking inside. A study released last year by consumer advocacy groups Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and Toxic-Free Future found that nearlytwo-thirds of paper takeout containers from the country’s five largest grocery stores contained elevated levels of fluorine, which meant that they were probably treated with PFAS, a group of industrial chemicals no longer manufactured in the US. The same was true for 11% of bakery and deli papers tested. PFAS has been shown to cause reproductive, developmental, liver, kidney and immunological problems in laboratory animals. It may also be associated with low birth rate and thyroid disruption, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Research on children’s health risks in doubt over EPA funds (AP) – Long-running research projects credited with pivotal discoveries about the harm that pesticides, air pollution and other hazards pose to children are in jeopardy or shutting down because the Environmental Protection Agency will not commit to their continued funding, researchers say. The projects being targeted make up a more than $300 million, federally funded program that over the past two decades has exposed dangers to fetuses and children. Those findings have often led to increased pressure on the EPA for tighter regulations. Children’s health researchers and environmental groups accuse the EPA of trying to squelch scientific studies that the agency views as running counter to the Trump administration’s mission of easing regulations and promoting business. “A lot of the centers, including mine, have identified a lot of chemicals that are associated with diseases in children,” said Catherine Metayer, an epidemiologist who directs research into children’s leukemia at University of California at Berkeley through the federal program. The EPA awarded smaller than average funding for the research grants for this year, asked Congress to cut funding for it from its budget, and has refused to commit to future funding for the program. Children’s centers at universities around the country typically get joint funding from the EPA and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in three- and five-year packages, with most packages running out in 2018 and 2019. With no word on future funding, researchers overall “have been kind of scrambling to find a way to continue that work which is so important,” said Tracey Woodruff, director of the children’s center at the University of California at San Francisco. Woodruff’s federally funded work includes looking at how flame-retardant chemicals and PFAS compounds – a kind of stain-resistant, nonstick industrial compound – affect the placenta during pregnancy. The Trump EPA has come under increasing pressure from states to regulate PFAS as it shows up in more water supplies around the country. With no news from the EPA on any more funding in the future, “we’ve been winding down for about a year” on work funded through those grants, Woodruff said. On Tuesday, a banner across a website home page for the overall children’s research declared “EPA will no longer fund children’s health research.”
Group Demands to Know: Who at Trump’s EPA Decided to Slash Funds Used to Protect Children From Toxic Poisoning? Exactly what led President Donald Trump’s EPA to stop funding research centers tasked with probing environmental health threats to children?One advocacy organization, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), wants answers.EWG said in a press statement Wednesday that it filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain documents, including electronic records and minutes of meetings, about the decision.The Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Centers have existed thanks to a two-decade partnership between the EPA and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.Currently, the network includes 13 centers at institutions, including Johns Hopkins University and the University of Southern California, which are conducting long-term studies on issues including the links between pollutants and allergens with asthma-related illnesses in minority children, and potential near-roadway air pollution impacts on the risk of childhood obesity and inflammatory issues. “By combining scientific research and community engagement, the Children’s Centers have developed a national network of researchers, healthcare professionals, and community-based groups,” the government’s website says. “This network is addressing how exposure to environmental toxicants and living in unhealthy environments may contribute to a wide range of adverse health outcomes.”
Why you need to know about PFAS, the chemicals in pizza boxes and rainwear – PFAS, short for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of at least 4,700 synthetic chemicals that have been in commercial production since the 1940s to make surfaces resist stains, water and grease.
- The most widely studied are PFOA (also known as C8) – used for decades to make Teflon non-stick – and PFOS, used to make Scotchgard water repellent.
- They don’t break down. PFAS are highly persistent and accumulate over time in humans, animals and the environment.
- They can also be dispersed through air and water and have been found in the environment of the Arctic (and its polar bears) and open ocean waters.
- It can be found in non-stick cookware, fire retardants, stain and water repellents, some furniture, waterproof clothes, pizza boxes and take-out containers, food packaging, carpets and textiles, rubbers and plastics, electronics and some dental floss.
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found PFOA in in the blood of 98% of Americans, as well as in breast milk and umbilical cord blood.
- The drinking water of about 16 million Americans, including 126 military bases, where PFAS-rich firefighting foam is used for training exercises. PFAS have also been found in fish, shellfish, vegetables and other grown in contaminated soil or water. The Environmental Working Group health advocates have created a US map of detections of PFAS in water.
Health effects of the various kinds of PFAS are debated, but a growing body of evidence has linked exposure to some of them to:
- Developmental issues, cancer, liver damage, immune system disruption, resistance to vaccines, thyroid disease, impaired fertility and high cholesterol. PFAS have been dubbed “possibly carcinogenic” to humans by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC).
- A study funded by DuPont as part of a legal settlement with residents living near one of its Teflon facilities found that PFOA was probably linked to six disease outcomes: kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis, high cholesterol and pregnancy-induced hypertension.
- Numerous studies on PFOS and PFOA on both humans and animals have shown a wide range of possible health effects, including decreased fertility among women, decreased sperm count and penis size, lowered birth weight, cancer and – among animals studied – death.
Bisphenol: what to know about the chemicals in water bottles and cans – Bisphenols are a group of chemicals used to manufacture plastics, epoxy resins and other products since the 1960s. Bisphenol-A (BPA), the most infamous of the group of 40 or so chemicals, was initially investigated for pharmaceutical use as synthetic estrogen in the 1930s. Many plastic products marketed as BPA-free contain similar replacement chemicals. Though the health effects of BPA are still debated, it is thought to be an endocrine disruptor that mimics estrogen in the body, potentially causing adverse health effects.
- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says it is concerned about BPA because “it is a reproductive, developmental and systemic toxicant in animal studies and is weakly estrogenic”, adding there are “questions about its potential impact, particularly on children’s health and the environment”.
- BPA is most likely ingested through contaminated food and water and has been found in more than 90% of the population in the US over six years old. Some other bisphenols, such as BPF and halogenated bisphenol, are also suspected of having toxic effects, researchers at a Japanese university concluded in 2015.
- Recent research has linked the chemical to a wide range of health conditions in human and animal studies. A 2007 study co-authored by EPA and university researchers concluded BPA exposure affects the male reproductive system, brain and metabolic processes. Japanese researchers found possible links between high levels of BPA and recurring miscarriages. In two studies 25 years apart, a researcher from Washington State University found links between both BPA and BPS – a widespread replacement for BPA – and genetic damage in laboratory mice. A long-awaited 2018 government report, controversial among some in the scientific community, showed no conclusive effects from BPA in animal studies.
- BPA has been found in the urine of nearly all people tested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as in amniotic fluid and breast milk of some women. A 2015 study co-authored by the EPA and university researchers found BPA in the breast milk of about 90% of lactating women in a small survey. University of Tokyo researchers detected BPA in the amniotic fluid of full-term fetuses in 2002. Prenatal exposure to the chemical has been linked to anxiety, depression and hyperactivity among children, and increased risk of breast cancer later in life.
- BPS, the main replacement for BPA following consumer backlash, may have similar effects to its predecessor. A 2018 study from Washington State University scientists found similar biological effects in lab mice from both BPA and BPS. A 2017 study co-authored by EPA researchers found that six BPA alternatives had as much, if not more, of an estrogen-mimicking effect on human breast cancer cells.
EPA’s Proposal for Limiting Rocket Fuel in Drinking Water Is Dangerous to Public Health –After a decade of delay, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally proposed a limit for levels of the toxic chemical perchlorate (a component of rocket fuel) in drinking water – except the newly proposed standard of 56 parts per billion is 10 to 50 times higher than what scientists recommend. “This is enough to make you sick – literally,” said Erik Olson, senior director for Health and Food at NRDC, which sued the agency in early 2016 to force it to take action on perchlorate. Widely used by the military and defense industries, as well as in fireworks and explosives, perchlorate is highly soluble in water and can move quickly into ground- and surface water once it reaches soil. Even low levels of exposure to the chemical can impair hormone production critical to brain development. “Fetuses and infants are especially vulnerable to harm from perchlorate,” said Olson. The chemical has been detected in drinking water systems that serve up to 16.6 million Americans – posing significant health risks for children and pregnant women.Multiple states have lower standards for perchlorate in drinking water that align with the science, like Massachusetts (2 parts per billion) and California (6 parts per billion). “This is another Trump administration gift to polluters and water utilities that have lobbied to be off the hook for cleaning up the problem,” Olson said.
US cosmetics are full of chemicals banned by Europe – why? – A brief but telling piece of legislation was put forward in Connecticut in January. Just three lines in length, the bill calls for any cosmetics in the state to “meet the chemical safety standards established by the European Union”.The move, unlikely to be made law, is the latest signal of mounting anguish over the enfeebled regulation of everyday products in the US compared with European countries. Across a span of cosmetics, including makeup, toothpaste and shampoo, to items ranging from household cleaners to fruit juice to cheese, hundreds of potentially harmful ingredients banned in the EU are legally allowed in the US.“Many Americans are unaware that they are absorbing untested and unsafe chemicals in their products,” said Alex Bergstein, a state senator who put forward the Connecticut legislation. Bergstein was previously the chair of the Mount Sinai Children’s Environmental health center.“Generally, the EU has got it right. In the US we have a strong favouritism towards companies and manufacturers, to the extent that public health and the environment is being harmed. The pendulum has swung in an extreme way and it’s really going to take a general awakening by the public.” The disparity in standards between the EU and US has grown to the extent it touches almost every element of most Americans’ lives. In cosmetics alone, the EU has banned or restricted more than 1,300 chemicals while the US has outlawed or curbed just 11. It’s possible to find formaldehyde, a known carcinogen banned in EU-sold cosmetics, in US hair-straightening treatments and nail polish. Parabens, linked to reproductive problems, are ruled out in the EU but not the US, where they lurk in skin and hair products. Coal tar dyes can be found in Americans’ eyeshadow, years after they were banned in the EU and Canada. “In the US it’s really a buyer beware situation,” said Janet Nudelman, director of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. “Cosmetics companies can use any raw material that they like and there’s no way to know if they are safe before they reach the shelves. The contrast with the EU is stark and troubling.”
Skin Bleaching Is Poisoning Women – But Business Is Booming – Inna Samson was 15 when she finally gave in to the pressure to take pills to lighten her skin tone. “It’s definitely the biggest regret I have from high school,” she says. She’s been teased for most of her life for her medium complexion, and it wasn’t just coming from kids at school; her cousins, sister, and aunts all joined in, calling her names like “monkey” or making underhanded comments that still sting today. “I was always called beautiful, but…,” Samson, now 24, recalls. “Beautiful, but dark. Beautiful, but short. There was always a ‘but.’” Samson grew up in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, where it’s estimated that nearly half of the population actively uses skin-lightening products. In high school, she joined this growing percentage by experimenting with whitening creams and soaps, then finally starting taking glutathione pills, a rarely studied skin-lightening ingredient that’s gaining popularity around the globe. For Samson, it felt like an easy fix for the one thing she felt was holding her back. Samson’s story isn’t unique to the Philippines; countries like Nigeria, Jamaica, China, Malaysia, South Korea, and India are all grappling with dangerous skin-bleaching epidemics, with rates of use as high as 77% in Nigeria. Around the globe, skin-lightening procedures and products – many of which are experimental, unregulated, and extremely dangerous – are becoming popular among women hoping to gain an upward trajectory in cultures that prize lighter complexions. Skin bleaching is a rapidly growing industrythat’s estimated to reach a valuation of $24 billion in the next decade, but it’s rife with controversy. For one, there are many potential and proven health risks associated with the practice, from poisoning to organ failure. Beyond that, many argue that the skin-lightening industry is fueling discrimination based on the shade of your skin, called colorism or shadism. By perpetuating the idea that a lighter complexion will make you more desirable, Western beauty standards continue to feed a global market that profits off women’s insecurities. We travelled to Manila, which has one of the highest rates of skin-bleaching use in the world, to learn exactly why women are risking their lives for a shot at being a few shades lighter.
Why smelling good could come with a cost to health – About 4,000 chemicals are currently used to scent products, but you won’t find any of them listed on a label. Fragrance formulations are considered a “trade secret” and therefore protected from disclosure – even to regulators or manufacturers. Instead, one word, fragrance, appears on ingredients lists for countless cosmetics, personal care and cleaning products. A single scent may contain anywhere from 50 to 300 distinct chemicals.“No state, federal or global authority is regulating the safety of fragrance chemicals,” says Janet Nudelman, policy director for Breast Cancer Prevention Partners (BCPP) and co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. “No state, federal or global authority even knows which fragrance chemicals appear in which products.”Three-quarters of the toxic chemicals detected in a test of 140 products came from fragrance, reported a 2018 BCPP study of personal care and cleaning brands. The chemicals identified were linked to chronic health issues, including cancer.“When we took a harder look at beauty and personal care products we found t hat many chemicals of concern were hiding under the word ‘fragrance’,” said Nudelman. While virtually all Americans are exposed to fragrance chemicals on a daily basis, women have a greater body burden, largely from beauty and cosmetics products absorbed through the skin. The average American woman uses 12-16 products a day, many containing fragrance.Besides common reactions to fragrance – about 35% of people report migraines or respiratory problems because of fragrance – health advocates have more serious concerns. Could fragrance chemicals, combined with the other chemical cocktails found in daily life, be shaping serious disease trends? “There are chemicals in fragrances that do cause [cancer and reproductive effects], we know this from animal studies,” says Alexandra Scranton, director of Science and Research for Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE), a women’s health not-for-profit. “Do people who use a lot of fragrance get more cancer than those who don’t? No one really knows because no one has looked at that.”
Afghanistan’s Air Is Deadlier Than Its War – The respiratory ward of Kabul’s Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital, built with Indian aid, is filled with children gasping for breath. Some scream as they’re treated, their cries echoing off the concrete walls. Amid the shrieks, doctors, parents, and patients struggle to heal, soothe, and breathe. The ward follows a seasonal rhythm – in the summers, it’s used to treat gastric issues, but during the winter, doctors treat Afghanistan’s vulnerable population for chronic respiratory illnesses that they attribute to pollution in the air, a mix of heating from homes and pollution from industrial sources. Air pollution is killing more Afghans than the war. According to the State of Global Air, a collaborative initiative between the Health Effects Institute and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, more than 26,000 Afghan deaths could be attributed to pollution in 2017. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan documented nearly 3,500 civilian casualties from the war for the same time period. The root cause is the burning of anything possible to get Afghans the energy and heat they need in harsh winters – including plastic, coal, and rubber. Mixed into that is the use of leaded fuels banned in the West decades ago, as well as waste energy plants and heavy industry. For the majority of Afghan families, coal and wood are the only sources of heat, despite the emissions that result from burning combustibles. Those who cannot afford wood or coal, which are sold in 15-pound bundles for about $1, go out into the snow to pick through the rubbish that wealthier Afghans have discarded to search for anything they can burn – including plastics, shoes, dung, and, if they’re lucky, the charred remains of a better-off family’s coal or wood that they can incinerate in their bukharis, or traditional Afghan heaters. On a visit this year, I counted around 70 children being treated in the Kabul hospital. That’s more than the number of beds – a common problem in a country struggling with chokingly bad air, according to Mohim, a respiratory specialist. The staff place them two to a bed or more. When the ward is particularly crowded, patients are on the floor. Family members place blankets and scarves they brought from home on the ground. The majority of the patients in the ward are young, between 6 months and 5 years old.
