Browsed by
Category: Environment

The end of the Arctic as we know it

The end of the Arctic as we know it

Comments 0 Comment

Jonathan Watts writes: The demise of an entire ocean is almost too enormous to grasp, but as the expedition sails deeper into the Arctic, the colossal processes of breakdown are increasingly evident. The first fragment of ice appears off the starboard bow a few miles before the 79th parallel in the Fram strait, which lies between Greenland and the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. The solitary floe is soon followed by another, then another, then clusters, then swarms, then entire fields…

Read More Read More

Can soil solve the climate crisis?

Can soil solve the climate crisis?

Comments 0 Comment

Kenneth Miller writes: When Rattan Lal was awarded the Japan Prize for Biological Production, Ecology in April—the Asian equivalent of a Nobel—the audience at Tokyo’s National Theatre included the emperor and empress. Lal’s acceptance speech, however, was down-to-earth in the most literal sense. “I’d like to begin, rather unconventionally, with the conclusion of my presentation,” he told the assembled dignitaries. “And the conclusion is four words: In soil we trust.” That statement could serve as the motto for a climate…

Read More Read More

People eat at least 50,000 plastic particles a year, study finds

People eat at least 50,000 plastic particles a year, study finds

Comments 0 Comment

The Guardian reports: The average person eats at least 50,000 particles of microplastic a year and breathes in a similar quantity, according to the first study to estimate human ingestion of plastic pollution. The true number is likely to be many times higher, as only a small number of foods and drinks have been analysed for plastic contamination. The scientists reported that drinking a lot of bottled water drastically increased the particles consumed. The health impacts of ingesting microplastic are…

Read More Read More

Fears grow that ‘nuclear coffin’ is leaking radioactive waste into the Pacific

Fears grow that ‘nuclear coffin’ is leaking radioactive waste into the Pacific

Comments 0 Comment

Trevor Nace writes: The tropical blue skies over the southern Pacific Ocean were enveloped by towering mushroom clouds lingering over the Marshall Islands in 1954 as the United States continued its testing of nuclear weapons. The United States conducted 67 nuclear weapon tests from 1946 to 1958 on the pristine Marshall Islands. The most powerful test was the “Bravo” hydrogen bomb in 1954, which was about 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. The extensive nuclear…

Read More Read More

Influential panel votes to recognize Earth’s new epoch: The Anthropocene

Influential panel votes to recognize Earth’s new epoch: The Anthropocene

Comments 0 Comment

Nature reports: A panel of scientists voted this week to designate a new geologic epoch — the Anthropocene — to mark the profound ways in which humans have altered the planet. That decision, by the 34-member Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), marks an important step towards formally defining a new slice of the geologic record — an idea that has generated intense debate within the scientific community over the past few years. The panel plans to submit a formal proposal for…

Read More Read More

World’s rivers ‘awash with dangerous levels of antibiotics’

World’s rivers ‘awash with dangerous levels of antibiotics’

Comments 0 Comment

The Guardian reports: 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…

Read More Read More

Trump’s EPA is ‘cooking the books’ to justify its attack on clean air rules

Trump’s EPA is ‘cooking the books’ to justify its attack on clean air rules

Comments 0 Comment

Think Progress reports: Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working to distort the way it measures the benefits of some of the agency’s most impactful policies, regulations that safeguard human health by limiting air pollution. The primary beneficiary of such distortion? The coal industry. When the government evaluates the health and financial benefits of clean air, the calculation typically incorporates the number of lives saved and the scale of reduced health impacts thanks to reducing pollution — also known as…

Read More Read More

Poisoning America: EPA wants to triple level of rocket fuel chemical allowed in drinking water

Poisoning America: EPA wants to triple level of rocket fuel chemical allowed in drinking water

Comments 0 Comment

Think Progress reports: The Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to raise the threshold for a chemical found in rocket fuel to triple the previous limit allowed in drinking water supplies. This is the first new drinking water rule introduced by the agency since the George W. Bush administration. In the EPA’s latest move to weaken environmental and health protections, it released a notice on Thursday requesting public comment on its proposal to raise the maximum level allowed for the…

