welcome to reality trivia
environment
The environment is everything that isn't me.
Albert Einstein
June 16, 2019
Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.
Henry David Thoreau
THANKS TO THE GREED AND IGNORANCE OF THE POLITICAL LEADERS, OIL, GAS , CHEMICAL, AND PESTICIDE INDUSTRIES THE HUMAN RACE IS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES.
*articles*
*There’s So Much Plastic in the Environment That Bees Are Making Nests Out of It
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*EPA Air Chief Gave Presentation At Fringe Climate Denier Event, New Emails Show
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The Pentagon emits more greenhouse gases than Portugal, study finds
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*EPA Wants To Let Frackers Dump Chemical-Laden Water Into Rivers
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump’s EPA Is Letting “Forever Chemicals” Into Our Food, Experts Say
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*TOXIC PFAS CHEMICALS FOUND IN MAINE FARMS FERTILIZED WITH SEWAGE SLUDGE
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Maybe The Climate Won’t Change If No One Studies It
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*People eat at least 50,000 plastic particles a year, study finds
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Big Pharma emits more greenhouse gases than the automotive industry
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*WORLD'S RIVERS 'AWASH WITH DANGEROUS LEVELS OF ANTIBIOTICS'
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump Administration Wants to Fund More “Clean Coal” Failures
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Plastic a bigger threat to whales than oil spills or drilling, study says
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Exposing the Dirty Business Behind the Designer Label
(article BELOW)
*Scientists are baffled by a giant spike in this greenhouse gas — and it’s not CO2
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Fresh mountain smog? 96% of national parks have hazardous air quality – study
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*SHRIMP ARE TESTING POSITIVE FOR COCAINE AND SCIENTISTS DON’T KNOW WHY
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump administration to roll back rare beetle protections opposed by oil lobby
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*HIGH LEVELS OF TOXIC PFAS CHEMICALS POLLUTE BREAST MILK AROUND THE WORLD
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*BRAZIL’S PESTICIDE INDUSTRY IS CREATING MASSIVE PFOS CONTAMINATION
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*If we care about plastic waste, why won’t we stop drinking bottled water?
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Mapping the US counties where traffic air pollution hurts children the most
(excerpt below)
*REPUBLICANS PUSH ANTI-WIND BILLS IN SEVERAL STATES AS RENEWABLES GROW INCREASINGLY POPULAR
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*GLOBAL ECONOMY WOULD SAVE UP TO $160 TRILLION BY SHIFTING TO RENEWABLES, ELECTRIC CARS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Logging Is the Leading Driver of Carbon Emissions From US Forests
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Skyscrapers are killing up to 1bn birds a year in US, scientists estimate
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Toxic air will shorten children's lives by 20 months, study reveals
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Major victory for environment as Duke Energy ordered to clean up toxic coal ash
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*PESTICIDE RESIDUES FOUND IN 70% OF PRODUCE SOLD IN US EVEN AFTER WASHING
(ARTICLE BELOW)
cartoons(at the end)
There’s So Much Plastic in the Environment That Bees Are Making Nests Out of It
Researchers in Argentina found the synthetic nest by chance.
EVAN NICOLE BROWN - Mother Jones
6/15/16
Last summer, scientists in South America were studying the impact agricultural practices have on the surrounding ecosystems, and specifically how natural areas and fields are pollinated as a result of their proximity to one another. In the midst of this analysis in San Juan, Argentina, the team of researchers made a totally unexpected discovery: a bee’s nest made completely from plastic.
San Juan is a region with a desert climate abutting the Andes that is nonetheless known for wine production, among other crops. Most growing operations there are family run, which provides a lot of data for those studying the relationships between human activity and nature. In this case, that means human-made materials finding their way into an unexpected place.
“The nest was found in a chicory field for seed production in San Juan, Argentina,” says Mariana Laura Allasino of the National Agricultural Technology Institute, who coauthored a report on the find in the journal Apidologie. The nest belonged to a bee from the family Megachilidae, which are solitary bees that often build nest cells from material they collect, such as soil, bits of leaves, and even animal fur. In this case, the nest cells were made of “light blue plastic, of shopping bag consistency,” and “white plastic, thicker than the previous one,” Allasino says.
“Due to our activities, human beings are contributing to the ecosystem’s degradation and biodiversity loss,” says Allasino, via email. “The most fascinating thing about this finding is that it suggests the adaptive flexibility that certain bee species would have in the face of changes in environmental conditions.” It’s almost a positive message. While we can’t tell yet if the plastic was harming the bee or its ability to reproduce, she says, it is a demonstration of just how adaptable nature can be.
Birds and other animals have long been known to incorporate pieces of plastic and other artificial materials into their nests, but it is quite rare to see among insects. In fact, the only other recorded case was when Canadian researchers discovered natural bee nests partially constructed with plastic (alongside natural materials) in 2013. The nest found by Allasino and her team is the first ever documented made entirely of plastic. “The replacement of natural materials by plastic could be due to a limitation in the availability of vegetation in the fields or an overabundance of waste, which could be directly related to the management of agricultural activity,” she says. “Plastic waste is something usual we can find in an agricultural field that comes from neighbors who throw waste in the fields or from the inputs of agricultural practices.”
The researchers in Argentina plan to analyze DNA from the dead larvae found in the plastic nest to confirm the exact species. (It’s not known whether the nest material had anything to do with the fate of the larvae.) “We will continue to set trap-nests for solitary bees to know the species that are present in the fields,” Allasino says, “and to increase the probability of finding another nest with the same characteristics as the one we already found.”
San Juan is a region with a desert climate abutting the Andes that is nonetheless known for wine production, among other crops. Most growing operations there are family run, which provides a lot of data for those studying the relationships between human activity and nature. In this case, that means human-made materials finding their way into an unexpected place.
“The nest was found in a chicory field for seed production in San Juan, Argentina,” says Mariana Laura Allasino of the National Agricultural Technology Institute, who coauthored a report on the find in the journal Apidologie. The nest belonged to a bee from the family Megachilidae, which are solitary bees that often build nest cells from material they collect, such as soil, bits of leaves, and even animal fur. In this case, the nest cells were made of “light blue plastic, of shopping bag consistency,” and “white plastic, thicker than the previous one,” Allasino says.
“Due to our activities, human beings are contributing to the ecosystem’s degradation and biodiversity loss,” says Allasino, via email. “The most fascinating thing about this finding is that it suggests the adaptive flexibility that certain bee species would have in the face of changes in environmental conditions.” It’s almost a positive message. While we can’t tell yet if the plastic was harming the bee or its ability to reproduce, she says, it is a demonstration of just how adaptable nature can be.