Sperm counts are on the decline – could plastics be to blame? – Surprising new research into dog sperm has reproductive biologists concerned about the fate of their own species. In a March study, scientists at Nottingham University found that two chemicals common in home environments damage the quality of sperm in both men and dogs. The culprits implicated are diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), used to make new plastics more pliable, and polychlorinated biphenyl 153 (PCB153), found in older plastics and electrical equipment. Companies stopped producing PCBs in the late 1970s due to their health risks – including a possible increased risk of cancer, hormone disruption, liver damage and behavioral or cognitive deficits in children exposed to the chemical in utero – but the chemical persists in the environment. The Nottingham study is just one in a mounting pile of research indicating that the quality and quantity of men’s sperm is on the decline. Research suggests that sperm counts have dropped by half in the last 50 years or so and that a higher percentage are poor swimmers – slow, ungainly or beset by genetic flaws. The exact cause of that decline is not well understood. One culprit may be increasingly unhealthy lifestyles. The same factors that affect general health – being overweight or obese, smoking, stress and alcohol or recreational drug use – also affect the quality of sperm. But many researchers suspect chemical residues in the environment may be partly to blame. To test that theory, the Nottingham researchers first removed contaminants from semen samples of men and dogs then exposed the manmade chemicals. Results showed that exposure to chemicals at levels found in the environment reduced sperm motility (ability to swim) and fragmented DNA carried in the head of the sperm.
Inside the long war to protect plastic (Center for Public Integrity) – New York’s Suffolk County had a trash problem. Facing brimming landfills and public pressure, legislators took a first-in-the-nation step: They banned plastic bags. But what the county saw as part of the solution, the plastics industry took as a threat. “We had never seen lobbyists like this before,” said Steven Englebright, the chief sponsor of the bill. “The B.S. came in by the shovel-load.” That was in 1988. Soon, Suffolk County – on Long Island – inspired similar initiatives in municipalities across the country. As one lawyer for the industry wrote in an internal memo from the time: “Several years from now we may look back on 1988 as the opening round in a solid waste/packaging war.” The plastics industry – from the chemical giants making the building blocks of plastic to companies using the packaging to sell their products – has been waging that war for more than 30 years. It has pumped millions of dollars into pro-plastic marketing, high-profile lawsuits and lobbyists who travel the country promising that recycling, not bans, presents the best way forward. All this despite decades of repeated warnings about weak recycling markets and plastic pollution problems. Today, about a dozen states restrict local governments from regulating plastic items, while only two (with a third pending) have passed statewide plastic-bag bans. And manufacturers are profiting from a plastics boom. According to the research firm the Freedonia Group, by 2025, the plastic packaging market will be worth roughly $365 billion. “The industry has kept us from confronting plastics for decades through corporate lobbying and threats of litigation,” said Jennie Romer, a lawyer, longtime anti-plastics activist and founder of the website PlasticBagLaws.org. “Billions of single-use plastic items have made it into our environment because of this.”
Plastic waste dumped in Malaysia will be returned to UK, US and others – Malaysia will return 450 tonnes of contaminated plastic waste to the countries that shipped it, in a refusal to become a dumping ground for the world’s trash.Nine shipping containers at Port Klang, west of Kuala Lumpur, on Tuesday were found to contain mislabeled plastic and non-recyclable waste, including a mixture of household and e-waste.Yeo Bee Yin, minister of energy, science, technology, environment and climate change, said that the US, UK, Canada, Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Netherlands, and Singapore should expect waste products to be returned. Five containers of waste were returned to Spain last month. On April 24, Malaysia launched a joint task force to crack down on the growing problem of illegal plastic waste imports. The authorities have since carried out 10 operations. A recent Greenpeace report found that during the first seven months of 2018, plastic waste exported from the US to Malaysia more than doubled compared to the previous year. The row over plastic waste imports is also playing out in the Philippines, where Canada recently missed a May 15 deadline to take back tonnes of its garbage. That prompted a diplomatic spat with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, which saw him recall his ambassador to Ottawa. After Duterte said he was prepared to “declare war” on Canada over the issue, the Canadian government said it would cover the full cost of the return operation and pledged that the garbage will be brought back before the end of June.
Malaysia to Return 3,300 Tons of Plastic Waste Illegally Imported From Countries Including the U.S. — Since China banned imports of plastic waste in early 2018, Malaysia has become the No. 1 importer of the world’s unwanted plastic. Now, the country has had enough.Malaysia’s Minister of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Yeo Bee Yin announced Tuesday that the country would return as much as 3,000 tonnes (approximately 3,307 U.S. tons) of plastic that had been imported illegally from countries including the U.S., Reuters reported.”Malaysia will not be a dumping ground to the world … we will fight back,” Yeo said at a press conference reported by the Associated Press. “Even though we are a small country, we can’t be bullied by developed countries.”The waste comes in 60 containers smuggled into the country. Ten of the containers, containing some 450 tonnes (approximately 496 U.S. tons) will be shipped back within two weeks, Yeo said.Malaysia to ship back 450 metric tonnes of contaminated plastic waste to Australia, US, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan, China & Bangladesh, in addition to the waste sent back to Spain on Apr 29. Total of 3,000 metric tonnes expected to be shipped back once inspections are completedpic.twitter.com/GLvZLFR746 – Sumisha Naidu (@sumishanaidu) May 28, 2019 Yeo showed some of the waste to reporters at a port near Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur, the Associated Press reported. It included cables from the UK, milk cartons from Australia, compact discs from Bangladesh and household and electronic waste from the U.S., Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia and China. Yeo said one UK company had imported more than 50,000 tonnes (approximately 55,000 U.S. tons) of waste in the past two years. Malaysia had already returned five containers of waste to Spain in late April.
Despite global push to reduce plastic use, demand impact for oil and other feedstocks remains unaffected – A movement to reduce plastic use has led to bans worldwide on shopping bags, straws and other single-use items, but no noticeable impact on demand for crude oil and other feedstocks used to make plastic. Petrochemical and plastic demand is forecast to increase at as much as four times the rate of demand for transportation fuels and petrochemicals will account for roughly 30% of global oil demand over the next five years, according to the International Energy Agency. On this week’s podcast, we talk with Boston Globe reporter Janelle Nanos about her attempt to rid plastic from her life. We also talk with Rob Stier, senior lead for global petrochemicals with S&P Global Platts, about why bag and straw bans have yet to substantially impact demand. From China’s recent decision to stop recycling the world’s trash to food security complications, Stier talks about the hurdles the petrochemical industry faces as the global pollution crisis worsens.
Pollution cover-ups exposed in Chinese provinces – Local governments in China have been fabricating environmental reports, helping companies to conceal illegal dumping and deceiving central-government inspectors, according to a report by the country’s central environment ministry. The ministry says that last year it uncovered thousands of violations of environmental regulations across ten provinces. A summary of these findings and of attempts by local governments to redress their actions was released by the ministry on 16 May. The summary also says that all ten have provinces have since made progress in cleaning up environmental messes. China has been trying to reduce its environmental damage and boost initiatives to preserve its biodiversity. But the findings show that the country has a way to go to clean up its polluted air, water and soil – a goal of President Xi Jinping. In Anhui, one of the ten provinces investigated by the ministry, artificial-diamond manufacturers allegedly dumped waste water and hazardous solid waste. But before inspectors went to investigate, officials warned the manufacturers about the inspections, according to documents that the Anhui government released earlier this month. In some cases, officials even instructed the companies to forge waste-disposal contracts, flush out a ditch contaminated with waste water and temporarily suspend production to seem compliant with regulations, say the documents.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellites spark fights between astronomy, spaceflight fans — Just a handful of hours after SpaceX successfully placed all 60 of its first Starlink v0.9 satellites in orbit, ground observers began capturing and sharing spectacular nighttime views of the spacecraft. Soon after, fans and practitioners of astronomy and spaceflight began bickering. The topic of concern: light pollution, not from lights on the ground but from sunlight-reflecting satellites in orbit. Immediately after launch, the ‘train’ of 60 Starlink satellites were undeniably spectacular, easily visible to the eye and as bright or brighter than the brightest stars in the sky. For the most part, reactions seemed to lean more towards awe than concern, but it didn’t take long for people to begin extrapolating from 60 satellites to Starlink’s peak of ~11,900 (an increase of 200X), and some responses began to paint SpaceX’s constellation in a more negative light. Fans, communicators, and practitioners of astronomy quickly grew into the loudest voice in the room, as fans of SpaceX and Elon Musk started to engage, ultimately making it clear that low Earth orbit (LEO) megaconstellations could soon become a highly controversial topic for unexpected reasons. As is typical of humans in the age of social media, the gentlest hint of controversy and criticism swelled into stone-throwing between two crystallized sides unwilling to breathe and engage in civil debate. Will Starlink (alongside other constellations from Telesat, OneWeb, and LeoSat) destroy the night sky as we know it, ruining the perfectly untouched cosmos for the rest of eternity? Will Starlink immediately create a global utopia by affordably connecting every single human on Earth to the internet, all while being completely invisible and undetectable from the ground? No, no, no, and no. As with 99.99% of things, the reality will fall somewhere in the middle and its consequences and benefits will be far more grey than black and white.
After Years of Abuse, the Earth Has Sent Its Bill Collectors – Does Mother Nature have a sense of irony? To answer that question, look no further than the lone star tick. Although the tick’s traditional range in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic includes the eastern half of the Lone Star State of Texas, it gets its name from a white, star-like “splotch” on its back. But thanks to climate change, this nettlesome little critter is on the move. It’s moving into the Northeast as far as Maine. And it’s gone well past its usual bailiwick in the Ohio Valley to make its way into the upper Midwest and into Wisconsin. It’s not surprising that ticks, like half of all species, are moving with the changing climate. What is surprising is what the lone star tick brings with it. No, it’s not Lyme disease, although warming-catalyzed deer ticks are spreading that debilitating malady into new areas. Instead, the lone star tick carries another little-known disease – alpha-gal syndrome. The term “alpha-gal” comes from name of the sugar molecule that,according to the Mayo Clinic, can lead to hives, eczema, swelling of the lips, face, tongue and throat, as well as wheezing, abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea or vomiting, headaches and even the potentially deadly interruption of normal breathing by anaphylaxis. However, these symptoms may not follow after a bite. In fact, it might take a while for an infected person to feel the full impact of a newly acquired syndrome. That’s because alpha-gal syndrome often expresses itself hours after the infected person eats a big, juicy steak. Or pork chops. Or a cheeseburger. Yup, the lone star tick is spreading a meat allergy. It’s severe, too. One unfortunate victim profiled in Mosaic cannot risk eating the “meat of mammals and everything else that comes from them: dairy products, wool and fibre, gelatine from their hooves, char from their bones.” Alpha-gal’s delayed trigger also makes it hard to diagnose. People often don’t connect their symptoms with eating a meal they’ve eaten without consequence throughout their whole lives. Industrial agriculture – and meat production in particular – is a significant source of greenhouse gases. But the changing climate across North America is catalyzing the expansion of tick populations. And now tick populations are spreading diseases like the alpha-gal red meat allergy to meat-gorging Americans. How’s that for putting some irony in our diets?
France Becomes The First Country To Ban All Five Pesticides Linked To Bee Deaths – In May 2018 the EU banned three of the significant pesticides implicated in the collapse of bee populations. Clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam are now prohibited for use on crops. However France has gone a step further and set the high bar in the effort to save the bees. Given the importance of pollinators to nature and the survival of the biosphere, this could not happen too soon!Studies have reported that the neonicotinoid pesticides attack the central nervous system of insects, leading to loss of memory and homing skills, in addition to reduced fertility. Bees that cannot find their way back to the hive quickly die. However the pesticides have also been shown to affect butterflies, birds and other pollinating insects.There is a reason why France is ahead of the field in this regard: The “bee killing” pesticides were tested first on French fields in the 1990’s – and the French farmers witnessed first-hand the catastrophic effects that occurred in 1994; describing “a carpet of dead bees”. 400,000 bee colonies died within days – yet the story was buried under a layer of corruption and distorted science.Since that time, activists and manufacturers have battled to control the situation. We covered this story in full in a previous post: Overwhelming Evidence Linking Neonicotinoid Insecticides To Massive Die-off Of Bees And S ongbirdsThe new move is certain to be celebrated by ecologists and sets an example of protection of nature that the rest of the world needs to follow.
European forests could ‘live fast and die young’ in a warming climate – Climate change could cause trees to grow faster, accelerating the rate at which they absorb carbon from the atmosphere. But these trees may be likely to die sooner, a study finds. The research, conducted in high-altitude conifer forests in Spain and Russia, suggests that climate change could cause the trees to “live fast and die young”, the authors say – reducing the ability of these forests to act as a carbon sink over long timescales. The findings show that planting forests to soak up greenhouse gas emissions could have more limited potential than previously thought, the lead author tells Carbon Brief. The research is “impressive”, but may be too “bold” in its conclusions, another scientist tells Carbon Brief. When humans release CO2 into the atmosphere, around one quarter of it is absorbed by plants.Plants use CO2 during photosynthesis to create new materials, such as leaves, shoots and roots. Because of this, forests act as “carbon sinks” – storing vast amounts of carbon over long timescales.Climate change is likely to increase the rate at which trees grow. The study focuses on one reason for this, which is that warming temperatures may increase the overall length of the growing season in temperate regions, explains Prof Ulf Büntgen, a researcher of environmental systems analysis from the University of Cambridge and lead author of the study published in Nature Communications. He tells Carbon Brief: “The common belief is that in a warmer and a more CO2-enriched world, trees will uptake more carbon from the atmosphere. Based on this, people are starting political actions to plant trees. What we are adding to this debate, is to say: ‘This is correct but it’s only half of the story.’ “What is neglected is the ‘carbon residence time’ – how long the carbon taken up by terrestrial vegetation is actually captured. In our study, we show that faster growing trees and other types of vegetation will die younger. By doing that, they are going to release all of the carbon that they have sequestered.”
Heartbreaking footage of orangutan trying to fight off excavator that is destroying his home – Deforestation alongside global warming are the major causes of extinction. While humans are destroying their homes, animals are nothing but helpless witnessed. However, when saw his home is going to be erase from the Earth, this orangutan decided to fight off. At least he tried. All in a heartbreaking footage. While the whole forest around him is being destroyed, and orangotan tries to stop it. In an desperate act, the animal wants to stop the excavator with his hands. As his first attempt ends up with him into a stack of trees, the poor animals looks like he is not about to give up. In the end he struggled to climb the machine back again. The heartbreaking moment was captured on camera in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, as a construction crew demolished a section of the Sungai Putri Forest, a habitat of critically endangered Bornean orangutans. At least, the orangutan was saved an relocated, thanks to International Animal Rescue (IAR). However, it can’t pass unnoticed how far these animals have been pressured by the humans’ actions.
Rats Are Taking Over New York City – NYTimes — So many rats regularly lurk on a sidewalk in Brooklyn that it is the humans who avoid the rats, not the other way around. Not even cars are safe: Rats have chewed clean through engine wires. A Manhattan avenue lined with trendy restaurants has become a destination for foodies – and rats who help themselves to their leftovers. Tenants at a public housing complex in the South Bronx worry about tripping over rats that routinely run over their feet. New York has always been forced to coexist with the four-legged vermin, but the infestation has expanded exponentially in recent years, spreading to just about every corner of the city. “I’m a former Marine so I’m not going to be squeamish, but this is bad,” said Pablo Herrera, a 58-year-old mechanic who has counted up to 30 rats while walking on his block in Prospect Heights, just around the corner from the stately Brooklyn Museum. Rat sightings reported to the city’s 311 hotline have soared nearly 38 percent, to 17,353 last year from 12,617 in 2014, according to an analysis of city data byOpenTheBooks.com, a nonprofit watchdog group, and The New York Times. In the same period, the number of times that city health inspections found active signs of rats nearly doubled. Mayor Bill de Blasio, like mayors before him, has declared war on rats, but so far the city is still losing. “There is no doubt that rats have a major impact on New Yorkers’ quality of life and this administration takes seriously our responsibility to control and mitigate their population,” said Laura Anglin, deputy mayor of operations. “No New Yorker likes having rats in their community and we are committed to continuing the work of controlling rats in all of our neighborhoods.” One key reason rats seem to be everywhere? Gentrification. The city’s construction boom is digging up burrows, forcing more rats out into the open, scientists and pest control experts say. Milder winters – the result of climate change – make it easier for rats to survive and reproduce. And New York’s growing population and thriving tourism have brought more trash for rats to feed on.