Read More Read More

Humans are killing off most large wild animals as sixth mass extinction advances

Humans are killing off most large wild animals as sixth mass extinction advances

Comments 0 Comment

The Guardian reports: Humanity’s ongoing destruction of wildlife will lead to a shrinking of nature, with the average body size of animals falling by a quarter, a study predicts. The researchers estimate that more than 1,000 larger species of mammals and birds will go extinct in the next century, from rhinos to eagles. They say this could lead to the collapse of ecosystems that humans rely on for food and clean water. Humans have wiped out most large creatures from…

Read More Read More

EPA plans to ignore thousands of deaths by changing its methods of risk assessment

EPA plans to ignore thousands of deaths by changing its methods of risk assessment

Comments 0 Comment

The New York Times reports: The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the way it calculates the future health risks of air pollution, a shift that would predict thousands of fewer deaths and would help justify the planned rollback of a key climate change measure, according to five people with knowledge of the agency’s plans. The proposed change would dramatically reduce the 1,400 additional premature deaths per year that the E.P.A. had initially forecast as a result of eliminating the…

Read More Read More

Air pollution is deadlier than tobacco smoking

Air pollution is deadlier than tobacco smoking

Comments 0 Comment

The Guardian reports: Air pollution may be damaging every organ and virtually every cell in the human body, according to a comprehensive new global review. The research shows head-to-toe harm, from heart and lung disease to diabetes and dementia, and from liver problems and bladder cancer to brittle bones and damaged skin. Fertility, foetuses and children are also affected by toxic air, the review found. The systemic damage is the result of pollutants causing inflammation that then floods through the…

Read More Read More

Plastic waste pact approved with U.S. among few holdouts

Plastic waste pact approved with U.S. among few holdouts

Comments 0 Comment

The Associated Press reports: Almost every country in the world has agreed on a legally binding framework for reducing polluting plastic waste, with the United States a notable exception, United Nations environmental officials said Friday. An agreement on tracking thousands of types of plastic waste emerged at the end of a two-week meeting of U.N.-backed conventions on plastic waste and toxic, hazardous chemicals. Discarded plastic clutters pristine land, floats in huge masses in oceans and entangles wildlife, sometimes with deadly…

Read More Read More

U.S. fossil fuel subsidies exceed Pentagon spending, says IMF

U.S. fossil fuel subsidies exceed Pentagon spending, says IMF

Comments 0 Comment

Rolling Stone reports: The United States has spent more subsidizing fossil fuels in recent years than it has on defense spending, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund. The IMF found that direct and indirect subsidies for coal, oil and gas in the U.S. reached $649 billion in 2015. Pentagon spending that same year was $599 billion. The study defines “subsidy” very broadly, as many economists do. It accounts for the “differences between actual consumer fuel prices…

Read More Read More

Humans are wiping out life on Earth

Humans are wiping out life on Earth

Comments 0 Comment

The New York Times reports: Humans are transforming Earth’s natural landscapes so dramatically that as many as one million plant and animal species are now at risk of extinction, posing a dire threat to ecosystems that people all over the world depend on for their survival, a sweeping new United Nations assessment has concluded. The 1,500-page report, compiled by hundreds of international experts and based on thousands of scientific studies, is the most exhaustive look yet at the decline in…

Read More Read More

Loss of biodiversity is just as catastrophic as climate change

Loss of biodiversity is just as catastrophic as climate change

Comments 0 Comment

Robert Watson writes: A colleague recently described how fish would swim into her clothing when she was a child bathing in the ocean off the coast of Vietnam, but today the fish are gone and her children find the story far-fetched. Another recalled his experiences just last year in Cape Town – one of the world’s most attractive tourism and leisure destinations – when more than 2 million people faced the nightmare prospect of all taps, in every home and…

Read More Read More

Biodiversity crisis is about to put humanity at risk, UN scientists to warn

Biodiversity crisis is about to put humanity at risk, UN scientists to warn

Comments 0 Comment

The Guardian reports: The world’s leading scientists will warn the planet’s life-support systems are approaching a danger zone for humanity when they release the results of the most comprehensive study of life on Earth ever undertaken. Up to 1m species are at risk of annihilation, many within decades, according to a leaked draft of the global assessment report, which has been compiled over three years by the UN’s leading research body on nature. The 1,800-page study will show people living…

Read More Read More