Birds and other animals have long been known to incorporate pieces of plastic and other artificial materials into their nests, but it is quite rare to see among insects. In fact, the only other recorded case was when Canadian researchers discovered natural bee nests partially constructed with plastic (alongside natural materials) in 2013. The nest found by Allasino and her team is the first ever documented made entirely of plastic. “The replacement of natural materials by plastic could be due to a limitation in the availability of vegetation in the fields or an overabundance of waste, which could be directly related to the management of agricultural activity,” she says. “Plastic waste is something usual we can find in an agricultural field that comes from neighbors who throw waste in the fields or from the inputs of agricultural practices.”
The researchers in Argentina plan to analyze DNA from the dead larvae found in the plastic nest to confirm the exact species. (It’s not known whether the nest material had anything to do with the fate of the larvae.) “We will continue to set trap-nests for solitary bees to know the species that are present in the fields,” Allasino says, “and to increase the probability of finding another nest with the same characteristics as the one we already found.”
EPA Air Chief Gave Presentation At Fringe Climate Denier Event, New Emails Show
Bill Wehrum, a former corporate lawyer, joined three other EPA officials at a Cooler Heads Coalition gathering last year.
By Alexander C. Kaufman - HuffPost
06/14/2019 04:36 pm ET
A top Environmental Protection Agency official gave a presentation last year at a gathering of some of the most zealous deniers of climate science, highlighting the influence a small, fringe movement hawking crank theories now wields in Washington.
Emails HuffPost reviewed reveal Bill Wehrum, the EPA’s assistant administrator for air and radiation, gave a presentation in early February 2018 at an event organized by the Cooler Heads Coalition, an umbrella group of tax-exempt charities and right-wing nonprofits that includes some of the most ardent proponents of climate change denial.
Three other EPA officials ― associate administrator Tate Bennett, senior counsel David Harlow and then-spokeswoman Liz Bowman ― attended the confab with Wehrum, the emails show.
In an email dated Feb. 6, 2018, Myron Ebell, who has led the Cooler Heads Coalition for more than two decades, offered gratitude for the EPA officials’ attendance at the previous day’s event, and invited the group to the next meeting a month later.
“Thanks Bill, David, Liz, and Tate, for coming to Cooler Heads and for your presentation and taking questions, Bill. It was most useful,” Ebell, who led the Trump administration’s EPA transition team, wrote. “We look forward to seeing any or all of you at future meetings.”
The EPA declined to comment on the nature of Wehrum’s presentation and whether any officials attended other events with the Cooler Heads Coalition.
“EPA takes time to meet with stakeholders on a variety of regulatory issues, this is no different,” said EPA spokesman Michael Abboud.
Ebell did not respond to calls and text messages requesting comment.
The revelation is not surprising from an administration that’s attempting to eliminate or delay, by The New York Times’ estimate, at least 83 environmental regulations, particularly rules to curb climate pollution. The EPA is expected to announce a proposal next week to replace Obama-era power plants rules with a regulation that would, by the agency’s own estimates, allow for enough pollution to cause up to additional 1,400 premature deaths per year by 2030.
“The fact that Bill went to talk to a group like this is the cherry on top of a toxic sundae,” Joseph Goffman, a former senior counsel and associate administrator for climate who served in the Obama-era EPA, said by phone. “It’s the toxicity of the sundae that’s really going to have the damaging impact on people’s lives.”
But the emails show the degree to which top officials at the nation’s leading public health agency have cultivated chummy ties with “fringe conspiracy theorists,” the Sierra Club, which released the records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, said in a statement, calling the relationship “despicable.”
“It removes any illusion that the EPA is acting in good faith to ensure the public trust,” said Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist at Drexel University.
The Cooler Heads Coalition formed in the late 1990s as mounting evidence of global warming began to fracture the industrial alliance that mobilized a decade earlier to downplay the threat of unfettered greenhouse gas emissions. A year before its merger with oil giant Mobil, Exxon gave $95,000 to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the right-wing think tank where Ebell works, in a grant titled “Global Climate Change Program and other support,” according to documents published by the Climate Investigations Center.
Yet as the oil industry started distancing itself from widely debunked scientific contrarians, far-right philanthropists and dark-money groups stepped in to fund the Cooler Heads Coalition’s members. The financiers include the Donors Trust, Donors Capital Fund, and the foundations of the oil industrialist Scaife family, the manufacturing scion Bradley family and the Mercers, the Long Island hedge funders who backed President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
That marked a shift from climate denial as a practical means of protecting carbon-polluting industries toward a new ideological fervor, enshrining opposition to climate science as a key part of anti-government dogma, said Riley Dunlap, a researcher and professor emeritus at Oklahoma State University who tracks climate denial groups.
“The Cooler Heads Coalition grew out of the frustration that industry was no longer opposing climate change as much as they thought,” Dunlap said. It’s “really a radical group of climate change deniers.”
The realities of climate change were clear to scientists even before rising seas started to inundate coastal cities like Miami on sunny days and extreme hurricanes and wildfires devastated Puerto Rico, California and Texas in recent years. At least 97% of peer-reviewed research concludes that emissions from burning fossil fuels, industrial farming and deforestation blanket the planet in gases that trap the sun’s heat in the atmosphere. A 2015 paper, meanwhile, found significant flaws in the methodologies, assumptions and analyses used by the 3% of scientists who concluded otherwise.
At 70%, the vast majority of Americans understand climate change is happening, and 57% recognize humans are the primary driver, according to polling data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. In October, the United Nations released a dire report warning that, unless world governments slash emissions by nearly half over the next decade, the planet is projected to warm beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit, causing about $54 trillion in damages and killing millions. A month later, the National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated report by scientists at 13 federal agencies, confirmed the findings.
That’s done little to sway Wehrum.
In January, he said he was still on the fence about climate change, telling E&E News, “I’m trying to figure that out.”
“I’ve had a series of briefings with climate change experts to help me better understand this,” Wehrum told Reuters that same month. “Everybody is still exploring the science of climate change.”
A former corporate lawyer who lobbied on behalf of clients to weaken air pollution rules, Wehrum has ramped up those efforts since joining the EPA, becoming a chief architect of the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda. He remains in close touch with his former law firm, according to The Washington Post.
“It’s not surprising that Wherum would have been featured at a Cooler Heads Coalition event,” Kert Davies, director of Climate Investigations Center, said by email. “He fits right in with the roster of climate deniers and other charlatans that Cooler Heads has hosted at events over the past two decades.”