Animals will ‘downsize’ over the next century, new study says. Here’s why. –In the animal kingdom, it seems big is out and little is in. New research suggests that large long-lived birds and land mammals will face extinction over the next century as small insect-eating animals that reproduce quickly and die young will predominate. Among the likely losers in the emerging world will be rhinos, hippos, gorillas, giraffes and caribou as well as large birds like eagles, condors and vultures. The likely winners? Rodents and songbirds.The research, described in a paper published May 23 in the journal Nature Communications, points to several causes of the looming shift in the world’s fauna, including climate change, deforestation, hunting and increasing urbanization and agriculture. As their world changes, large birds and land mammals – which are known to be less adaptable to changing conditions than their smaller peers – will seemingly have a hard time surviving. “By far the biggest threat to birds and animals is humankind – with habitats being destroyed due to our impact on our planet,” Rob Cooke, a postgraduate researcher at the University of Southampton in England and the leader of the research, said in a statement.
More fishing vessels chasing fewer fish, new study finds – A new analysis of global fishing data has found the world’s fishing fleet doubled in size over the 65-years to 2015 but for the amount of effort expended the catch fell more than 80 per cent. Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study by researchers from the University of Tasmania and CSIRO found the global fishing fleet grew from 1.7 million vessels in 1950 to 3.7 million in 2015. However, despite better technology and increased motorisation, modern fishing vessels take only one fifth of the catch per unit of effort (CPUE) that the 1950s fishing fleet achieved. IMAS and CMS Ph.D. student Yannick Rousseau, who led the study, said the findings reflect growing pressure on marine resources and a fall in the abundance of fish. “What we have seen over the last 65 years is more and more fishing vessels chasing fewer fish,” Mr Rousseau said. “Since 1950 a dramatic increase in the size of the fishing fleet in Asia has more than off-setting small declines in North America and Western Europe. “Most of the increase in vessel numbers has been in motorised fishing boats, a change from the unpowered ‘artisanal’ fishing vessels that once characterised Asian and African fishing fleets. “But, despite its advanced technology and increased numbers, the modern motorised fleet is having to work much harder to catch fewer fish,” he said. Mr Rousseau said fisheries scientists use a measure of catch per unit of effort (CPUE) to assess fisheries management and the well-being of fish stocks. “CPUE reflects how many fish are caught for the amount of effort expended, such as during a day’s fishing, and this measure paints a dark picture of the state of the ocean’s resources. “In recent years a sharp drop in CPUE in Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Southern Mediterranean indicates their fisheries expanded at a much faster rate than fish stocks could support.” The study found that in developed countries such as Australia more effective fisheries management and a sharp fall in the size of the fishing fleet over the last decade has led to a recent stabilisation of CPUE. “However, on current worldwide trends we can expect to see a further one-million vessels on the water by mid-century and the average engine power of the global fleet continues to increase,” Mr Rousseau said.
Ocean Acidification Causing Coral Reefs to Be Less Resilient to Climate Change – Ocean acidification (OA) occurs when carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is absorbed by seawater, resulting in a chemical reaction that reduces pH and calcium carbonate levels vital for the growth and repair of calcifying organisms like coral, explains the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Publishing their work in Nature Climate Change, researchers examined four species of coral and two types of calcifying algae over the course of the year in order to determine how they might bounce back from stressful conditions.”We found that corals and coralline algae weren’t able to acclimatize to ocean acidification,” said study author Malcolm McCulloch, adding that that the effects were rapid and persistent.At least one-quarter of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from coal, oil and gas dissolves in the ocean, according to the Smithsonian Institute. Changes in the ocean’s chemistry since the Industrial Revolution have been recorded at an unprecedented rate. In the last two centuries alone, ocean water has become 30 percent more acidic – not even natural buffering can keep up.Because seawater contains high levels of dissolved substances, Woods Hole Oceanic Institute notes that ocean waters have a slightly alkaline, or basic, pH of around 8.2. As more carbon builds up in the atmosphere, we see higher levels being absorbed in seawater to form carbonic acid, which breaks down to become more acidic as the pH level drops. Calcifying organisms like coral grow by adding calcium carbonate from the seawater to their shells or skeletons, but the researchers note that some species are disproportionately affected in their ability to repair or grow as these levels drop.”The results also confirm that Ocean acidification could have repercussions on the competition between species which could, in turn, affect the ecological function of reefs,” said lead author Steeve Comeau. Coral respond to bleaching events caused by stress from pollution, overexposure to sunlight, extreme low tides, and changes in ocean temperatures by repairing via this calcification process. However, a 2018 studyfound that OA impedes the thickening or growing process of coral and decreases skeleton density, making them more vulnerable to breaking. Climate change and the advent of the Anthropocene are only expected to worsen these effects. Oceana notes that before the Industrial Revolution, about 98 percent of coral reefs were surrounded by waters with ideal levels of aragonite, but today the proportion is less than half.
411 North Atlantic Right Whales Remain: This Solution Could Help –Many fish, marine mammals and seabirds that inhabit the world’s oceans are critically endangered, but few are as close to the brink as the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis). Only about 411 of these whales exist today, and at their current rate of decline, they could become extinct within our lifetimes.From 1980 through about 2010, conservation efforts focused mainly on protecting whales from being struck by ships. Federal regulations helped reduce vessel collisions and supported a slight rebound in right whale numbers.But at the same time, growing numbers of right whales died after becoming entangled in lobster and crab fishing gear. This may have happened because fishing ropes became stronger, and both whales and fishermen shifted their ranges so that areas of overlap increased. Entanglement has caused 80 percent of diagnosed mortalities since 2010, and the population has taken a significant downward turn.This comes after a millennium of whaling that decimated the right whale population, reducing it from perhaps between 10,000 to 20,000 to a few hundred animals today. And entanglement deaths are much more inhumane than harpoons. A whaler’s explosive harpoon kills quickly, compared to months of drawn-out pain and debilitation caused by seemingly harmless fishing lines. We believe these deaths can be prevented by working with the trap fishing industries to adopt ropeless fishing gear – but North Atlantic right whales are running out of time.
Coral bleaching event underway in French Polynesia despite no El Nino Widespread coral bleaching has been reported in the French Polynesian islands of Tahiti and Moorea, even though there was no El Nino event this year. The reefs are among the most regularly bleached in the world, thanks to their position in the path of warm waters that spread west from South America during El Nino years. This year, however, without the presence of an El Nino and the warmer water it brings, the reefs should have been spared. But in the last few days, it’s been estimated that 50 to 60 per cent of corals on reefs around Tahiti and Moorea have been bleached, according to marine biologist Luiz Rocha from the Californian Academy of Sciences. “I’ve seen the reports of the Great Barrier Reef bleaching, but this is the first time I’ve seen [bleaching] myself, and it hits you a lot harder,” Dr Rocha said. “We have seen bleaching all the way down to 100 metres. But it’s worst on the shallow, sheltered reefs.” Coral bleaching occurs when high water temperatures cause the coral to expel its symbiotic algae, revealing the white skeleton beneath.
Why The U.S. Just Had Its Wettest 12-Month Stretch On Record – The U.S. experiencing its wettest 12-month stretch on record (in this case 1895 to 2019).Deke Arndt, a climatologist at NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI), tweeted: In case you missed it, the last 12 months (May ’18 through Apr ’19) is the wettest 12-month stretch on record for the US. A warmer world turns up the hydrology dial. When we are sent the bill for climate change, it comes in the context of our water. Here are the meteorological and climatological reasons why this likely happened as well as further explanation of the last sentence of Arndt’s Tweet. The graphic above shows how abnormally wet it was in the U.S. from May 2018 to April 2019, particularly in the upper Midwest and the eastern U.S. By the way, if you live in the region shaded orange-brown, resist the urge to say “but it was drier where I live” so climate change is a hoax. Your local experience doesn’t define the global experience. Before I discuss climate connections, it is important to discuss meteorological connections first. The inevitable “it has always rained” or “climate changes naturally” is lurking in someone’s head right now. My placeholder response is that grass on your lawn grows naturally too, but it you put fertilizer on the soil, it grows differently. I will provide a more robust discussion later in the article. Several places, including Washington, D.C, broke records for wettest 12-month stretch. Jason Samenow wrote an outstanding article in the Washington Post Capital Weather Gang explaining the meteorological context for the period. I summarize Samenow’s key points:
- A persistently high-pressure pattern east of the U.S. transported Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico moisture into the eastern half of the country.
- Another persistently high-pressure pattern near Alaska allowed storm-tracks to be directed into the upper Midwest and East by the jet stream
- Possible jet stream modifications due to the emerging El Nino (warm central Pacific sea surface temperatures).
Experts like NOAA’s Greg Carbin argued that El Nino had not really established itself. NOAA only announced the arrival of El Nino on February 14th, 2019. However, SUNY-Albany’s Paul Roundy, an expert on tropical weather-climate connections, argues that global impacts are possible even in the incipient phases El Nino. The reality is that all of these factors likely played a role and reflects weather-climate variability inherent to the atmosphere.
For the Midwest, Epic Flooding Is the Face of Climate Change — FIERCE STORMS LASHED across the central US this week, unleashing hundreds of powerful tornadoes that carved a path of destruction through parts of Missouri and Oklahoma Wednesday night, and left at least three dead. While the worst of the violent winds has passed, the region is now bracing for massive flooding, following record amounts of rain brought by the severe weather system and with more expected over the weekend. And it’s coming on the heels of the wettest 12 months the US has seen since record-keeping began in 1895. That’s according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which earlier this year predicted that two-thirds of the states in the lower 48 would risk major or moderate flooding between March and May. “This is shaping up to be a potentially unprecedented flood season, with more than 200 million people at risk for flooding in their communities,” Ed Clark, director of NOAA’s National Water Center said in the agency’s spring outlook report.So far, it’s proven prescient – with rivers from North Dakota east to Ohio and south to Louisiana all overflowing their banks in recent weeks. The damage to homes, businesses, and farms is likely to rise into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Scientists say it’s too early to tell to what degree this particularly relentless spring storm season is the result of human-induced climate change. But they agree that rising temperatures allow the atmosphere to hold more moisture – about 7 percent more for every 1 degree rise in Celsius – which produces more precipitation and has been fueling a pattern of more extreme weather events across the US. And perhaps more than any other part of the country, the Midwest has had its capacity to store excess water crippled by human enterprise. In 2015, researchers at the University of Iowa parsed historical records of peak discharges from more than 700 stream gauge stations across the Midwest. Their analysis, reported in Nature, found that between 1962 and 2011, the magnitude of flood events hadn’t changed much. At a third of the locations, however, the number of floods was trending upward significantly. More recent work, published in February by scientists at the University of Notre Dame, shows that floods aren’t just getting more frequent – they’ll also get more powerful in the future. Using a statistical method to blend data from global climate models with local information, the researchers predicted that the severity of extreme hydrologic events, so-called 100-year floods, hitting 20 watersheds in the Midwest and Great Lakes region will increase by as much as 30 percent by the end of the century. The approach, called “downscaling,” has been used to look at hydrological dynamics in other parts of the country before, but it was never applied to the Midwest. “What we’re seeing is that the past really is not a good predictor of the future,” says the study’s lead author, Kyuhyun Byun. “Especially when it comes to extreme weather events.”
Mississippi River’s Morganza Spillway Expected to Open For 3rd Time in History – After the wettest winter in U.S. history took the Mississippi River in March to its 2nd highest flood on record in Louisiana, renewed heavy rains that fell over the past week in the Central Plains and Midwest are expected to cause an even higher crest on the river in early June, forcing the Army Corps of Engineers to open the Morganza Spillway for just the 3rd time in history. Unrelenting severe weather and flooding rains have plagued the central U.S. since May 17, with widespread 7-day rainfall totals in excess of three inches recorded over much of the Mississippi River watershed. As of midday Friday, an impressive 346 of the 9054 contiguous U.S. NWS/AHPS river gauges were in flood stage. Despite the broad extent of the flooding, most of the crests fell short of all-time record levels, though Bird Creek at Avant, KS, hit 36.52′ on Tuesday, beating the record of 32.03′ from March 11, 1974. The most noteworthy crest over Memorial Day weekend is likely to be on the Arkansas River at Fort Smith/Van Buren, Arkansas (metro pop. 300,000), where the river is projected to crest at 41′, nineteen feet above flood stage, and well above the prior record of 38.1′ from April 16, 1945. The NWS warns that a flood level of 37’–four feet below the forecast flood level–“near catastrophic flooding occurs along the Arkansas River. The port of Fort Smith and nearby businesses are severely flooded. Several residential subdivisions around Fort Smith are flooded. Backwater flooding occurs in the trailer parks next to Lee Creek. This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation.” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a news conference that the Morganza Spillway was expected open in early June, potentially as early as June 2. The Mississippi River near the spillway is expected to crest on June 5 at 62.1’, its second highest flood on record. At that height, the river will overtop the gates of the structure and cascade down the other side, potentially creating scour holes that could undermine the structure and cause its permanent failure. The Morganza Spillway is a 3,906-foot long structure with 125 gated openings, set back about a half-mile west of the west bank of the Mississippi River near Morganza, Louisiana. When the gates of the structure are opened, water flows westward through farmland between two guide levees into the Atchafalaya River. Valuable farmland and several hundred structures lie in the floodway, and up to $2 billion worth of property is at risk of flooding if the spillway is opened to its full capacity (which has never happened).
Tornadoes carve a path through Ohio and Indiana; 1 killed – (AP) – A swarm of apparent tornadoes so tightly packed that one may have crossed the path carved by another tore across Indiana and Ohio overnight, smashing homes and blowing out windows. One person was killed and dozens were injured. The storms were among 53 twisters that forecasters said may have touched down Monday across eight states stretching eastward from Idaho and Colorado. The winds knocked homes off their foundations, toppled trees and hurled so much debris that it could be seen on radar and highway crews had to use snowplows to clear an Ohio interstate.Some of the heaviest damage was reported just outside Dayton, Ohio. Francis Dutmers with his wife headed for the basement of their home in Vandalia, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) outside Dayton, when the storm hit with a “very loud roar” Monday night. The winds blew out windows around his house, filled rooms with debris and took down most of his trees. In Celina, Ohio, 81-year-old Melvin Dale Hannah was killed when winds blew a parked car into his house, Mayor Jeffrey Hazel said Tuesday.”There’s areas that truly look like a war zone,” Hazel said.Storm reports posted online by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center showed that 14 suspected tornadoes touched down in Indiana, 11 in Colorado and nine in Ohio. Six suspected tornadoes were reported in Iowa, five in Nebraska, four in Illinois, three in Minnesota and one in Idaho.Thunderstorms that spun off the Colorado tornadoes dropped hail as large as tennis balls, with pea-size hail reported in the Denver area. A large tornado struck near Trotwood, Ohio, eight miles (12 kilometers) from Dayton, and Mayor Mary McDonald reported “catastrophic damage” in the community of 24,500 people. Several apartment buildings were damaged or destroyed, including one complex where the entire roof was torn away, and at least three dozen people were treated at emergency rooms for cuts, bumps and bruises.
Widespread damage in Dayton, Ohio area after series of tornadoes – A series of tornadoes late Monday night caused widespread damage in the Dayton, Ohio, area; at least one death and 130 injuries have been reported. Eighty-one-year-old Melvin Dale Hanna in the city of Celina, an hour’s drive northwest of Dayton, died after the storm picked up a vehicle and hurled it into his house. At least seven people were injured, three of them seriously, and 40 homes destroyed or seriously damaged in the city of 10,000. In Dayton itself several tornadoes hit heavily populated parts of the city, causing extensive damage, but fortunately no deaths have been reported at this point. Injured residents had to be pulled out of heavily damaged buildings after the storm. Images published after the winds hit show heavily damaged neighborhoods littered with debris and rooftops torn clear off apartments. There were stories of narrow escapes, with residents taking shelter in basements only seconds before their homes were destroyed. The roof of a high school in the Dayton suburb of Brookville was ripped off and a 30,000 square foot sports complex in Dayton was destroyed. Drone video of the city showed swathes of homes and businesses completely flattened or heavily damaged with debris strewn over wide areas. Some 55,000 residents lost power in Dayton and city officials issued a boil water advisory after the winds knocked out power to water plants and pump stations. Public schools were closed Tuesday. The National Weather Service Office in Wilmington, Ohio, estimated that at the height of the storms 5 million people were without power. The town of Pendleton, Indiana, about 100 miles west of Dayton, also sustained heavy damage. The Ohio tornadoes are the latest in an unusual string of severe weather events. According to federal weather officials, a preliminary assessment shows there were 500 tornadoes in a 30-day period, causing at least seven deaths and scores of injuries. According to the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center, Monday was the eleventh consecutive day with at least eight tornado reports, tying a record.
Extreme weather spans coast-to-coast with multiple tornadoes and severe storms plaguing the country – Severe storms stretched across the nation Tuesday, including tornadoes in Kansas and Pennsylvania, while catastrophic flooding puts other states at risk. It’s only the latest outbreak of extreme weather that’s been plaguing the U.S. for nearly two weeks. Tuesday’s violent weather marks the 13th consecutive day of such severe storms, coming a day after a series of devastating tornadoes hit western Ohio late Monday. That dangerous streak included an average of 27.5 tornadoes occurring each day. Storms capable of producing hail, damaging wings and tornadoes have hit from the Central Plains into the mid-Atlantic, according to the National Weather Service. Police confirmed Tuesday evening that a tornado hit southwest of Lawrence, Kansas, in the eastern part of the state. The National Weather Service issued a tornado emergency for the areas around Kansas City and urged residents to take shelter, advising them to seek the lowest level in the most interior room. The agency had also predicted that tornadoes may strike across the Upper Ohio Valley and Northeast States into Tuesday evening. Extreme weather warnings were issued across the state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday, including tornado warnings for Scranton, Dunmore, Wilkes-Barre and the Poconos. Leavenworth County, Kansas, Undersheriff Jim Sherley said 24 to 30 homes suffered extensive damage in storms there, but all reported injuries were minor. The storm ran through the communities of Linwood and Bonner Springs, and numerous power lines and trees were down in the path of the storm, he said. Tornado warnings were issued for Staten Island in New York City as well as Newark and Elizabeth, New Jersey, late Tuesday evening. An emergency management official in Stanhope, New Jersey, reported storm damage to the outside of Lenape Valley Regional High School, but there was no damage to the interior of the school and the 50 to 100 people inside the building for an athletic banquet were safely evacuated. It won’t be clear if there was an actual tornado until an assessment is done Wednesday, officials said. A tornado did touch down near Morgantown in Berks County, Pennsylvania, the weather service said, based on video showing the tornado on the ground, but an assessment still needs to be completed.
Tornadoes Hit Unusually Wide Swaths of U.S., Alarming Climate Scientists – As the death toll in Oklahoma rose to six Monday amid an outbreak of nearly 200 tornadoes across the Midwest in recent days – as well as in areas far less accustomed to them – climate scientists said such patterns may carry warnings about the climate crisis and its many implications for extreme weather events. In Oklahoma, tornadoes touched down in at least two cities, including El Reno and Sapulpa, over the weekend, injuring dozens and leveling a number of homes. The tornado that hit El Reno, a suburb of Oklahoma City, was given an EF3 rating, with wind speeds up to 165 miles per hour. Only about five percent of tornadoes are given an EF3 rating or higher. The tornadoes hit after much of the state endured severe flooding last week, following powerful storms that overflowed the Arkansas River and damaged about 1,000 homes. Outside the Midwest, at least one twister touched down near Washington, DC, with reports of tornadoes in Texas and Colorado, and Chicago facing a tornado watch on Monday. While tornadoes have long been a fixture in the Midwest, meteorologist Eric Holthaus tweeted last week that there is “reason to believe major outbreak days … are getting worse,” while climate scientists are examining links between the storms and the climate crisis. The so-called “Tornado Alley,” which covers parts of Texas and Kansas as well as Oklahoma, appears to be growing, according to a study published in Nature last year – making tornadoes more frequent in states that rarely saw them previously including Arkansas, Mississippi and eastern Missouri. “What all the studies have shown is that this particular part of the U.S. has been having more tornado activity and more tornado outbreaks than it has had in decades before,” Mike Tippett, a mathematician who studies the climate at Columbia University told PBS Newshour earlier this year. The increase in destructive tornadoes across wider swaths of the country than in previous decades “may be suggestive of climate change effects,” Purdue University researcher Ernest Agee told the Star. And the unusual occurrence of tornadoes in far more densely-populated areas than those that frequently see such weather events has led to concerns that tornadoes will become more deadly and destructive than they’ve been in the past. “We get caught up on the climate aspect, but the real issue going forward with tornadoes – and hail storms and hurricanes and insert your favorite natural disaster – is the fact that we have more human exposure,” Victor Gensini, lead author of the study that appeared in Nature, toldPacific Standard in March.
This Is Not Normal – US Suffers More Than 500 Tornadoes In The Last 30 Days – The mainstream media has been using the term “uncharted territory” to describe the unusual tornado outbreaks that have been happening in the middle of the country, but I don’t think that truly captures the historic nature of what we are witnessing. Over the last 30 days, there have been more than 500 tornadoes in the United States. That is not normal. In fact, Tuesday was the 12th day in a row when at least eight tornadoes were spawned, and that is a new all-time record. Community after community in the Midwest now looks like a “war zone”, and billions upon billions of dollars of damage has already been done. But this crisis is far from over, because forecasters are telling us that more powerful storms will roar through the middle of the country on Wednesday. Since 1998, there has been an average of 279 tornadoes during the month of May. So the fact that we have had more than 500 over the last 30 days means that we are running way, way above normal… In the last week alone, the authorities have linked tornadoes to at least seven deaths and scores of injuries. Federal government weather forecasters logged preliminary reports of more than 500 tornadoes in a 30-day period – a rare figure, if the reports are ultimately verified – after the start of the year proved mercifully quiet. According to the National Weather Service, there were more than 50 tornadoes over Memorial Day weekend alone, and at this point there have been at least 8 tornadoes in the U.S. for 12 consecutive days… Tuesday was the 12th consecutive day with at least eight tornado reports, breaking the record, according to Dr. Marsh. The storms have drawn their fuel from two sources: a high-pressure area that pulled the Gulf of Mexico’s warm, moist air into the central United States, where it combined with the effects of a trough trapped over the Rockies, which included strong winds.The devastation that has been left behind by these storms has been immense. When Dayton assistant fire chief Nicholas Hosford appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America”, he told viewers that in his city there are “homes flattened, entire apartment complexes destroyed, businesses throughout our community where walls have collapsed”. Countless numbers of Americans have had their lives completely turned upside down, and of course the Midwest has already been reeling from unprecedented flooding in recent months.
Historic Flooding on the Arkansas River in Oklahoma and Arkansas – Torrential rains in Oklahoma over the past two weeks have brought the Arkansas River in western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma to its highest water level ever recorded. Near the Oklahoma borderat Fort Smith, Arkansas (population 300,000), the river rose to two feet above its previous all-time high on Tuesday morning, and was predicted to rise at least another two feet before cresting on Wednesday. The river also hit a record high on Friday at Ponca City, Oklahoma, about 70 miles upriver from Tulsa. Between those two locations, at Muskogee, Oklahoma, the river crested on Sunday at its second highest level on record. All-time record crests are predicted over the next week along a 100-mile stretch of the river extending from Fort Smith to just upstream from Little Rock, Arkansas. At Little Rock, the crest is predicted to be the sixth highest on record, and the highest since 1990. On Tuesday afternoon, two levees along the Arkansas River in Arkansas were overtopped, flooding farmlands, according to katv.com. Arkansas River flooding has already triggered the evacuation of hundreds of people in Oklahoma, including areas just west of Tulsa. More people are expected to be flooded as water is released from the Keystone Dam in Tulsa, the Tulsa World reported. Engineers are trying to prevent catastrophic flooding that could come if the lake overflows its floodgates. The flood’s longevity has also triggered concerns about Tulsa County’s 70-year-old levee system, which is undergoing far more prolonged stress than it did during the record-setting floods of 1986. In the Fort Smith area, the State Highway 59 Bridge was the only crossing on the Arkansas River left open after officials closed the Interstate 540 bridge and the Midland bridge. Schools in Fort Smith will be closed at least through Thursday, the district announced.
Every Oklahoma County Under State of Emergency as Historically Wet Spring Continues – This has been a historically wet spring for the South and Central U.S. The National Weather Service said that Mississippi River flooding in at least eight states has lasted its longest since the “Great Flood” of 1927, USA Today reported Wednesday. And now, following two weeks of storms in Oklahoma and Kansas, the Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas has swollen to record levels, Axios reported Wednesday. Authorities in Tulsa, Oklahoma are hoping 70-year-old levees will hold, according to Axios, and every county in the state has declared an emergency over flooding, CNN reported Tuesday. As many as six people have died in the state over the past few days because of extreme weather, including floods and tornadoes.”We still have water still rising in the east,” Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said Monday. “We are not out of the woods yet.”Thunderstorms are predicted through Tuesday night from Iowa to Oklahoma and then again Wednesday and Wednesday night from Texas into Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri, The Weather Channel reported. This could threaten new flash floods and add to existing flooding.The Army Corps of Engineers increased the water flow from the Keystone Dam in Oklahoma to 275,000 cubic feet per second to try and prevent water from overflowing the spillway, The New York Times reported. Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum said authorities were monitoring water levels.”We are planning for and preparing for the flood of record, and we think everybody along the Arkansas River corridor ought to be doing the same,” Bynum told reporters Tuesday, according to The New York Times. “While it’s high risk, there is not an emergency behind the levees right now. It’s a high-risk situation when you’re talking about infrastructure that’s being tested in such a strong way.”Meanwhile, flood waters have turned the town of Braggs, Oklahoma into an island since late last week, and residents have organized boat runs for gas, medicine and food for livestock and people.”We’re just blocked off from civilization,” Record flooding is also expected in Ozark, Dardanelle, Morrilton and Toad Suck Reservoir, Arkansas this week, and could top levees in Conway and Faulkner Counties, The Weather Channel said Tuesday.
Large areas of the central US are under water — and the threat isn’t going away – CNN – How bad is the flooding across the central United States? A total of 70 river gauges along the Mississippi River and its tributaries are experiencing major flooding, and another 104 are seeing moderate flooding, as of Wednesday’s latest data. In all, cities across the region, from Minneapolis down to New Orleans, have been slammed by heavy rain and flooding.And it’s not over yet. More heavy rain is in the forecast for today, and over 10 million remain under flood warnings from Oklahoma into Kansas, Missouri and Illinois. The greatest flash flood potential will be from Texas into Arkansas, where 2 to 4 inches of rainfall will be common.Here’s a look at the extent of this flooding across the region. The hardest hit areas will likely be along the Arkansas River, with a crest today in Tulsa near the record for the river. Floodwaters from the Arkansas River have inundated homes outside Tulsa, such as in these photos from May 23 in Sand Springs. US Rep. Kevin Hern, who represents parts of Tulsa County and Sand Springs, said he was extremely concerned about the aging levees in his district.”The devastation from the Arkansas River flooding is real, and the continued risk to citizens and businesses is equally as real,” he said. The Arkansas River, already rising, will reach near-record or record levels — above 40 feet in some areas — Thursday afternoon, officials said.”This is looking to be record-breaking all along the Arkansas River, and this is something we have never seen before,” state emergency management spokeswoman Melody Daniel said. “This is a flood of historic magnitude, it surpasses all Arkansas flooding in our recorded history. That should be enough to get everyone’s attention.” Just in Missouri, 52 river gauges are in major flooding, and another 40 river gauges are experiencing moderate flooding. The flooding is particularly prevalent around St. Louis and its border with Illinois.Mississippi River gauges in Scott County, which includes Davenport, were in a major flooding zone on Wednesday.The flooding in Iowa was so bad that a Scott County flood assistance event scheduled for Wednesday was postponed because of rising waters. Continued rainfall and saturated ground conditions have affected the Iowa county for most of the year, according to the Scott County website. Earlier in May, several city blocks in Davenport were flooded after the swollen Mississippi River broke through a temporary barrier and sent water into the city’s downtown.
Arkansas River bursts through levee north of Little Rock, triggering evacuations – The swollen Arkansas River ripped through a 40-foot section of a levee about 75 miles northwest of Little Rock, Arkansas, early Friday morning, prompting flash-flood warnings and evacuations in rural areas around Dardanelle and Holla Bend. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning in the area, warning that some 5,700 people, four schools and a hospital were potentially exposed to the flooding. The NWS urged people to move to higher ground. “Water is going to do what it wants to do,” Yell County Judge Mark Thone told reporters at a news conference. “We’re just trying to head this off.” Jimmy Witt, mayor of Dardanelle, called on the 4,500 residents of his town to begin immediate sandbagging operations. He said he expected water to encroach the town “from the bayou side.” “I ask you to please not panic, we have time to prepare for this,” Witt said on his Facebook page. The weather service noted a slight dip in the water level for the levee at Dardanelle, likely due to the breach. “An historic flood event is expected along the Arkansas River in the coming days,” warned the weather service in Little Rock. “Some long-time record crests could be surpassed by five feet above the record set in 1945.” This is the same river that’s flooded hundreds of homes in the Tulsa area, and the high water is rolling downstream as the Arkansas River makes its way to its confluence with the Mississippi River and then down into the Gulf of Mexico. Authorities say flooding danger will rise through at least the weekend along the river.Arkansas authorities urged residents to evacuate the area, which is largely rural with dirt roads crisscrossing farm fields.
Record floods breach Arkansas levee, overtop 2 in Missouri – (AP) – Relentless flooding in the central U.S. on Friday inundated communities and damaged or spilled over levees on three major rivers in two states, and authorities discovered the body of a drowning victim at a Missouri lake. The fast-flowing Arkansas River smashed a 40-foot (12-meter) hole in a levee in rural western Arkansas, causing water to spill into a nearby community. In northeast Missouri, a levee was overtopped on the Mississippi River, and another levee was topped on the Missouri River in the central part of the state. The flooding has been building for days because of heavy rainfall upstream. In Arkansas, officials were warning of more potential problems on an already strained levee system. “These levees were not built to sustain this high a flow for this long, and we are seeing problems and there more than likely will be more,” said Laurie Driver, spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Little Rock District. In eastern Missouri, the state Highway Patrol’s Water Division reported that the body of 57-year-old Lane Panasuk, of Butte, Montana, was recovered Thursday evening from Harry S. Truman Lake in Henry County, but the patrol said it did not know why he was in the water. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had warned visitors about high water levels that had closed most of the campgrounds around the lake and a road over its dam. In Arkansas, the levee breached at Dardanelle, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) northwest of Little Rock. Yell County officials had anticipated the breach and urged residents in the nearby Holla Bend area to evacuate Thursday. The Arkansas Department of Emergency Management said crews went door to door to recommend evacuation for about 160 homes. Yell County Emergency Manager Jeff Gilkey told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that rapid currents from the river ripped a 40-foot (12-meter) section from the levee. Aerial video posted by the sheriff’s office Friday showed water pouring through the hole.