Emails HuffPost reviewed reveal Bill Wehrum, the EPA’s assistant administrator for air and radiation, gave a presentation in early February 2018 at an event organized by the Cooler Heads Coalition, an umbrella group of tax-exempt charities and right-wing nonprofits that includes some of the most ardent proponents of climate change denial.
Three other EPA officials ― associate administrator Tate Bennett, senior counsel David Harlow and then-spokeswoman Liz Bowman ― attended the confab with Wehrum, the emails show.
In an email dated Feb. 6, 2018, Myron Ebell, who has led the Cooler Heads Coalition for more than two decades, offered gratitude for the EPA officials’ attendance at the previous day’s event, and invited the group to the next meeting a month later.
“Thanks Bill, David, Liz, and Tate, for coming to Cooler Heads and for your presentation and taking questions, Bill. It was most useful,” Ebell, who led the Trump administration’s EPA transition team, wrote. “We look forward to seeing any or all of you at future meetings.”
The EPA declined to comment on the nature of Wehrum’s presentation and whether any officials attended other events with the Cooler Heads Coalition.
“EPA takes time to meet with stakeholders on a variety of regulatory issues, this is no different,” said EPA spokesman Michael Abboud.
Ebell did not respond to calls and text messages requesting comment.
The revelation is not surprising from an administration that’s attempting to eliminate or delay, by The New York Times’ estimate, at least 83 environmental regulations, particularly rules to curb climate pollution. The EPA is expected to announce a proposal next week to replace Obama-era power plants rules with a regulation that would, by the agency’s own estimates, allow for enough pollution to cause up to additional 1,400 premature deaths per year by 2030.
“The fact that Bill went to talk to a group like this is the cherry on top of a toxic sundae,” Joseph Goffman, a former senior counsel and associate administrator for climate who served in the Obama-era EPA, said by phone. “It’s the toxicity of the sundae that’s really going to have the damaging impact on people’s lives.”
But the emails show the degree to which top officials at the nation’s leading public health agency have cultivated chummy ties with “fringe conspiracy theorists,” the Sierra Club, which released the records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, said in a statement, calling the relationship “despicable.”
“It removes any illusion that the EPA is acting in good faith to ensure the public trust,” said Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist at Drexel University.
The Cooler Heads Coalition formed in the late 1990s as mounting evidence of global warming began to fracture the industrial alliance that mobilized a decade earlier to downplay the threat of unfettered greenhouse gas emissions. A year before its merger with oil giant Mobil, Exxon gave $95,000 to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the right-wing think tank where Ebell works, in a grant titled “Global Climate Change Program and other support,” according to documents published by the Climate Investigations Center.
Yet as the oil industry started distancing itself from widely debunked scientific contrarians, far-right philanthropists and dark-money groups stepped in to fund the Cooler Heads Coalition’s members. The financiers include the Donors Trust, Donors Capital Fund, and the foundations of the oil industrialist Scaife family, the manufacturing scion Bradley family and the Mercers, the Long Island hedge funders who backed President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
That marked a shift from climate denial as a practical means of protecting carbon-polluting industries toward a new ideological fervor, enshrining opposition to climate science as a key part of anti-government dogma, said Riley Dunlap, a researcher and professor emeritus at Oklahoma State University who tracks climate denial groups.
“The Cooler Heads Coalition grew out of the frustration that industry was no longer opposing climate change as much as they thought,” Dunlap said. It’s “really a radical group of climate change deniers.”
The realities of climate change were clear to scientists even before rising seas started to inundate coastal cities like Miami on sunny days and extreme hurricanes and wildfires devastated Puerto Rico, California and Texas in recent years. At least 97% of peer-reviewed research concludes that emissions from burning fossil fuels, industrial farming and deforestation blanket the planet in gases that trap the sun’s heat in the atmosphere. A 2015 paper, meanwhile, found significant flaws in the methodologies, assumptions and analyses used by the 3% of scientists who concluded otherwise.
At 70%, the vast majority of Americans understand climate change is happening, and 57% recognize humans are the primary driver, according to polling data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. In October, the United Nations released a dire report warning that, unless world governments slash emissions by nearly half over the next decade, the planet is projected to warm beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit, causing about $54 trillion in damages and killing millions. A month later, the National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated report by scientists at 13 federal agencies, confirmed the findings.
That’s done little to sway Wehrum.
In January, he said he was still on the fence about climate change, telling E&E News, “I’m trying to figure that out.”
“I’ve had a series of briefings with climate change experts to help me better understand this,” Wehrum told Reuters that same month. “Everybody is still exploring the science of climate change.”
A former corporate lawyer who lobbied on behalf of clients to weaken air pollution rules, Wehrum has ramped up those efforts since joining the EPA, becoming a chief architect of the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda. He remains in close touch with his former law firm, according to The Washington Post.
“It’s not surprising that Wherum would have been featured at a Cooler Heads Coalition event,” Kert Davies, director of Climate Investigations Center, said by email. “He fits right in with the roster of climate deniers and other charlatans that Cooler Heads has hosted at events over the past two decades.”
The Pentagon emits more greenhouse gases than Portugal, study finds
Pentagon released 59m metric tons of carbon dioxide and other warming gases in 2017, research shows
Reuters
The Guardian
Thu 13 Jun 2019 08.35 EDT
The United States creates more planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions through its defense operations alone than industrialized countries such as Sweden and Portugal, researchers said on Wednesday.
The Pentagon, which oversees the US military, released about 59m metric tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in 2017, according to the first study to compile such comprehensive data, published by Brown University.
The Pentagon’s emissions were “in any one year … greater than many smaller countries’ greenhouse gas emissions”, the study said.
If it were a country, its emissions would make it the world’s 55th largest contributor, said Neta Crawford, the study’s author and a political scientist at Boston University.
“There is a lot of room here to reduce emissions,” Crawford said.
Request for comments to the Pentagon went unanswered.
Using and moving troops and weapons accounted for about 70% of its energy consumption, mostly due to the burning of jet and diesel fuel, Crawford said.
It dwarfed yearly emissions by Sweden, which the international research project the Global Carbon Atlas ranks 65th worldwide for its of CO2 emissions.
Pentagon emissions were higher than those of Portugal, ranked 57th by the Global Carbon Atlas, said Crawford.
China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, the main gas responsible for climate change, followed by the United States.
The Pentagon called climate change “a national security issue” in a January report to Congress and has launched multiple initiatives to prepare for its impact.
Global temperatures are on course for a 3C to 5C (5.4F to 9.0F) rise this century, far overshooting a global target of limiting the increase to 2C or less, the UN World Meteorological Organization said in November.
Four degrees Celsius of warming would increase more than five times the influence of climate on conflict, according to a study published in Nature magazine on Wednesday.
Crawford said the Pentagon had reduced its fuel consumption significantly since 2009, including by making its vehicles more efficient and moving to cleaner sources of energy at bases.
It could reduce them further by cutting fuel-heavy missions to the Persian Gulf to protect access to oil, which were no longer a top priority as renewable energy gained ground, she said.
“Many missions could actually be rethought, and it would make the world safer,” she said.
The Pentagon, which oversees the US military, released about 59m metric tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in 2017, according to the first study to compile such comprehensive data, published by Brown University.
The Pentagon’s emissions were “in any one year … greater than many smaller countries’ greenhouse gas emissions”, the study said.
If it were a country, its emissions would make it the world’s 55th largest contributor, said Neta Crawford, the study’s author and a political scientist at Boston University.
“There is a lot of room here to reduce emissions,” Crawford said.
Request for comments to the Pentagon went unanswered.
Using and moving troops and weapons accounted for about 70% of its energy consumption, mostly due to the burning of jet and diesel fuel, Crawford said.
It dwarfed yearly emissions by Sweden, which the international research project the Global Carbon Atlas ranks 65th worldwide for its of CO2 emissions.
Pentagon emissions were higher than those of Portugal, ranked 57th by the Global Carbon Atlas, said Crawford.
China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, the main gas responsible for climate change, followed by the United States.
The Pentagon called climate change “a national security issue” in a January report to Congress and has launched multiple initiatives to prepare for its impact.
Global temperatures are on course for a 3C to 5C (5.4F to 9.0F) rise this century, far overshooting a global target of limiting the increase to 2C or less, the UN World Meteorological Organization said in November.
Four degrees Celsius of warming would increase more than five times the influence of climate on conflict, according to a study published in Nature magazine on Wednesday.
Crawford said the Pentagon had reduced its fuel consumption significantly since 2009, including by making its vehicles more efficient and moving to cleaner sources of energy at bases.
It could reduce them further by cutting fuel-heavy missions to the Persian Gulf to protect access to oil, which were no longer a top priority as renewable energy gained ground, she said.
“Many missions could actually be rethought, and it would make the world safer,” she said.
Who needs terrorists when we have the EPA!!!
EPA Wants To Let Frackers Dump Chemical-Laden Water Into Rivers
Let’s Just Start Calling It ‘The Environmental Destruction Agency’
By Sarah Okeson - DC Report
6/11/19
Trump’s EPA is trying to take our nation back to the 1920s when polluted water from drilling oil was dumped on more than 2,000 acres in west Texas, creating the Texon scar, contaminated land so barren almost a century later that it can be identified from space.
The EPA recently released the draft of a study of options to dispose of “produced water” from drilling for gas and oil that could include irrigation and discharging it into rivers and streams.
“Revolutionary ideas are needed to ensure (water) demand can be balanced in the future,” said Tom Blaine, the former state engineer for New Mexico which generated 37.8 billion gallons of produced water in 2017.
The water, sometimes 10 times saltier than seawater and laced with chemicals such as ethylene glycol, the main ingredient in antifreeze, traditionally has been injected underground, but that practice has been linked to hundreds of earthquakes in Oklahoma and other oil-producing states in the last decade.
Fracking can produce as much as 10 gallons of water for every gallon of oil. The amount of wastewater new wells produce during their first year has increased by up to 1,440%.
In 2016, the EPA banned public sewage plants from accepting wastewater from fracking, but the EPA later extended the deadline for complying until August. The water was so corrosive it was damaging factory machinery downstream. People living near the Monongahela River in western Pennsylvania were advised to drink bottled water.
At least 11 private waste treatment facilities accept waste from drilling for oil and gas and discharge wastewater. In 2012, just 5% of produced water was discharged to rivers and streams.
The EPA identified 692 different ingredients used in fracking that can end up in produced water, including acids, gels and sand. The water can also be radioactive. Little research has been done about treating waste from drilling for oil and gas, and there are no federal regulations about the radioactive waste produced by drilling for oil.
“The science does not yet exist to say it’s clean enough to release into rivers and streams or to use for crop irrigation or other purposes,” said Mark Brownstein, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund.
In Kentucky, 1,900 tons of radioactive sludge from produced water was illegally dumped in a landfill near the Kentucky River. The EPA has said it won’t strengthen regulations on waste produced by drilling for oil and gas.
The EPA recently released the draft of a study of options to dispose of “produced water” from drilling for gas and oil that could include irrigation and discharging it into rivers and streams.
“Revolutionary ideas are needed to ensure (water) demand can be balanced in the future,” said Tom Blaine, the former state engineer for New Mexico which generated 37.8 billion gallons of produced water in 2017.
The water, sometimes 10 times saltier than seawater and laced with chemicals such as ethylene glycol, the main ingredient in antifreeze, traditionally has been injected underground, but that practice has been linked to hundreds of earthquakes in Oklahoma and other oil-producing states in the last decade.
Fracking can produce as much as 10 gallons of water for every gallon of oil. The amount of wastewater new wells produce during their first year has increased by up to 1,440%.
In 2016, the EPA banned public sewage plants from accepting wastewater from fracking, but the EPA later extended the deadline for complying until August. The water was so corrosive it was damaging factory machinery downstream. People living near the Monongahela River in western Pennsylvania were advised to drink bottled water.
At least 11 private waste treatment facilities accept waste from drilling for oil and gas and discharge wastewater. In 2012, just 5% of produced water was discharged to rivers and streams.
The EPA identified 692 different ingredients used in fracking that can end up in produced water, including acids, gels and sand. The water can also be radioactive. Little research has been done about treating waste from drilling for oil and gas, and there are no federal regulations about the radioactive waste produced by drilling for oil.
“The science does not yet exist to say it’s clean enough to release into rivers and streams or to use for crop irrigation or other purposes,” said Mark Brownstein, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund.
In Kentucky, 1,900 tons of radioactive sludge from produced water was illegally dumped in a landfill near the Kentucky River. The EPA has said it won’t strengthen regulations on waste produced by drilling for oil and gas.
the poisoning of america!!!
Trump’s EPA Is Letting “Forever Chemicals” Into Our Food, Experts Say
BY Mike Ludwig, Truthout
PUBLISHED June 7, 2019
A growing chorus of environmental groups and public health experts are slamming the Trump administration for its milquetoast response to the widespread problem of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a family of toxic “forever chemicals” that are linked to serious diseases and have contaminated food products and drinking water across the country.