Planting Troubles Worsen, Progress Lowest on Record for Corn (see maps, graphics) Unrelenting rainfall continues to cause headaches for Corn Belt farmers. Record-breaking precipitation this year has lead to flooding and historic delays in the pace of U.S. corn planting. Soybean planting has also fallen significantly behind the five year average. Today’s update recaps recent news articles and government reports that discuss these issues in more detail. USA Today writer Doyle Rice reported on Wednesday that, “Flooding in at least 8 states along portions of the Mississippi River – due to relentless, record-breaking spring rainfall – is the longest-lasting since the ‘Great Flood’ of 1927, the National Weather Service said.” Mr. Rice explained that, “The Mississippi River at the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois saw its longest stretch above major flood stage ever recorded, even surpassing that of 1927.” All of this year’s flooding is due to both early spring snowmelt and seemingly endless rain: Since the start of 2019, much of the lower Ohio and lower Mississippi River Valleys have picked up more than 2 feet of rain. A few spots have even received over 40 inches of rain, the Weather Channel said. Shelby Fleig reported in Wednesday’s Des Moines Register that, “A jet-stream pattern stuck over the Midwest has pummeled Iowa with tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, hail and heavy rainfall in recent days. More of the same is expected this week, forecasters say, increasing chances for flash floods in parts of the state.” The article noted that, “‘The ground really can’t hold any more water,’ With this background in mind, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday that, “U.S. farmers, which grow a third of the world’s corn and soybeans, have faced weeks of sluggish spring fieldwork as precipitation continues across the grain belt. Just 58% of the nation’s corn crop was planted as of May 26, the lowest on record for this time of year, and the rate of soybean seedings is the least since 1990, government data released [Tuesday] showed. “The risk of shrinking production has sent crop prices climbing, and the storms have yet to abate. Parts of Iowa, Illinois and Missouri are under warnings for flash floods, according to the National Weather Service. Some farmers are running up against deadlines to plant crops and still be covered under insurance policies to protect against losses in yield and price.” The Bloomberg article added that, “The past 12 months have marked the U.S.’s wettest stretch on record. The U.S. corn planting pace released [Tuesday] trailed all analyst estimates in a Bloomberg survey and compared with 90% a year earlier. Prospects may improve in early June as the wet weather pushes farther south, though Midwest storms are set to resume afterward, according to Maxar.” Financial Times writer Emiko Terazono reported on Wednesday that, “Corn prices popped to a 3-year high after a severe delay in plantings in the US midwest due to extreme wet weather.
Record Cold, Snow, Flooding and Tornadoes: Why the Midwest and Plains Have Been Most Extreme Weather Regions in 2019 -The Plains and Midwest have been the most extreme, record-breaking weather regions so far this year. Since January, those regions have set records for cold, snow and flooding. May has added hundreds of reports of tornadoes to the list. The general jet stream pattern which has brought heavy snow, flooding rain and tornadoes to the central US. so far in 2019.A persistent weather pattern is the culprit for the storminess. Strong upper-level winds from the jet stream have often carved a path southward over the West. When that happens, it puts the Plains and Midwest in the crosshairs of a repetitive track of storms. Moisture from the Gulf of Mexico feeds into those systems and allows them to dump copious amounts of precipitation.Here’s a look at the extreme weather we’ve seen so far in 2019, from May’s severe weather and flooding to January’s polar-vortex induced record cold. Fresh on our minds is the nearly two-week-long siege of severe weather and flooding.There have been more than 350 reports of tornadoes across the United States from May 17-early May 29, and most of those have been in the Midwest or Plains. The month as a whole has had 442 reports of tornadoes through May 27, according to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center.The actual number of tornadoes confirmed from those reports has yet to be determined, pending NWS damage surveys, but it’s likely the final tornado count for May 2019 will be well above the month’s 20-year average of 279.Heavy rainfall has also triggered historic flooding in the central states. Record crests have occurred on the Arkansas River in Oklahoma and Arkansas and on Bird Creek in Avant, Oklahoma.May has been record wet in Kansas City and Bartlesville, Oklahoma. A few other spots in Kansas and Oklahoma are also closing in on May rainfall records. Several locations along the Mississippi River clinched records for their longest-lasting floods since the Great Flood of 1927. Flooding has been ongoing for months along parts of the river, including in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where flooding began in January.
Wildfires Force 10,000 to Flee as Alberta Repeals Carbon Tax – More than 10,000 people have been forced to evacuate as wildfires spread in northern Alberta, Canada’sCBC News reported Thursday. Smoke from the fires has choked skies across the province, raising the Air Quality Health Index in its capital city of Edmonton to a 10+ Thursday, the Edmonton Journal reported. In an ironic turn, the fires prompted Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to cancel a celebration of the repeal of the province’s carbon tax, Canada’s National Observer reported. *This event has been cancelled so the premier can receive an internal, real-time briefing on the status of Alberta’s wildfires,” the government said in a statement reported by Canada’s National Observer. Kenney had promised to repeal the carbon tax and roll back other climate change policies in the April 16 general election. A bill to repeal the tax was the first his government introduced after gaining power. While the bill has not yet passed, fuel sellers were expected to stop collecting the tax at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, the Edmonton Journal reported.”Just hours later, the skies of Edmonton darkened with smoke from wildfires in the north of the province,” the paper wrote.Canada’s Environment Minister Catherine McKenna criticized the repeal and said she was working on a national tax. “We know we’re feeling the impacts of climate change. In Alberta, you have forest fires this year that have started earlier than before, major concerns about the impacts of these fires this year,” McKenna said, as the Edmonton Journal reported. “We’re going to work as quickly as possible to make sure it’s no longer free to pollute.”
Fire-driven weather is ‘new reality’ for Canada and elsewhere, expert cautions – CBC Radio – Transcript – Springtime has become synonymous with wildfire season in many parts of Canada, and it’s time the preparation and damage control reflected this, says Ed Struzik. Our changing climate is directly impacting the frequency and intensity of wildfires, and it’s important that Canada’s approach to combating these blazes – and their resulting weather systems – is re-visited, he told The Current’s Anna Maria Tremonti. “Our traditional response to wildfire is not going to be good enough in the future,” the author ofFirestorm: How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future said. Struzik, who is also a fellow at the Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy at Queen’s University, spoke with Tremonti about the devastating wildfire south of High Level, Alta., that has led to the evacuation of about 5,000 people, and what the future of wildfires looks like. Here is part of their conversation.
Chile’s Southern Patagonia Ice Field ruptured by climate change – scientists (Reuters) – Chile’s 12,000 square kilometer (4,633 square mile) Southern Patagonia Ice Field split in two and is likely to continue to fracture amid climate change, according to a team of Chilean scientists who were in the region in March. Gino Casassa, chief of the Snow and Glacier Division of Chile’s DGA water authority, told Reuters increasing temperatures along the Andes Mountains in southern Chile and Argentina have meant less snow and ice to replenish the region’s abundant glaciers. “What occurred is a fracture as the ice has retreated,” Casassa said. The chunk of ice that split off from the main glacier was estimated at 208 square kilometers (80.3 square miles), a relatively small part of the ice field. But Casassa said it may be a sign of things to come. The ice field, he said, is now “split in two, and we’ll likely discover further divisions to the south,” he said. Two icebergs broke off the Grey Glacier in southern Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park earlier this year, adding to fears that such ruptures are becoming more frequent.
‘Walking over bodies’: mountaineers describe carnage on Everest – An experienced mountaineer has described the “death, carnage and chaos” at the top of Mount Everest as climbers pushed past bodies to reach the world’s highest summit.The death toll on the mountain grew to 11 in the past day after an American doctor was killed while descending from the peak. It emerged also that an Australian climber was discovered unconscious but had survived after being transported downhill on the back of a yak. Elia Saikaly, a film-maker, reached Hillary Step, the final stage before the summit, on the morning of 23 May, where he said the sunrise revealed the lifeless body of another climber. With little choice at that altitude but to keep moving, his team – including Joyce Azzam, the first Lebanese woman to climb the world’s “Seven Summits” – made it to the peak a short time later.“I cannot believe what I saw up there,” Saikaly said of the last hours of his climb in a post on Instagram. “Death. Carnage. Chaos. Lineups. Dead bodies on the route and in tents at camp 4. People who I tried to turn back who ended up dying. People being dragged down. Walking over bodies. Everything you read in the sensational headlines all played out on our summit night.” This year’s Everest climbing season is so far the fourth deadliest on record, with mountaineers blaming poor weather, inexperienced climbers and a record number of permits issued by the Nepalese government, which, along with a rule that every climber has to be accompanied by a sherpa, led to there being more than 820 people trying to reach the summit. “There were 200-plus climbers making there way to the summit,” Saikaly told the Guardian of his ascent. “I came across a deceased climber … that person’s body was fixed to an anchor point between two safety lines and every single person that was climbing towards the summit had to step over that human being.
The Western Hemisphere’s portion of the Arctic looks set for a record low – (see maps) Given Donald Trump’s view that global warming is a hoax, I am surprised that almost 2 1/2 years into his Presidency NOAA’s “Arctic Sea Ice” page is still with us. And since I am a nerd, during the spring and summer it is something I check. In past years, sea ice melted much more in the Eurasian arctic at the extremities of the Gulf Stream than on the North American side. In contrast, the decline in ice cover in the North American sector of the Arctic is particularly advanced this year. Here’s what it looks like as of yesterday: With the exception of Hudson’s Bay, it looks much more like the end of June for the past decade in that sector of the Arctic. In order, here are June 2018, 2017, and 2012 And for the Canadian Arctic (again aside for Hudson’s Bay), it isn’t even far behind mid-July of last year: Of course, this pattern might not continue for the next several months. But if it does, we are probably going to set another record low for ice, at least for the Western Hemisphere’s portion of the Arctic.
Putin’s Arctic Plans Are a Climate Change Bet – Last weekend, Russia launched the last of a new crew of atomic icebreakers meant to consolidate the country’s dominance of commercial traffic in the Arctic. As much of the rest of the world recognizes climate change as an emergency, Russia is working hard to capitalize on it – and the U.S. appears to be far behind. The icebreaker Ural, launched at the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg, is the third and last ship, at least for now, of Project 22220. The other two, the Arktika and the Sibir, were launched in 2016 and 2017; the Arktika is expected to enter service this year. These powerful ships, capable of crashing through 3-meter-thick ice for clearing shipping routes, are the first nuclear-powered icebreakers designed in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union and fully built in post-Soviet times. The Russian government aims to replace current nuclear icebreaker fleet with the new giant ships in order to make what Russia calls the Northern Sea Route navigable year-round, not just a few months a year. The Northern Sea Route tracks Russia’s Arctic coastline from the Barents Sea in the west to the Bering Strait in the east. It cuts cargo delivery times between Europe and Asia by 10 to 15 days compared to shipping via the Suez Canal. The Russian government claims the right to regulate the whole of the route, even though not all of it passes through the country’s territorial waters, defined as 200 nautical miles from its shores. The Russian insistence that all Arctic traffic requires Moscow’s permission long has been an irritant to the U.S. Russia, meanwhile, has invested in opening and reopening military bases along its Arctic coast. Ten disused military airfields have been reopened, and 13 more are being built. By now, the bases cover almost the entire coastline and are, if required, ready to protect or disrupt any traffic along the North Sea Route. In a classic case of great power competition – who’s got more hardware? – the U.S. faces an “icebreaker gap” compared with Russia.The reason for this gap may well lie in the two countries’ different approaches to climate change. The U.S. oscillates between recognizing it as an emergency and, most recently under President Donald Trump, full-on skepticism. Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, has expressed doubt that human activity is causing climate change, but he doesn’t deny that it’s taking place. Putin’s attitude is that people can’t do much to stop climate change, and that makes adapting to it a long game. While he recognizes that the frequent droughts and floods that come with climate change can hurt Russian agriculture, he also sees the opportunities that come with a warmer climate, including a more navigable Arctic Ocean.
CO2 emissions: The trend is not your friend — When the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported in late March that energy consumption in 2018 rose at the fastest rate in a decade, it confirmed something that most of those who truly understand the climate crisis already know: Collectively, humanity is making almost no progress in doing anything significant about climate change. So, it’s not surprising that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has hit yet another record high. While the dominate public narrative has been that we are making great leaps toward a low-carbon economy through the rapid deployment of renewable energy, the IEA report showed a civilization moving inexorably toward climate catastrophe. Of the growth in energy demand – the extra energy needed to power the world economy in 2018 versus 2017 – 70 percent was supplied by fossil fuels. When we hear, as the IEA tells us, that solar energy generation increased by 31 percent last year without appropriate context, we fail to understand that this is off a very small base relative to fossil fuel energy. Coal burning accounted for about one-third of all emissions in 2018. Coal consumption continues to increase. This, we are told, is despite the rising use of natural gas for electricity generation. But, natural gas, though it contains less carbon, is still a carbon fuel. Perhaps the most important statement in the release was this: Almost a fifth of the increase in global energy demand came from higher demand for heating and cooling as average winter and summer temperatures in some regions approached or exceeded historical records. Cold snaps drove demand for heating and, more significantly, hotter summer temperatures pushed up demand for cooling. Climate change is creating a vicious cycle in which that change creates greater extremes in weather which create more demand for energy which is still largely generated using fossil fuels – which then release more greenhouse gases creating even more extreme climate. The IEA does make a strong statement that the world is moving in the opposite direction it needs to. But, of course, the IEA’s role is to make such statements. It cannot force any of its member governments to do anything. The problem is not lack of information or understanding. When even staid multilateral organizations such as the IEA state baldly that we are in terrible trouble, you can be assured that the message has become acceptable at the highest levels of government.
Big Pharma Emits More Greenhouse Gases Than the Automotive Industry –Rarely does mention of the pharmaceutical industry conjure up images of smoke stacks, pollution and environmental damage.Yet our recent study found the global pharmaceutical industry is not only a significant contributor to global warming, but it is also dirtier than the global automotive production sector. It was a surprise to find how little attention researchers have paid to the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions. Only two other studies had some relevance: one looked at the environmental impact of the U.S. healthcare system and the other at the pollution (mostly water) discharged by drug manufacturers. Our study was the first to assess the carbon footprint of the pharma sector. More than 200 companies represent the global pharmaceutical market, yet only 25 consistently reported their direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions in the past five years. Of those, only 15 reported their emissions since 2012. We assessed the sector’s emissions for each one million dollars of revenue in 2015. We found it was 48.55 tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) per million dollars. That’s about 55 percent greater than the automotive sector at 31.4 tonnes of CO2e/$M for that same year. We restricted our analysis to the direct emissions generated by the companies’ operations and to the indirect emissions generated by the electricity purchased by these companies from their respective utilities companies.The total global emissions of the pharma sector amounts to about 52 megatonnes of CO2e in 2015, more than the 46.4 megatonnes of CO2e generated by the automotive sector in the same year. The value of the pharma market, however, is smaller than the automotive market. By our calculations, the pharma market is 28 percent smaller yet 13 percent more polluting than the automotive sector.We also found emissions intensity varied greatly within the pharmaceutical sector. For example, the emissions intensity of Eli Lilly (77.3 tonnes of CO2e/$M) was 5.5 times greater than Roche (14 tonnes CO2e/$M) in 2015, and Procter & Gamble’s CO2 emissions were five times greater than Johnson & Johnson even though the two companies generated the same level of revenues and sell similar lines of products. We found outliers too. The German company Bayer AG reported emissions of 9.7 megatonnes of CO2e and revenues of US$51.4 billion, yielding an emission intensity of 189 tonnes CO2e/$M. This intensity level is more than four times greater than the overall pharmaceutical sector.
Trump climate adviser compared ‘demonization’ of carbon dioxide to Jews’ treatment under Hitler -An aide to President Donald Trump once compared the treatment of the Jewish people under the Nazis to what he said was the “demonization” of carbon dioxide, in an attack on the science of man-made climate change.‘The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.’William Happer. William Happer, who serves on the National Security Council as Trump’s deputy assistant for emerging technologies, made the argument in a 2014 CNBC interview. The comment resurfaced in the New York Times on Monday, in a story about how the administration is hardening an attack on climate science.The Times piece says Happer is leading a new climate-review panel that will question the conclusions of the National Climate Assessment. A spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency defended proposed changes to the assessment, saying among other things it used “inaccurate modeling.”In the CNBC interview, Happer said “carbon dioxide is actually a benefit to the world, and so were the Jews.” Happer is a physicist who was a professor at Princeton University. (In an email from 2017, Happer not only repeated that analogy but added two others, likening the so-called demonization of carbon dioxide to “the Soviet extermination of class enemies or ISIL slaughter of infidels.”)
ABC News spent more time on royal baby in one week than on climate crisis in one year – Here’s media misconduct in a nutshell: ABC’s World News Tonightspent more than seven minutes reporting on the birth of royal baby Archie in the week after he was born — more time than the program spent covering climate change during the entire year of 2018. Other major TV news outlets in the U.S. have also severely under-reported on climate change and yet found plenty of time to note the arrival of Archie, son of Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. Archie is now seventh in line to the British throne, which means he’ll be a permanent tabloid fixture but is unlikely to ever be a king. On May 6, the day Archie was born, the United Nations released a summary of a major new report warning that human destruction of the natural world, including through climate change, now threatens up to a million species with extinction. That’s dire news for our species too, as it also threatens our water supplies, food security, and health. The destruction of ecosystems and species “means grave impacts on people around the world are now likely,” the reportwarned. Robert Watson, head of the group of scientists that produced the report, laid it on the line: “What’s at stake here is a liveable world.” Yes, this extinction crisis is grim news, and many people like a little light fare mixed in with their headlines — a report on a royal baby, if you’re into that kind of thing, or a sports recap, or a segment on disgruntled Game of Thrones fans. But when the light fare takes over and the real news is shut out, that’s beyond lopsided. We’ve got a problem. Media Matters tracked broadcast news coverage on May 6 and found that ABC and NBC’s nightly news programs failed to even mention the U.N. biodiversity report. They did, however, air two segments each on Archie. CBS was the only national broadcast network that ran a segment on the biodiversity report that night, and of course it ran one on the baby, too. The perverse priorities of TV newscasters became even more obvious in the following days. Archie stayed in the news. Biodiversity and climate change stayed out of it.
Voters across Europe seek action over climate change – The devastating impact humans are having on the natural world have been the focus of heavy-hitting, sobering reports on the consequences of climate change recently. A recent study predicted that one million animal and plant species face extinction, many within decades. Scientists have repeatedly warned that the world must ramp up action to cut emissions to prevent global temperatures rising beyond dangerous thresholds to, in short, save the planet. Those stark warnings about the future of the world seem to have hit home. Projections in the Local and European elections have become a sounding board for the electorate’s green priorities. By yesterday evening, seven Green Party candidates had taken seats on Dublin City Council while the RED C exit poll for RTÉ and TG4 sent shock waves through the political system showing a surge of support for the Green Partywith it on course to top the European Parliament elections poll in Dublin. The party may also be on the way to win seats in the South and Midlands-North-West constituencies. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has got the “very clear” message from the electorate. “We are acting on climate, but they want us to act faster – we have got that message,” he said from the Citywest count centre.
School strike for climate: Protests staged around the world — School students around the world have gone on strike to demand action on climate change. Organisers said more than a million people were expected to join the action in at least 110 countries on Friday. They are calling on politicians and businesses to take urgent action to slow global warming. The strikes are inspired by student Greta Thunberg, who has become a global figurehead since protesting outside Sweden’s parliament in 2018. Carrying a “school strike for climate change” sign, the then 15-year-old said she was refusing to attend classes until Swedish politicians took action. The solo protest led to various movements across Europe, the US and Australia, known as Fridays for Future or School Strike for Climate. The last co-ordinated international protest took place on 15 March, with an estimated 1.6 million students from 125 countries walking out of school.
‘Our political leaders have failed us:’ Teen activist slams world leaders on climate change – Youth climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, criticized world leaders and “older generations” Tuesday for their inaction on climate change. In a speech at the R20 Austrian World Summit in Vienna, Thunberg cited devastating findings from a report released last year by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report found that the world needs to decrease emissions by 45 percent by 2030, or the atmosphere will rise to 1.5 degrees of warming. This could cause multiple feet of sea level rise and endanger tropical coral reefs. “It is we children and future generations that are going to suffer the most from these consequences if we fail. It should not be up to us to take responsibility, but since most world leaders are behaving like children, we have no other choice. The older generations have failed us. Our political leaders have failed us,” Thunberg said. “Our political leaders can’t seem to think beyond the next election, and that must come to an end. This ongoing inaction of people in power and the companies responsible will, in the future, no doubt be remembered as a crime against humanity,” she added. Thunberg called on the audience to take action and consider how they will be remembered by their grandchildren and future generations. “If people really knew the full consequences of the climate crisis, they would join us on the streets, striking from their work, moving on from words to action,” Thunberg said. “Because the biosphere doesn’t care about empty words. The biosphere doesn’t care about what we say. It only cares about what we actually do.”
Dr Jane Goodall urges climate change protesters to follow up marches with proactive action – Famed chimpanzee expert Dr Jane Goodall says people are too focussed on themselves, and not thinking about the next generation. In an exclusive interview with The Project, she praised the younger generation for taking action against climate change. She also shared her frustration at US President Donald Trump. Dr Goodall told The Project’s Jesse Mulligan Trump had done so much damage to the environment, due to his treatment of climate issues. “But he’s not alone – when you think that in the olden days the indigenous people, they used to make decisions in their lives, asking ‘how will this affect future generations?’ “Today, it’s ‘how will it affect me now; the next political campaign, or the next shareholder meeting?’ “CEO’s and Government leaders who have children say ‘I love my children’, but do you realise what you’re doing to them?” While she praised the younger generation for taking action against climate change, Dr Goodall hoped protesters would go a step further. “I hope they do more than just march and take a day off school,” she told The Project. “It needs to be followed by taking action themselves. You can’t point at a Government official and say ‘you’ve got to do something’ unless you too are doing something.”
Top GOP pollster finds overwhelming support for carbon tax by millennial Republicans A new survey finds Republicans under 40 support a carbon tax 7-to-1. And a remarkable 85% of Republican millennials are concerned that “the current Republican position on climate change is hurting the party with younger voters.” But what makes this result so striking is that the survey was conducted by Frank Luntz, a top GOP strategist and pollster. Luntz wrote an infamous memo in 2002 detailing the exact words conservatives should use if they want to sound like they care about climate change without actually doing anything about it. Luntz, for instance, is the one who urged Republicans to use the phrase “climate change,” arguing that it is “less frightening” than “global warming.” Significantly, Luntz’s firm, which has been polling this issue for decades, reported this week that a Carbon Dividend Plan – which charges fossil fuel companies for their carbon emissions and rebates the money directly back to the public – is uniquely popular.
Senate hearing on agriculture and climate change featured industry speakers, no climate scientists — A Tuesday Senate hearing reviewing the impact of climate change on agriculture featured a strong defense of industry, at a time when the role of the sector in contributing to global warming is under growing scrutiny. The morning panel, hosted by the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, indicated that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are growing more willing to engage with the connection between agriculture and climate change. But the hearing also outlined the resistance climate advocates are likely to face from members of the sector, along with Republicans in the upper legislative chamber. Opening the hearing, Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) struck a conciliatory note, acknowledging climate change and calling for solutions. But he also argued that “no single silver bullet solution” exists for addressing the crisis and offered a pre-emptive defense of farmers and ranchers. “If farmers are hindered from using existing technologies and research…we can expect an economic result that is, at the least, more costly, and at the worst, unsustainable for our farmers,” Roberts said.
Climate Proposals Fail at Exxon, Chevron Shareholder Meetings – Exxon and Chevron shareholders rejected a series of climate change-related proposals at the companies’ annual investors meetings on Wednesday. At Chevron’s meeting, one investor proposal asked the company to report on its strategy for reducing its carbon footprint, putting the business in alignment with the Paris Agreement. Exxon shareholders asked the company to create a report assessing the public health risk of its Gulf Coast facilities, which are located in areas that are increasingly prone to climate change-induced storms, flooding and sea level rise. They also called on Exxon to disclose its lobbying expenses and political contributions. Both companies received climate-related proposals calling for the creation of a special board committee on climate risks and for the establishment of an independent board chairman. The closest any proposal came to success was the 41 percent of Exxon investors who voted against management and in favor of requiring the chair of the board of directors to be an independent member of the board. Currently, Darren Woods serves as both chief executive officer and chairman of the board, which critics say creates a conflict of interest, since one of the board’s functions is oversight of the chief executive.While the proposal did not pass, supporters still called the vote a success. “Company and investors have been in open conflict about climate strategy and disclosure,” said Edward Mason, head of responsible investment for the Church of England. Mason presented the proposal, which was filed by the Kestrel Foundation of Maine. The conflict heightened when Exxon obtained permission from the Securities and Exchange Commission last month to block voting on a separate proposal by the New York State Common Retirement Fund and the Church of England requesting it set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That prompted the two funds to publicly declare their support for the proposal to separate the board chair and the chief executive and both vowed to vote against Exxon’s entire board. Mason called the vote a “warning shot to management.”.
Florida appoints first chief science officer to take on climate crisis – To say Dr Tom Frazer faces a daunting workload as he begins his new job as Florida’s first chief science officer would be an underestimation. From the increasing risk of ever stronger Atlantic hurricanes, toxic algae blooms that have inundated the state’s beaches and inland waterways, and rising sea levels that threaten to leave Florida underwater by the end of the century, the challenges appear immense. But where many see a five-alarm climate emergency laying siege to his state, Frazer, with a measured approach honed from more than three decades’ experience of working in environmental science, sees only opportunity. “It’s a very exciting time in the state of Florida,” he said in an interview with the Guardian and several local reporters as he assumed the role created by the new Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, soon after he took office in January. “There’s a clear focus in this state right now on water quality issues, so that is my priority moving forward. Rising sea levels are [also] a priority issue and factor prominently in how we’re looking at some of the other issues we’re dealing with. I don’t know how to say it any clearer than that.” While Frazer and his new boss, Noah Valenstein, Florida’s secretary for environmental protection, were reluctant to characterize it as such, the appointment of a chief science officer – the first such state-level position in the nation – is a literal sea change from the approach taken by DeSantis’s predecessor, Rick Scott.As governor, Scott was widely seen as a disaster for the environment,slashing $700m from the water management budget, rolling back crucial water quality safeguards and pursuing pro-industry policies that critics said turned a blind eye to pollution and polluters. Florida’s recent tourism and wildlife-killing red tides, they insist, were far worse as a result.
Turn Methane into CO2 to Reduce Warming, Experts Propose – Most plans to tackle climate change revolve around cutting down on carbon dioxide, usually by reducing human emissions. But an unconventional new idea could actually slow the progress of global warming by putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – while removing a more potent planet-warming gas in the process. In a comment published Monday in the journal Nature Sustainability, a group of climate and chemistry experts said methane should be focused on more in the fight against climate change. Methane persists for a much shorter time in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide but is a much more powerful climate-warming gas while it lasts. Capturing atmospheric methane and converting it into less potent carbon dioxide, using special materials and chemical catalysts, may be one way to reduce the warming potential of greenhouse gases in the air, the authors say. The idea is not intended to be a replacement for cutting emissions, noted the comment’s lead author Rob Jackson, a climate and environmental scientist at Stanford University. “The smartest thing to do is to keep methane and carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere,” he said. “It’s just that emissions are still rising, and we need to think about other tools and approaches to fight climate change.” Taking greenhouse gases back out of the atmosphere, in addition to reducing the emissions going into it, is a long-discussed idea among climate scientists and activists. But it has mostly centered on carbon dioxide up to this point. The idea has typically focused on ways to suck CO2 out of the air and then store it away so it doesn’t leak back into the atmosphere – a process broadly known as “negative emissions.” The net result would be a lower total concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.Scientists have proposed a variety of ways to pull it off, from huge forests full of carbon-guzzling trees, which naturally soak up carbon dioxide, to special machines that would suck CO2 directly out of the air. In the latter scenario, the captured carbon dioxide would then have to be permanently stored away somewhere, likely by injecting it deep into the Earth. There’s been much less focus on capturing methane, likely in part because the process is more technically difficult than capturing carbon dioxide. But scientists have some ideas about how it could be done. The new comment proposes a promising method that involves the use of porous minerals called zeolites. Scientists already use zeolites to capture methane and convert it into methanol, an alcohol that can be used in chemical feedstocks or other industrial applications.
How Shortening the Work Week Can Help Reduce Carbon Emissions – A new study by Philipp Frey of Autonomy, a UK think tank, “The Ecological Limits of Work: on carbon emissions, carbon budgets and working time,” has garnered significant press coverage, but the headlines (“Much shorter working weeks needed to tackle climate crisis – study“, or “Climate crisis: UK should dramatically cut working hours to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, study says“, or “PAY DAY Working a NINE-HOUR WEEK could be the key to saving us all, experts say“) have tended to frame the study as recommending management innovations like the four-day week – here the Sun, correctly (!), busts the frame with “NINE-HOUR” – rather than working through the more radical thinking behind Frey’s study. First, I will consider shorter working days and weeks as a managment technique, and show that such reforms do have beneficial effects for the cllimate crisis, and then I’ll look at what I think Frey’s study is really showing. Considering the four-day week as a management technique, here’s a successful case study.Perpetual Guardian of New Zealand:
Are carbon offsets a scam?’ – Some carbon-offset projects – which are supposed to compensate for the heat-trapping gases you release to the atmosphere by taking a plane trip, for example – are scams. In one notorious case, the Vatican was presented with offset certificates for millions of trees that were never planted. Even if a project actually exists, offsets have the potential to go wrong in other ways. Say you’re promised that your purchase will help pay for a new wind farm, but then you learn that the wind farm was going to be built even without the help of offsets. You’d feel cheated, and rightly so. To truly compensate for your pollution, any offset project must be in addition to the normal course of business. For more on this problem and related complexities, see this NRDC overview. To protect your wallet, you can buy offsets that have been authenticated by third-party certification programs, such as Verified Carbon Standard, Gold Standard, and Green-e Climate Standard. Those programs help confirm that projects actually exist and that you’re not wasting your money. Some critics argue that offsets are the modern equivalent of “indulgences,” the practice of reducing punishment for sin that was commercialized and much-abused in the Middle Ages. I don’t buy that argument: The goal is to reduce the total amount of heat-trapping gases, and legitimate offset projects do that. A more compelling criticism is that offsets often don’t address the root of the problem: the lack of cleaner transportation options. So far, the U.S. has largely chosen to build gas stations and airports rather than electric vehicle charging infrastructure and train stations. That makes it tough for most people to lighten their footprints. So if third-party certification programs don’t alleviate your fear of getting scammed, there’s another ethical option. The next time you take a trip, you could skip the offsets and donate an equivalent amount of money to a civic leader or organization working to make cleaner transportation options available to more people.
Visualizing How Much Oil Is In An Electric Vehicle- When most people think about oil and natural gas, the first thing that comes to mind is the gas in the tank of their car. But, as Visual Capitalist’s Nicholas LePan notes, there is actually much more to oil’s role, than meets the eye…Oil, along with natural gas, has hundreds of different uses in a modern vehicle through petrochemicals.Today’s infographic comes to us from American Fuel & Petrochemicals Manufacturers, and covers why oil is a critical material in making the EV revolution possible. It turns out the many everyday materials we rely on from synthetic rubber to plastics to lubricants all come from petrochemicals. The use of various polymers and plastics has several advantages for manufacturers and consumers:
- Lightweight
- Inexpensive
- Plentiful
- Easy to Shape
- Durable
- Flame Retardant
Today, plastics can make up to 50% of a vehicle’s volume but only 10% of its weight. These plastics can be as strong as steel, but light enough to save on fuel and still maintain structural integrity.This was not always the case, as oil’s use has evolved and grown over time. Plastics were not always a critical material in auto manufacturing industry, but over time plastics such as polypropylene and polyurethane became indispensable in the production of cars.Rolls Royce was one of the first car manufacturers to boast about the use of plastics in its car interior. Over time, plastics have evolved into a critical material for reducing the overall weight of vehicles, allowing for more power and conveniences.