Earlier this week, environmental groups released photos of previously unreleased research by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showing the presence of 16 PFAS chemicals in food products sampled from eight mid-Atlantic states, including seafood, meat, dairy products, various vegetables and pre-packaged chocolate cake. Exposure to PFAS chemicals is associated with a variety of health problems, including cancer, changes in cholesterol levels, damage to the immune system, hormone disruption, congenital disabilities, and liver and kidney disease, according to the Environmental Working Group.
While the FDA said in a statement this week that identifying levels and human health effects from dietary PFAS exposure is an “emerging area of science” and pledged to continue research and testing, public health watchdogs said the previously unreleased FDA findings are evidence that the government must take swift action to limit human exposure to the dangerous chemicals immediately.
So far, they said, the Trump administration’s response to the PFAS crisis, which includes an “action plan” currently proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has not gone far enough to protect public health. The plan only focuses two chemicals in the PFAS family, which includes thousands of compounds, and the agency has not moved swiftly enough to propose new regulations that will keep PFAS chemicals out of food and drinking water while holding the companies that use and make them accountable.
“To say that this EPA plan is abysmal would be too kind,” said Kyla Bennett, the science policy director at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a group which represents federal environmental scientists and other experts, and a former attorney and scientist formerly with EPA, in a statement on Thursday. “Under its current leadership, EPA appears incapable of fulfilling its mission of protecting the public from emerging health threats.”
PFAS chemicals have contaminated drinking water in communities across the country, notably near industrial facilities that produce or use the chemicals as well as U.S. Air Force bases, where PFAS has long been used in a firefighting foam applied to runways. Public health experts said the FDA data is further evidence that food is another major site of PFAS exposure for consumers, as scientists have long suspected.
David Andrews, a toxicologist and senior scientist at EWG, said a multitude of studies have shown that PFAS can be a danger to human health even in small concentrations, and the chemicals are persistent – they do not break down in the environment. Trace amounts can now be found in nearly everyone’s body in the United States.
“It’s the potent toxicity of these PFAS chemicals that make it a big deal when they are detected in food and drinking water,” Andrews told reporters on Thursday. “The results from the FDA clearly indicate that some food products are more contaminated than others, and ultimately more testing needs to be [done to] better understand contamination of our food supply and identify where these high sources of exposure are coming from, and take action to clean up our food.”
There are thousands of chemicals in the PFAS class that have been used in a variety of ways for decades. While the FDA has banned some PFAS chemicals from food packaging, others are still allowed. Andrews and other experts said that when a chemical is prohibited or controlled by the government, companies can use a “loophole” in federal law to use other PFAS chemicals in the same family in food packaging without alerting the FDA, as long as their own scientists determine that the chemicals are safe.
Other PFAS chemicals, such as the PFOS, a chemical formerly used to make Teflon for non-stick pans and currently under a federal health advisory, are persistent in the environment and can enter the food supply in a variety of ways. These include water contamination as well as sewer sludge, millions of pounds of which are applied to farm fields as a soil enhancer and fertilizer.
About half the meat and seafood products tested by the FDA came up positive for PFOS. In North Carolina, leafy green vegetables gathered from a river contaminated by a PFAS manufacturer showed high levels of contamination in either their roots or leaves and fruit, depending on the chemical makeup of the PFAS compound, according to the FDA. In New Mexico, products from a dairy farm near a contaminated Air Force base showed elevated levels on PFAS.
Jamie C. DeWitt, a pharmacology and toxicology professor at Eastern Carolina State University, said studies of people who became ill living near sites of major industrial PFAS contamination clearly show that diseases resulting from exposure can be life threatening, and scientists are currently working to determine what levels of exposure to different PFAS compounds carry risks of cancer and other diseases.
“It’s time to take action to restrict people’s exposure so that risk can be reduced,” Dewitt told reporters on Thursday.
Scott Faber, EWG’s vice president of governmental affairs, said there are a number of bipartisan initiatives to address PFAS contamination in Congress, because the problem is widespread and impacts every congressional district across the U.S.
“Frankly I have never seen a time when there has been such a bipartisan commitment to addressing such an environmental challenge,” Faber said.
Faber said there is a sharp contrast between Congress and the EPA, where regulators working for Trump appointees have yet to take advantage of their authority under federal law to detect, contain and clean up PFAS contamination. No deadlines have been set to test for PFAS chemicals in sewer sludge added to farm fields, and the EPA has not moved to place tough limits on PFAS releases into the environment. In fact, the EPA does not list PFAS as “hazardous” or and doesn’t include it in a federal registry for toxic chemical releases.
“No administration has employed more chemical industry lobbyists than the Trump administration, so it should not be surprising that the EPA has failed to take even one step toward addressing the PFAS crisis,” Faber said.
The EPA’s draft “action plan” only covers the two PFAS chemicals under a public health advisory — PFOS and PFOA. There are 4,000 chemicals in the PFAS family that have yet to be closely studied for health impacts. While the EPA has issued an advisory about PFOS and PFOA, the amount of other PFAS chemicals used in food packaging, non-stick cookware and industrial treatments has skyrocketed, according to PEER. Also, the current draft plan only covers PFAS contamination in groundwater, but lakes, rivers and reservoirs supply drinking water for a majority of the U.S. population.
The proposed protective standards for PFAS cleanup are not tough enough, PEER argues, and chemical companies that are responsible for the problem are let off the hook.
PEER is planning a series of legal actions designed to fill “critical gaps” in the EPA action plan.
“Significantly, EPA has no handle on sharply growing PFAS manufacture, importation, storage, and disposal,” PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse said in a statement on Thursday. “The PFAS crisis is going to get much worse unless there are major course corrections far beyond EPA’s terribly timid plan.”
Earlier this week, environmental groups released photos of previously unreleased research by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showing the presence of 16 PFAS chemicals in food products sampled from eight mid-Atlantic states, including seafood, meat, dairy products, various vegetables and pre-packaged chocolate cake. Exposure to PFAS chemicals is associated with a variety of health problems, including cancer, changes in cholesterol levels, damage to the immune system, hormone disruption, congenital disabilities, and liver and kidney disease, according to the Environmental Working Group.
While the FDA said in a statement this week that identifying levels and human health effects from dietary PFAS exposure is an “emerging area of science” and pledged to continue research and testing, public health watchdogs said the previously unreleased FDA findings are evidence that the government must take swift action to limit human exposure to the dangerous chemicals immediately.
So far, they said, the Trump administration’s response to the PFAS crisis, which includes an “action plan” currently proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has not gone far enough to protect public health. The plan only focuses two chemicals in the PFAS family, which includes thousands of compounds, and the agency has not moved swiftly enough to propose new regulations that will keep PFAS chemicals out of food and drinking water while holding the companies that use and make them accountable.
“To say that this EPA plan is abysmal would be too kind,” said Kyla Bennett, the science policy director at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a group which represents federal environmental scientists and other experts, and a former attorney and scientist formerly with EPA, in a statement on Thursday. “Under its current leadership, EPA appears incapable of fulfilling its mission of protecting the public from emerging health threats.”
PFAS chemicals have contaminated drinking water in communities across the country, notably near industrial facilities that produce or use the chemicals as well as U.S. Air Force bases, where PFAS has long been used in a firefighting foam applied to runways. Public health experts said the FDA data is further evidence that food is another major site of PFAS exposure for consumers, as scientists have long suspected.
David Andrews, a toxicologist and senior scientist at EWG, said a multitude of studies have shown that PFAS can be a danger to human health even in small concentrations, and the chemicals are persistent – they do not break down in the environment. Trace amounts can now be found in nearly everyone’s body in the United States.
“It’s the potent toxicity of these PFAS chemicals that make it a big deal when they are detected in food and drinking water,” Andrews told reporters on Thursday. “The results from the FDA clearly indicate that some food products are more contaminated than others, and ultimately more testing needs to be [done to] better understand contamination of our food supply and identify where these high sources of exposure are coming from, and take action to clean up our food.”
There are thousands of chemicals in the PFAS class that have been used in a variety of ways for decades. While the FDA has banned some PFAS chemicals from food packaging, others are still allowed. Andrews and other experts said that when a chemical is prohibited or controlled by the government, companies can use a “loophole” in federal law to use other PFAS chemicals in the same family in food packaging without alerting the FDA, as long as their own scientists determine that the chemicals are safe.
Other PFAS chemicals, such as the PFOS, a chemical formerly used to make Teflon for non-stick pans and currently under a federal health advisory, are persistent in the environment and can enter the food supply in a variety of ways. These include water contamination as well as sewer sludge, millions of pounds of which are applied to farm fields as a soil enhancer and fertilizer.
About half the meat and seafood products tested by the FDA came up positive for PFOS. In North Carolina, leafy green vegetables gathered from a river contaminated by a PFAS manufacturer showed high levels of contamination in either their roots or leaves and fruit, depending on the chemical makeup of the PFAS compound, according to the FDA. In New Mexico, products from a dairy farm near a contaminated Air Force base showed elevated levels on PFAS.
Jamie C. DeWitt, a pharmacology and toxicology professor at Eastern Carolina State University, said studies of people who became ill living near sites of major industrial PFAS contamination clearly show that diseases resulting from exposure can be life threatening, and scientists are currently working to determine what levels of exposure to different PFAS compounds carry risks of cancer and other diseases.
“It’s time to take action to restrict people’s exposure so that risk can be reduced,” Dewitt told reporters on Thursday.
Scott Faber, EWG’s vice president of governmental affairs, said there are a number of bipartisan initiatives to address PFAS contamination in Congress, because the problem is widespread and impacts every congressional district across the U.S.
“Frankly I have never seen a time when there has been such a bipartisan commitment to addressing such an environmental challenge,” Faber said.
Faber said there is a sharp contrast between Congress and the EPA, where regulators working for Trump appointees have yet to take advantage of their authority under federal law to detect, contain and clean up PFAS contamination. No deadlines have been set to test for PFAS chemicals in sewer sludge added to farm fields, and the EPA has not moved to place tough limits on PFAS releases into the environment. In fact, the EPA does not list PFAS as “hazardous” or and doesn’t include it in a federal registry for toxic chemical releases.
“No administration has employed more chemical industry lobbyists than the Trump administration, so it should not be surprising that the EPA has failed to take even one step toward addressing the PFAS crisis,” Faber said.
The EPA’s draft “action plan” only covers the two PFAS chemicals under a public health advisory — PFOS and PFOA. There are 4,000 chemicals in the PFAS family that have yet to be closely studied for health impacts. While the EPA has issued an advisory about PFOS and PFOA, the amount of other PFAS chemicals used in food packaging, non-stick cookware and industrial treatments has skyrocketed, according to PEER. Also, the current draft plan only covers PFAS contamination in groundwater, but lakes, rivers and reservoirs supply drinking water for a majority of the U.S. population.
The proposed protective standards for PFAS cleanup are not tough enough, PEER argues, and chemical companies that are responsible for the problem are let off the hook.
PEER is planning a series of legal actions designed to fill “critical gaps” in the EPA action plan.
“Significantly, EPA has no handle on sharply growing PFAS manufacture, importation, storage, and disposal,” PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse said in a statement on Thursday. “The PFAS crisis is going to get much worse unless there are major course corrections far beyond EPA’s terribly timid plan.”
TOXIC PFAS CHEMICALS FOUND IN MAINE FARMS FERTILIZED WITH SEWAGE SLUDGE
Sharon Lerner - The Intercept
June 7 2019, 5:57 a.m.
ALL SEWAGE SLUDGE recently tested by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection was contaminated with PFAS chemicals, according to documents obtained by The Intercept. The state tested the sludge, solid waste that remains after the treatment of domestic and industrial water, for the presence of three “forever chemicals”: PFOA, PFOS, and PFBS. Of 44 samples taken from Maine farms and other facilities that distribute compost made from the sludge, all contained at least one of the PFAS chemicals. In all but two of the samples, the chemicals exceeded safety thresholds for sludge that Maine set early last year.
In March, the state announced that it would temporarily halt the land application of sludge and begin the testing, after milk from a dairy farmin Arundel, Maine, was found to be contaminated with PFAS that had likely come from sludge that the farmers had spread on their land as fertilizer. These results, which have not yet been published or reported, are from the first round of testing. An additional 28 samples were collected but the results of their testing are not yet available.
While Maine is leading the nation by setting limits for the chemicals and testing sludge to see if it meets them, local environmentalists fear that the state’s levels — 2.5 parts per billion for PFOA, 5.2 ppb for PFOS, and 1,900 ppb for PFBS — may not be stringent enough. “They’re probably about 10 times weaker than they should be,” said Mike Belliveau, executive director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center in Portland. “Even low parts-per-billion levels of PFAS in sludge can threaten the health of the food supply.”