The Electric Vehicle Revolution Will Come from China – not the US — The electric vehicle revolution is coming, but it won’t be driven by the U.S. Instead, China will be at the forefront.My research on EVs, dating back a decade, convinces me that this global transformation in mobility, from petroleum-fueled vehicles to electric ones, will come sooner than later. The shift is already happening in China, which is the world’s largest automobile market, with 23 million cars sold in 2018. As Western countries approach peak car ownership, there are still hundreds of millions of Chinese families that don’t own a car at all – much less two or more. Many of them are buying electric cars. By 2015, electric vehicle sales in China had surpassed U.S. levels. In 2018, Chinese sales topped 1.1 million cars, more than 55% of all electric vehicles sold in the world, and more than three times as many as Chinese customers had bought two years earlier. U.S. electric vehicle sales that year were just 358,000. A key element of an electric vehicle’s price is the cost of its batteries – and China already makes more than half of the world’s electric vehicle batteries. Battery prices continue to fall; industry analysts now suggest that within five years it will be cheaper to buy an electric car than a gas- or diesel-powered one.Forecasts predict the Chinese producing as much as 70% of the world’s electric vehicle batteriesby 2021, even as the demand for electric car batteries grows.
The plastic industry is on track to produce as many emissions as 600 coal-fired power plants – A new report shows it’s high time to think more about the fossil fuels that go into making those plastic products. The global plastic industry is on track to produce enough emissions to put the world on track for a catastrophic warming scenario, according to the Center for International Environmental Law analysis. In other words, straws aren’t just bad for unsuspecting turtles; plastic is a major contributor to climate change. If the plastic industry is allowed to expand production unimpeded, here’s what we’re looking at: By 2030, global emissions from that sector could produce the emissions equivalent of more than 295 (500-megawatt) coal plants. By 2050, emissions could exceed the equivalent of 615 coal plants.That year, the cumulative greenhouse gas emissions from production of single-use plastics like bags and straws could compose between 10 and 13 percent of the whole remainder of our carbon budget. That is, the amount of CO2 we’re allowed to emit if we want to keep emissions below the threshold scientists say is necessary to ensure a liveable planet. By 2100, even conservative estimates pin emissions from plastics composing more than half of the carbon budget. Here are a few more takeaways from the report, which looked at the emissions produced by the plastics industry starting in 2015 and projected what emissions from that sector could look like through the end of the century:
- Of the three ways to get rid of plastics – recycling, landfilling, or incinerating – incinerating is the most energy intensive. In 2015, emissions from incinerating plastic in the United States were estimated to be around 5.9 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent.
- This year, production and incineration of plastic products will make as many emissions as 189 coal power plants – 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases.
- Plastics that wind up in the ocean could even fuck with the ocean’s ability to do what it has historically done a superb job at: sequestering carbon. That’s because the phytoplankton and lil ocean critters that help capture the CO2 at the surface of the ocean and drag it under are being compromised by – you guessed it – microplastic.
Burning the Gas ‘Bridge Fuel’ Myth: Why Gas Is Not Clean, Cheap, or Necessary – This new report released by Oil Change International makes the case that gas is not a ‘bridge fuel’ to a safe climate. As the global climate crisis intensifies and gas production and consumption soars, it is clearer than ever that gas is not a climate solution. Leaking methane along the gas supply chain has been at the center of the debate around the climate impact of gas, but it’s far from the only issue at stake. There are five additional reasons why gas cannot form a bridge to a clean energy future, even if methane leakage is addressed. These five points make clear that gas is not clean, not cheap, and not necessary:
- Gas Breaks the Carbon Budget: The economically recoverable oil, gas, and coal in the world’s currently producing and under-construction extraction projects would take the world far beyond safe climate limits. Further development of untapped gas reserves is inconsistent with the climate goals in the Paris Agreement.
- Coal-to-Gas Switching Doesn’t Cut It: Climate goals require the energy sector to be decarbonized by mid-century. This means that both coal and gas must be phased out. Replacing coal plants with new gas plants will not cut emissions by nearly enough, even if methane leakage is kept to a minimum.
- Low-Cost Renewables Can Displace Coal and Gas: The dramatic and ongoing cost declines for wind and solar disrupt the business model for gas in the power sector. Wind and solar will play an increasing role in replacing retiring fossil fuel capacity.
- Gas Is Not Essential for Grid Reliability: Wind and solar require balancing, but gas is not the only, nor the best, resource available for doing so. Battery storage is fast becoming competitive with gas plants designed for this purpose. Managing high levels of wind and solar on the grid requires optimizing a wide range of technologies and solutions, including battery storage, demand response, and transmission. There is no reason to favor gas as the primary solution.
- New Gas Infrastructure Locks In Emissions: Multibillion-dollar gas infrastructure built today is designed to operate for decades to come. Given the barriers to closing down infrastructure ahead of its expected economic lifespan, it is critical to stop building new infrastructure, the full lifetime emissions of which will not fit within Paris-aligned carbon budgets.
The myth of gas as a “bridge” to a stable climate does not stand up to scrutiny. While much of the debate to date has focused on methane leakage, the data shows that the greenhouse gas emissions just from burning the gas itself are enough to overshoot climate goals.
Natural Gas Now Beats Coal, Even in West Virginia — The famously coal-centric state is in the midst of a gas-drilling boom but seems ambivalent about it. Wouldn’t you be? We appear to have quietly passed another landmark in the transformation of U.S. energy production. For the first time ever, the famously coal-centric state of West Virginia last year produced more natural gas, as measured by energy content, than coal. West Virginia hasn’t been the biggest coal-producing state for a while; Wyoming, which passed it back in the 1980s, now mines more than three times as much of the stuff each year. But Wyoming gets almost all its coal from surface mines, while most of West Virginia’s comes from more-labor-intensive underground mines, so it remains the biggest coal-employing state by a wide margin. And despite its recent fracking- and horizontal-drilling-enabled natural gas boom, which has pushed it up to seventh place among the states in gas production, don’t expect West Virginians to embrace the shift to a natural-gas-fueled economy just yet. As Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, told the weekly State Journal late last year, we do not think is true at all because when you have a coal-burning plant you’ve got a coal mine – at least one, probably more than one – that’s got 200 to 250 coal miners that are making $80,000-$90,000 a year. When you have a gas plant you have a gas well behind it and there’s no one there. Actually, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were more people working in oil- and gas-related jobs in the state last fall than in coal mining, and a lot of them were making $100,000 a year. But that was only because of a presumably temporary spike (to 15,543 jobs in September 2018 from 1,802 a year earlier) in oil and gas pipeline construction work. Apart from that, there were 14,236 people employed in coal mining and support activities in West Virginia in September, compared to 5,778 in oil and gas extraction and support activities, and average pay was about 16% higher in the former than in the latter. 1 The new pipelines being built will make it possible to transport more West Virginia gas to other states, where most of it will be burned to produce electricity. West Virginia, though, still generated 92% of its electricity from coal in 2018, the highest share of any state. A court ruling late last year did clear the way for the state’s first major natural-gas-burning power plant (to be built on the site of a former coal mine, of course), but the state’s leaders clearly have mixed feelings about the natural gas transition, given how slowly they’ve been going about it.
New Coal-Mining Methods Seen Driving Black Lung Increase — Rising prevalence of the most deadly form of black lung disease among U.S. miners appears largely due to shifting mining methods resulting in increased inhalation of crystalline silica, according to research presented here at the American Thoracic Society’s annual meeting. A review of mortality data from 1991 through 1996 from NIOSH’s National Coal Workers’ Autopsy Study (NCWAS) showed little evidence of a transition to silica predominant disease. Apparently, more recent shifts in exposures are driving the resurgence in the rapidly progressing form of black lung known as progressive massive fibrosis (PMF). Another analysis of PMF cases recorded in the NCWAS data before and after 1990 suggested a historical shift in the disease, with silicotic PMF accounting for a greater percentage of cases in the latter period. And a third analysis showed a proportional increase in mortality from non-malignant respiratory diseases among younger miners (<65 years) in more recent birth cohorts compared to miners born earlier. The three studies examining the changing pathology and demographics of black lung disease were all led by Robert Cohen, MD, of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Black Lung Center of Excellence. Cohen told MedPage Today that the increase in the silicotic form of black lung underscores the need for tougher federal standards regulating respiratory exposures associated with modern mining practices. “Existing regulations don’t address this very well,” he said. He added that animal and toxicology studies show that dust from modern mining which contains very small particle silica from rock is up to 20 times more toxic than the dust derived from coal alone. Silica is also a recognized carcinogen, whereas the evidence linking coal dust to lung cancer remains weak. Radiographic and pathologic evidence suggests a strong link between the increase in pulmonary massive fibrosis and increased exposure to respirable crystalline silica.
Residents concerned about groundwater pollution from coal ash ponds – She wasn’t intimidated when the pig’s head showed up in her driveway. She wasn’t afraid when she found “LEO PIG” spray-painted in red on the back of her black Honda Accord. She didn’t back down when the security cameras around her home slowly disappeared. Patricia Schuba has been fighting for environmental justice for the past decade as president of the Labadie Environmental Organization, and she hasn’t let harassment and intimidation stop her. Schuba’s nemesis is visible from any point in the town: The smokestacks of Ameren’s Labadie Energy Center, the largest coal-fired power plant in the state, rise above the Missouri River flood plain and the small town of Labadie in eastern Missouri.Schuba’s main concern, though, is what lies below the surface. Since 1970, the Labadie plant has been dumping coal ash, the leftover waste from burning coal to create energy, in massive pits in the ground called coal ash ponds. Coal ash contains a long list of chemicals such as arsenic, boron and molybdenum, which can lead to cancer, neurological damage and child developmental problems, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As the ash mixes with water in ponds that average 20 feet deep, it can seep into groundwater that spreads underground for miles through natural water tables and aquifers. A recent report by environmental nonprofits found that 91 percent of coal-fired power plants have contaminated the groundwater beneath them. Schuba is among many who have been demanding that utility companies remove all the ash to prevent it from seeping further into important water resources. “These sites need to be cleaned up once and for all because nobody should have to live next to this,” Schuba said. “And even if you don’t, what in 50 years of that material will be down in St. Louis? And then you know, you may be consuming it at a low dose over a whole lifetime.”
Osceola County landfill takes in coal ash from Puerto Rico, triggering public backlash – Osceola County leaders sought Monday to ease public outcry over landfill disposal of thousands of tons of ash from a Puerto Rican power plant that burns coal.The county approved a contract earlier this year, charging the privately owned JED Landfill $2 for each ton of ash it receives. A unit of Waste Connections, the landfill is southeast of St. Cloud in rural area. Commissioner Fred Hawkins sought to deflect speculation that he backed the deal because he worked as a waste manager at the landfill years before it was bought by the current owner. “There are a lot of untruths out there,” Hawkins said of social-media comments. JED representatives who spoke to reporters also stressed that the 15-year-old facility is of a modern design approved for ash. They described efforts to test ash for hazardous ingredients, to prevent dust from escaping and to capture water leaching through the landfill. Some Osceola residents weren’t convinced they are safe. “My concern is hurricane season,” said Douglas Lowe, a resident of the Harmony community east of St. Cloud and about 10 miles north of the J.E.D. Landfill. “I’m afraid if we have another hurricane hit Central Florida we would have this ash disperse across the local area. Harmony and Holopaw would be in the direct impact zone.” “I don’t think adding other people’s toxic waste to our state is in any of our best interests.” The ash is coming from the AES power plant near Guayama, Puerto Rico. The company has struggled with water pollution issues from its coal ash in Puerto Rico and in the Dominican Republic. Three shipments of a combined 100,000 tons of coal ash have arrived at Port Manatee in Tampa Bay. The waste material was then trucked to the landfill. Osceola’s contract with JED Landfill expires at the end of the year.The opposition to Osceola County receiving coal ash underscores the increasingly contentious challenge of disposing of the byproduct that contains a wide variety of metals and chemicals. In 2001, officials at the Environmental Protection Agency sought to label coal ash as a “contingent” hazardous waste, meaning the agency would deem properly managed ash dumps as nonhazardous, and improperly stored ash as hazardous.
China, Japan and South Korea, while vowing to go green at home, promote coal abroad – In the last-ditch global battle against climate change, China, Japan and South Korea have joined other industrialized nations in promising to reduce their use of fossil fuels.Yet even as they take steps to promote renewable energy at home, these three countries are facing growing scrutiny for financing dozens of new coal-fired power plants in foreign countries. Most of the plants are being built in Southeast Asia and Africa, in emerging economies where the growing demand for cheap, reliable electricity is most easily met by coal, the single largest source of the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for warming the planet. Environmental groups accuse the three Asian giants of climate hypocrisy, arguing that their investments in effect export pollution, undermine their commitments under the 2015 Paris climate accord and continue to drive up carbon emissions. Analysts say that as global markets shift toward renewable sources such as solar and wind power, whose prices are falling, governments in these countries are looking abroad to protect domestic companies that manufacture coal plants and supply equipment like steam turbines and boilers. “The Chinese, Japanese and Koreans have a lot of coal-fired power equipment that will not have a great deal of international value in another three to five years,” said Melissa Brown, energy finance consultant at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “So they’re looking to partner with countries that can move forward quickly to put new coal-fired power capacity in place.”They have found willing buyers in countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, South Africa and Bangladesh, where governments for now appear more concerned with building their economies and expanding access to electricity than with the environmental impact of burning more coal. While demand for coal has flattened in China and declined in industrialized Western nations, its rise in the rest of Asia helped push carbon emissions up last year by 2% to the highest level ever recorded, according to the International Energy Agency. Of about 67 gigawatts of new coal plants worldwide that are slated to receive foreign funding, more than 80% are being financed by China, Japan and South Korea, according to the advocacy group EndCoal.org.
Australia plans coalfield the size of Britain in climate change U-turn –Climate change was supposed to have won the Labor Party the Australian election. But yesterday, after having been routed by voters, its panicked leaders backed the mining of a coalfield bigger than the UK. Fearing a wipeout in state elections next year amid a rise in pro-coal workers and a rebellion against its plans to halve Australia’s carbon emissions, the Labor state government in Queensland accelerated its decision on 105,000 square miles of coal-rich outback land known as the Galilee Basin.It came days after the party lost what was dubbed the “climate election” to the incumbent centre-right, pro-coal government of Scott Morrison, suffering the most damage – with swings of up to 20 per cent – in the coal country of central Queensland and the Hunter Valley of New South Wales.Annastacia Palaszczuk, Queensland’s premier, announced that she was overturning all attempts to block mining and all outstanding approvals would be resolved within three weeks. She said that she was “fed up” with her own government’s processes, and that the election had been a “wake-up call” on mining the basin. The move was welcomed by Matt Canavan, the federal resources minister, who said yesterday that the Galilee Basin represented a victory for the “hi-vis workers’ revolution” – a reference to the armies of mine workers in high-visibility shirts who make Australia the world’s biggest coal exporter, and seemingly a reference to the yellow-vest movement in France that has challenged President Macron on his climate policies. The international climate action movement argues that if the Galilee Basin’s estimated 27 billion tons of coal were extracted, exported and burnt, the extra carbon dioxide released each year would be far more than Australia’s total emissions and would set back the world’s chances of keeping the increase in global warming under 2C.
As Pilgrim shuts down, danger still lurks – Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station will shut down its reactor on May 31 after 47 years of operation. Built in 1972 for Boston Edison, it’s the only operational nuclear power plant in Massachusetts, and has been since Yankee-Rowe ceased operation in 1992. Louisiana-based Entergy bought Pilgrim from Boston Edison in 1998. By 2014, the station languished as one of the poorest performers on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission rating system, the last straw before the federal government enforces a mandatory shutdown in the interests of public safety. In March this year, citing better inspection findings, the NRC boosted Pilgrim to a top-notch performer, a status that requires the least federal oversight. The switch flummoxed local watchdog groups. In 2017, Pilgrim made a business decision to permanently shut down. While the potential dangers posed by Pilgrim in the event of a calamity have long haunted Cape Cod and Plymouth County, the six towns of Martha’s Vineyard are roughly 33 to 43 miles away from the station, well outside the Pilgrim 10-mile Emergency Planning Zone where people would be expected to evacuate in the event of a radioactive plume. However, independent modeling based on NRC data shows the spread of fallout from at least one type of station disaster could reach the Vineyard not just from Pilgrim, but from a similar station hundreds of miles away. Speaking for the Vineyard’s emergency managers, Edgartown Fire Chief Alex Schaeffer said Island planners and first responders look to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health for assistance and direction in the event of a radiological incident. MEMA declined to answer specific questions posed by The Times, and declined make its director available for an interview.