David Burns, director of the Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management at the Maine DEP, said that the state set the safety thresholds for sludge based on available toxicological information and that it chose those three chemicals because more is known about them than other PFAS. He said Maine will probably screen sludge for more compounds in the future.
Burns also said that, at farms where sludge has been found to have elevated PFAS levels, the state has authorized testing of the soil where it would be spread. If those tests “exceed a screening level, they’re prohibited from spreading the sludge on those sites,” he said. “But some sites have not exceeded the level so we’ve been able to authorize spreading.”
The evidence of widespread sludge contamination comes just days after a Food and Drug Administration study revealed that PFAS chemicals were also found in food. The investigation, which was conducted by FDA chemists but made public by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Environmental Working Group, detected 16 PFAS chemicals in food samples collected from grocery stores in the mid-Atlantic region. Among them were PFOS, which was in almost half of the meat and seafood products (ground turkey, tilapia, and shrimp had particularly high levels); PFBA, which was found in pineapple; and PFHxS in sweet potato. A slice of chocolate cake with icing was found to have extremely high levels of a chemical called PFPeA.
All PFAS chemicals persist indefinitely in the environment, and many have been shown to harm people. PFOA and PFOS, the two best-known in the class, have been linked to developmental, reproductive, and immune effects, as well as cancers, thyroid disease, and obesity — among other health problems. PFBS, which 3M introduced in 2003 as a replacement for PFOS, also accumulates in the blood and livers of rats, according to a report the company sent to the Environmental Protection Agency in 2008. Another adverse incident report from 3M showed that PFBS affects the livers of mice, as well as their cholesterol and fat levels. And according to a 2015 report from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, PFBS affects both placental cells and neurodevelopment, and has been found in particularly high levels in children with asthma.
While the FDA says it is “working to better understand the potential dietary exposure to PFAS,” researchers have already clearly shown that vegetables can absorb PFAS chemicals from the soil into their leaves. And the EPA has noted that diet is likely the primary source of human exposure to PFOS.
Indeed, though the EPA has failed to set PFAS standards for sludge, the agency has long been aware of the problem. As The Intercept reported in 2015, the agency knew back in 2009 that sludge from a wastewater treatment facility in Decatur, Alabama, contained PFOA and PFOS. From there, the toxic sludge made its way to nearby fields and, for 12 years, had been spread across 5,000 acres of local grazing land. Later testing confirmed that the chemicals had contaminated animals and humans in the rural area.
The latest test results should set off another alarm — and not just in Maine. State environmental authorities discovered the three PFAS chemicals in sludge because they looked for them. But sludge is widely used on farms around the country. There are thousands of PFAS compounds, which may also be making their way into soil, water, and our food. And most states have not looked for contamination. According to a 2013 study, it is there to be found: Researchers tested for 13 PFAS compounds in sludge from 94 wastewater treatment plants in 32 states and found at least 10 of the chemicals in every sample.
In Maine, Belliveau thinks the discovery of toxic industrial chemicals entering our food supply through sludge may be a turning point. “I’m hoping there will now be a strong consensus to phase out the entire class,” he said. “These compounds simply cannot be used without permanently threatening the environment.”
In March, the state announced that it would temporarily halt the land application of sludge and begin the testing, after milk from a dairy farmin Arundel, Maine, was found to be contaminated with PFAS that had likely come from sludge that the farmers had spread on their land as fertilizer. These results, which have not yet been published or reported, are from the first round of testing. An additional 28 samples were collected but the results of their testing are not yet available.
While Maine is leading the nation by setting limits for the chemicals and testing sludge to see if it meets them, local environmentalists fear that the state’s levels — 2.5 parts per billion for PFOA, 5.2 ppb for PFOS, and 1,900 ppb for PFBS — may not be stringent enough. “They’re probably about 10 times weaker than they should be,” said Mike Belliveau, executive director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center in Portland. “Even low parts-per-billion levels of PFAS in sludge can threaten the health of the food supply.”
David Burns, director of the Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management at the Maine DEP, said that the state set the safety thresholds for sludge based on available toxicological information and that it chose those three chemicals because more is known about them than other PFAS. He said Maine will probably screen sludge for more compounds in the future.
Burns also said that, at farms where sludge has been found to have elevated PFAS levels, the state has authorized testing of the soil where it would be spread. If those tests “exceed a screening level, they’re prohibited from spreading the sludge on those sites,” he said. “But some sites have not exceeded the level so we’ve been able to authorize spreading.”
The evidence of widespread sludge contamination comes just days after a Food and Drug Administration study revealed that PFAS chemicals were also found in food. The investigation, which was conducted by FDA chemists but made public by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Environmental Working Group, detected 16 PFAS chemicals in food samples collected from grocery stores in the mid-Atlantic region. Among them were PFOS, which was in almost half of the meat and seafood products (ground turkey, tilapia, and shrimp had particularly high levels); PFBA, which was found in pineapple; and PFHxS in sweet potato. A slice of chocolate cake with icing was found to have extremely high levels of a chemical called PFPeA.
All PFAS chemicals persist indefinitely in the environment, and many have been shown to harm people. PFOA and PFOS, the two best-known in the class, have been linked to developmental, reproductive, and immune effects, as well as cancers, thyroid disease, and obesity — among other health problems. PFBS, which 3M introduced in 2003 as a replacement for PFOS, also accumulates in the blood and livers of rats, according to a report the company sent to the Environmental Protection Agency in 2008. Another adverse incident report from 3M showed that PFBS affects the livers of mice, as well as their cholesterol and fat levels. And according to a 2015 report from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, PFBS affects both placental cells and neurodevelopment, and has been found in particularly high levels in children with asthma.
While the FDA says it is “working to better understand the potential dietary exposure to PFAS,” researchers have already clearly shown that vegetables can absorb PFAS chemicals from the soil into their leaves. And the EPA has noted that diet is likely the primary source of human exposure to PFOS.
Indeed, though the EPA has failed to set PFAS standards for sludge, the agency has long been aware of the problem. As The Intercept reported in 2015, the agency knew back in 2009 that sludge from a wastewater treatment facility in Decatur, Alabama, contained PFOA and PFOS. From there, the toxic sludge made its way to nearby fields and, for 12 years, had been spread across 5,000 acres of local grazing land. Later testing confirmed that the chemicals had contaminated animals and humans in the rural area.
The latest test results should set off another alarm — and not just in Maine. State environmental authorities discovered the three PFAS chemicals in sludge because they looked for them. But sludge is widely used on farms around the country. There are thousands of PFAS compounds, which may also be making their way into soil, water, and our food. And most states have not looked for contamination. According to a 2013 study, it is there to be found: Researchers tested for 13 PFAS compounds in sludge from 94 wastewater treatment plants in 32 states and found at least 10 of the chemicals in every sample.