Nuke Retirements Could Lead To 4 Billion Metric Tons of Extra CO2 Emissions, Says IEA –A report released today by the International Energy Agency (IEA) warns world leaders that – without support for new nuclear power or lifetime extensions for existing nuclear power plants – the world’s climate goals are at risk. “The lack of further lifetime extensions of existing nuclear plants and new projects could result in an additional four billion tonnes of CO2 emissions,” apress release from the IEA noted.The report is the IEA’s first report on nuclear power in two decades, and it paints a picture of low-carbon power being lost through attrition (due to the retirement of aging plants) or due to economics (extremely cheap natural gas as well as wind and solar undercutting more expensive nuclear power for years in some regions).Around the world, 452 nuclear reactors provided 2,700 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in 2018. This makes nuclear a significant source of low-carbon energy on a global level. While 11.2 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear power were connected to the grid last year, all of the new capacity was located in China or Russia. But in advanced economies, the nuclear fleet is much older. Reactors are 35 years old on average, and they are at risk of retirement. “Given their age, plants are beginning to close, with 25 percent of existing nuclear capacity in advanced economies expected to be shut down by 2025.”
Ohio energy: No money for wind or solar, just nuclear plants – Ohio Republicans’ energy overhaul started as a thinly veiled attempt to rescue two northern Ohio nuclear plants with new fees on everyone’s electric bills. Now, the veil is off. Changes made to House Bill 6 last week would direct most of the $197.6 million collected from new fees on Ohioans’ electric bills to Akron-based FirstEnergy Solutions, which operates two nuclear plants outside Toledo and Cleveland. Renewable energy companies from wind to solar would not get a cut of this “Ohio Clean Air Program.” In a double blow, lawmakers also axed current programs that encourage electricity providers to purchase renewable energy and help customers become more energy efficient. And lawmakers ensured utilities could charge customers a fee for two coal plants operated by Piketon-based Ohio Valley Electric Corporation through 2030. The plants are located in Gallipolis and Madison, Indiana. Wednesday’s changes likely jettisoned any hope of widespread Democratic support. “It’s now just straight-up corporate welfare,” said Rep. Kristin Boggs, the Ohio House’s No. 2 Democrat. “I don’t know how else to describe it.” That means Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford in Perry County, must rely on fellow Republicans to pass the energy bill – a divergence from his recent bipartisan strategy. And it’s not clear he has the votes yet.
Anti-wind activist who backed nuclear bailout bill tied to FirstEnergy – An anti-wind power activist who testified in support of a bill to bail out FirstEnergy Solutions’ nuclear power plants in Ohio did not disclose that he’s worked for the same bankrupt utility at one of the plants. Dennis W. Schreiner testified in favor of HB 6 last Thursday at a hearing held by the Ohio House Energy and Natural Resources Committee. In his testimony, Schreiner supported the bill for providing financial support to Ohio’s nuclear power plants, and railed against the current process for the “siting of industrial wind and solar power plants in rural areas” of the state. He accused wind and solar developers of operating “under a cloak of secrecy” to secure leases from landowners.“Would your children want to return home to a place where the horizon has been obliterated and the night sky can no longer be seen – replaced by dozens of flashing lights?” Schreiner asked lawmakers. Schreiner did not disclose in his written and oral testimony that he’s worked as a senior consulting engineer for FirstEnergy, as confirmed by his LinkedIn profile, which lists his employment by the utility from “1988 to present.” His name appears among the claims listed in FirstEnergy Solutions’ bankruptcy case.
Ohio House passes bill to bail out nuclear plants, gut green-energy mandates – — Legislation to gut Ohio’s green-energy mandates and set up customer-funded subsidies to nuclear and coal power plants passed the Ohio House on Wednesday, thanks to key support from several House Democrats.The 53-43 vote on House Bill 6 came after yet another series of last-minute changes to the controversial bill that would allow subsidies to already-approved solar plants, limit property tax devaluation on the nuclear plants, and cap nuclear subsidies if electricity prices increase.The bill, which now heads to the Ohio Senate, would scrap the state’s clean-energy requirements for utilities that legislators passed in 2008. Those requirements mandate that by 2027, utilities must obtain 12.5 percent of their power from renewable sources such as wind and solar, as well as reduce demand through energy-efficiency programs. If HB6 passes as written, the $4.39 average monthly surcharge paid by Ohio residential electricity customers for these mandates would be eliminated.Instead, every residential ratepayer in Ohio would be charged up to $1 per month to create a “clean-air” fund that would raise about $190 million per year, most – if not all – of which would bail out the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants in Northern Ohio. Both are slated to close soon unless owner FirstEnergy Solutions gets outside financial help. Those subsidies would end after 2026, under the bill. In addition, HB6 would enshrine in state law an Ohio Supreme Court rulingthat the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation could charge its customers up to $2.50 per month – pending approval of state regulators — to subsidize two OVEC coal-fired power plants — one in Ohio, the other in Indiana. House Republicans from southern and southeast Ohio have been pushing for years for the Piketon-based company (which is jointly owned by several electrical utilities) to receive such subsidies.
Ohio advances coal, nuclear subsidies after pressure from Trump campaign official – The Ohio House approved a bill Wednesday to gut clean energy standards and subsidize at-risk nuclear and coal plants after a last-minute push from a Trump reelection official to secure its passage.Bob Paduchik, a senior adviser to the Trump reelection campaign, made calls Tuesday night to at least five members of the Ohio House of Representatives, pressuring them to vote ‘yes’ on the bill, five people familiar with the outreach told POLITICO. Sources said Paduchik emphasized preserving jobs at the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear plants, both located in northeastern Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie. Backers of the bill say the plants support a total of 4,000 jobs once contractors and suppliers are added to the mix.”The message is that if we have these plants shut down we can’t get Trump reelected,” said one senior legislative source with knowledge of the conversations. “We’re going into an election year, we can’t lose the jobs.”Paduchik did not return requests for comment, but confirmed to a local reporter that he called lawmakers to support the bill, saying he did so as a personal matter.“People ask me for my advice and opinion on things on politics, but they also ask me for my advice and opinion on electricity and power issues,” Paduchik toldCleveland.com. “Honestly, I think diversity in electricity generation is a strength in this nation, and I’m concerned that we lose that in Ohio if we shut down these two plants.”
Under the dome: Fears Pacific nuclear ‘coffin’ is leaking – As nuclear explosions go, the US “Cactus” bomb test in May 1958 was relatively small – but it has left a lasting legacy for the Marshall Islands in a dome-shaped radioactive dump. The dome – described by a UN chief Antonio Guterres as “a kind of coffin” – was built two decades after the blast in the Pacific ocean region. The US military filled the bomb crater on Runit island with radioactive waste, capped it with concrete, and told displaced residents of the Pacific’s remote Enewetak atoll they could safely return home. But Runit’s 45-centimetre (18-inch) thick concrete dome has now developed cracks. And because the 115-metre wide crater was never lined, there are fears radioactive contaminants are leaching through the island’s porous coral rock into the ocean. The concerns have intensified amid climate change. Rising seas, encroaching on the low-lying nation, are threatening to undermine the dome’s structural integrity. Jack Ading, who represents the area in the Marshalls’ parliament, calls the dome a “monstrosity”. “It is stuffed with radioactive contaminants that include plutonium-239, one of the most toxic substances known to man,” he told AFP. “The coffin is leaking its poison into the surrounding environment. And to make matters even worse, we’re told not to worry about this leakage because the radioactivity outside of the dome is at least as bad as the radioactivity inside of it.” Cold War-era nuclear dome in the Pacific The dome has become a symbol of the mess left by the US nuclear test programme in the Marshall islands when 67 bombs were detonated between 1947-58 at Enewetak and Bikini atolls. Numerous islanders were forcibly evacuated from ancestral lands and resettled, including Enewetak’s residents. Thousands more islanders were exposed toradioactive fallout and suffered health problems.
High radiation levels found in giant clams near U.S. nuclear dump in Marshall Islands – Researchers have found high levels of radiation in giant clams near the Central Pacific site where the United States entombed waste from nuclear testing almost four decades ago, raising concerns the contamination is spreading from the dump site’s tainted groundwater into the ocean and the food chain.The findings from the Marshall Islands suggest that radiation is either leaking from the waste site – which U.S. officials reject – or that authorities did not adequately clean up radiation left behind from past weapons testing, as some in the Marshall Islands claim. The radioactive shellfish were found near Runit Dome – a concrete-capped waste site known by locals as “The Tomb” – according to a presentation made by a U.S. Department of Energy scientist this month in Majuro, the island nation’s capital. The clams are a popular delicacy in the Marshall Islands and in other nations, including China, which has aggressively harvested them from vast swaths of the Pacific.According to Terry Hamilton, a veteran nuclear physicist at the Energy Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Runit Dome is vulnerable to leakage by storm surge and sea level rise, and its groundwater, which is leaking into the lagoon and ocean, is severely contaminated.But the radiation in the shellfish and surrounding lagoon is not coming from the 40-year-old dome, said Hamilton in a slide he presented May 15 to an audience assembled in a hotel conference room in Majuro. He said isotopic analyses indicated the lagoon contamination was from residue from the initial nuclear weapons testing.
Nuclear Missile Alert Base Operators Caught Boozing In Second Major Breach – One of the country’s most sensitive nuclear missile launch facilities has admitted that Air Force personnel responsible for overseeing the base were caught boozing, in violation of strict regulations governing nuclear sites.F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming said in a media statement last week two maintainers of a launch control center part of the US 90th Missile Wing, responsible for some 150 nuclear LGM-30G Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles across three states, were investigated and are being disciplined after it was confirmed they consumed alcohol at the missile alert facility earlier this month. The personnel were only identified as a staff sergeant and a senior airmen who belong to the 90th Missile Wing – their names withheld for security reasons. The pair admitted to consuming alcohol at the facility while off-duty; however, Air Force Global Strike Command regulations prohibit “processing or consuming alcoholic beverages … within the confines of any missile alert facility … while en route to or from duty in the missile complex,” as cited in The Air Force Times. Obviously the rationale for this strict zero tolerance standard, whether on or off duty, is that a mere single error or series of errors – whether in ignorance or from violation of protocol – could potentially trigger apocalyptic nuclear strikes and the end of humanity as we known it. “This is an unacceptable breach of standards and the Air Force held the airmen accountable for their actions,” an Air Force statement said. Apparently, the news was first made public via an unofficial social media page maintained by Air Force personnel which mocked the whole incident, per the military analysis site Task & Purpose:On Thursday, a Facebook post from the popular Air Force amn/nco/snco group claimed that three airmen assigned to the 90th Maintenance Group were discovered consuming Pabst Blue Ribbon in the F.E. Warren cardio room during a regular nuclear code change.
UN Arms Chief Warns- Nuclear War Is Closer Than Its Ever Been Since WW2 – A United Nations arms official has declared nuclear war to be closer than it has ever been since World War II. The geopolitical climate is so divisive and disturbing right now, that globalists are actually telling us a nuclear war could be coming. The head of the United Nations’ Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) Director Renata Dwan said in an interview that the use of nuclear weapons is more likely today than any time since the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945, adding that the use of such weapons today carried a greater risk than ever, according to Reuters. “I think that it’s genuinely a call to recognize – and this has been somewhat missing in the media coverage of the issues – that the risks of nuclear war are particularly high now, and the risks of the use of nuclear weapons, for some of the factors I pointed out, are higher now than at any time since World War II,” she told the news service, speaking about a call from 122 nations to ban such weapons entirely. Dawn says that the UN should be doing more to ban nuclear weapons. “How we think about that, and how we act on that risk and the management of that risk, seems to me a pretty significant and urgent question that isn’t reflected fully in the (U.N.) Security Council,” she told Reuters according to The Hill. Of course, a ban only works if countries are going to obey. Should nations defy a UN nuclear weapons ban, there is literally nothing the UN can do about it. Even if it “takes effect,” large players such as the United States, Russia, and China could defy the ban and still start a nuclear war.
This Might Be Where The Very First Total Nuclear War Starts – Undoubtedly, for nearly two decades the most dangerous place on Earth has been the Indian-Pakistani border in Kashmir. It’s possible that a small spark from artillery and rocket exchanges across that border might – given the known military doctrines of the two nuclear-armed neighbors – lead inexorably to an all-out nuclear conflagration. In that case the result would be catastrophic. Besides causing the deaths of millions of Indians and Pakistanis, such a war might bring on “nuclear winter” on a planetary scale, leading to levels of suffering and death that would be beyond our comprehension. Alarmingly, the nuclear competition between India and Pakistan has now entered a spine-chilling phase. That danger stems from Islamabad’s decision to deploy low-yield tactical nuclear arms at its forward operating military bases along its entire frontier with India to deter possible aggression by tank-led invading forces. Most ominously, the decision to fire such a nuclear-armed missile with a range of 35 to 60 miles is to rest with local commanders. This is a perilous departure from the universal practice of investing such authority in the highest official of the nation. Such a situation has no parallel in the Washington-Moscow nuclear arms race of the Cold War era. When it comes to Pakistan’s strategic nuclear weapons, their parts are stored in different locations to be assembled only upon an order from the country’s leader. By contrast, tactical nukes are pre-assembled at a nuclear facility and shipped to a forward base for instant use. In addition to the perils inherent in this policy, such weapons would be vulnerable to misuse by a rogue base commander or theft by one of the many militant groups in the country. In the nuclear standoff between the two neighbors, the stakes are constantly rising as Aizaz Chaudhry, the highest bureaucrat in Pakistan’s foreign ministry, recently made clear. The deployment of tactical nukes, he explained, was meant to act as a form of “deterrence,” given India’s “Cold Start” military doctrine – a reputed contingency plan aimed at punishing Pakistan in a major way for any unacceptable provocations like a mass-casualty terrorist strike against India. New Delhi refuses to acknowledge the existence of Cold Start. Its denials are hollow.
The Atomic Soldiers: U.S. Veterans, Used as Guinea Pigs, Break the Silence – In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an estimated 400,000 American soldiers and sailors also observed nuclear explosions – many just a mile or two from ground zero. From 1946 to 1992, the U.S. government conducted more than1,000 nuclear tests, during which unwitting troops were exposed to vast amounts of ionizing radiation. For protection, they wore utility jackets, helmets, and gas masks. They were told to cover their face with their arms.After the tests, the soldiers, many of whom were traumatized, were sworn to an oath of secrecy. Breaking it even to talk among themselves was considered treason, punishable by a $10,000 fine and 10 or more years in prison.In Knibbe’s film, some of these atomic veterans break the forced silence to tell their story for the very first time. They describe how the blast knocked them to the ground; how they could see the bones and blood vessels in their hands, like viewing an X-ray. They recount the terror in their officers’ faces and the tears and panic that followed the blasts. They talk about how they’ve been haunted – by nightmares, PTSD, and various health afflictions, including cancer. Knibbe’s spare filmmaking approach foregrounds details and emotion. There’s no need for archival footage; the story is writ large in the faces of the veterans, who struggle to find the right words to express the horror of what they saw during the tests and what they struggled with in the decades after. Knibbe told me that he has long been fascinated with the self-destructive tendencies of mankind. When he found declassified U.S. civil-defense footage of soldiers maneuvering in the glare of the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb, he was “absolutely amazed and wanted to learn more about their stories.” His efforts to dig deeper were curtailed by the fact that most of the information about the nuclear tests was classified – including reports on the illnesses the veterans suffered and the radioactive pollution that was released into the environment around the test sites. “I was baffled by the lack of recorded testimonies available,” he said.
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