In Maine, Belliveau thinks the discovery of toxic industrial chemicals entering our food supply through sludge may be a turning point. “I’m hoping there will now be a strong consensus to phase out the entire class,” he said. “These compounds simply cannot be used without permanently threatening the environment.”
Maybe The Climate Won’t Change If No One Studies It
The Trump Administration’s Latest Way to Deny the Future—Just Don’t Look at It
By Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport Opinion Editor
6/6/19
Talk about a White House as an ostrich sticking its head in the sand.
News that the Trump administration will remove the underpinnings of Science in forming its periodic long-term environmental reviews and eliminate any mention of serious climate disruption is breathtaking.
In a remarkably calm report, The New York Times let us know that after two years of unraveling environmental regulation and enforcement, the Trump administration now stands ready to remake science itself—at least in so far as official government recognition is concerned.
“Parts of the federal government will no longer fulfill what scientists say is one of the most urgent jobs of climate science studies: reporting on the future effects of a rapidly warming planet and presenting a picture of what the earth could look like by the end of the century if the global economy continues to emit heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels.”
For example, the White House has insisted that scientific assessments produced use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040, rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously, to lessen the worst predictions of worldwide hunger, migration and rising waters that scientists globally see ahead. “Scientists say that would give a misleading picture because the biggest effects of current emissions will be felt after 2040. Models show that the planet will most likely warm at about the same rate through about 2050. From that point until the end of the century, however, the rate of warming differs significantly with an increase or decrease in carbon emissions.”
Even a climate change denier like Trump, who has pulled the United States out of global agreements to commit to policies aimed at forestalling the worst effects of climate disruption, you’d think that the disagreement would be about what to do about all the environmental fuss. But to simply eliminate any scientific mention that there are problems ahead mark a new low for the leader of the most powerful economy in the world.
Trump Just Doesn’t Believe
From where I sit, you can’t solve a problem you don’t recognize exists. That’s what explains how Trump never sees poverty or income gaps or deteriorating international alliances or the rise of white nationalism. He just doesn’t believe the problems exist, so the government doesn’t acknowledge them.
Perhaps we should have more of this from Trump: He could simply wish a Wall on the southern border rather than having to obtain legislative approval or he could eliminate all taxes for the rest of us, as well as for himself and Jeff Bezos, by eliminating the need to finance a government. Or he could eliminate nuclear weapons in North Korea and Iran simply by imagining them gone. Why bother with any reality?
A particular target is the periodic National Climate Assessment, a report produced by several government agencies that every four years looks ahead to the most important climate changes we can expect. “Government scientists used computer-generated models in their most recent report to project that if fossil fuel emissions continue unchecked, the earth’s atmosphere could warm by as much as eight degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. That would lead to drastically higher sea levels, more devastating storms and droughts, crop failures, food losses and severe health consequences,” The Times explained.
Reports Coming Out
Work on the next such report in 2021 or 2022 has already begun. But officials said those worst-case scenarios will not automatically be included.
That example will ripple through all of the government agencies, of course. So, just as pesticide-laced waters are seen in this administration as clean water, the changing patterns involving more serious hurricanes, flooding and tornadoes, the rising sea waters even in places like Miami, just aren’t happening.
To sift through all the misinformation, the president also wants a new environmental council of advisers who are led by William Happer, 79, a physicist who has been quoted as saying, “The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.”
Uh, not helpful or appropriate or, say, true.
Happer is an associate of National Security Adviser John Bolton. Both are “beneficiaries of Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the far-right billionaire and his daughter who have funded efforts to debunk climate science. The Mercers gave money to a super PAC affiliated with Mr. Bolton before he entered government and to an advocacy group headed by Mr. Happer.”
I wonder if an ostrich image would fit on a campaign hat.
News that the Trump administration will remove the underpinnings of Science in forming its periodic long-term environmental reviews and eliminate any mention of serious climate disruption is breathtaking.
In a remarkably calm report, The New York Times let us know that after two years of unraveling environmental regulation and enforcement, the Trump administration now stands ready to remake science itself—at least in so far as official government recognition is concerned.
“Parts of the federal government will no longer fulfill what scientists say is one of the most urgent jobs of climate science studies: reporting on the future effects of a rapidly warming planet and presenting a picture of what the earth could look like by the end of the century if the global economy continues to emit heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels.”
For example, the White House has insisted that scientific assessments produced use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040, rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously, to lessen the worst predictions of worldwide hunger, migration and rising waters that scientists globally see ahead. “Scientists say that would give a misleading picture because the biggest effects of current emissions will be felt after 2040. Models show that the planet will most likely warm at about the same rate through about 2050. From that point until the end of the century, however, the rate of warming differs significantly with an increase or decrease in carbon emissions.”
Even a climate change denier like Trump, who has pulled the United States out of global agreements to commit to policies aimed at forestalling the worst effects of climate disruption, you’d think that the disagreement would be about what to do about all the environmental fuss. But to simply eliminate any scientific mention that there are problems ahead mark a new low for the leader of the most powerful economy in the world.
Trump Just Doesn’t Believe
From where I sit, you can’t solve a problem you don’t recognize exists. That’s what explains how Trump never sees poverty or income gaps or deteriorating international alliances or the rise of white nationalism. He just doesn’t believe the problems exist, so the government doesn’t acknowledge them.
Perhaps we should have more of this from Trump: He could simply wish a Wall on the southern border rather than having to obtain legislative approval or he could eliminate all taxes for the rest of us, as well as for himself and Jeff Bezos, by eliminating the need to finance a government. Or he could eliminate nuclear weapons in North Korea and Iran simply by imagining them gone. Why bother with any reality?
A particular target is the periodic National Climate Assessment, a report produced by several government agencies that every four years looks ahead to the most important climate changes we can expect. “Government scientists used computer-generated models in their most recent report to project that if fossil fuel emissions continue unchecked, the earth’s atmosphere could warm by as much as eight degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. That would lead to drastically higher sea levels, more devastating storms and droughts, crop failures, food losses and severe health consequences,” The Times explained.
Reports Coming Out
Work on the next such report in 2021 or 2022 has already begun. But officials said those worst-case scenarios will not automatically be included.
That example will ripple through all of the government agencies, of course. So, just as pesticide-laced waters are seen in this administration as clean water, the changing patterns involving more serious hurricanes, flooding and tornadoes, the rising sea waters even in places like Miami, just aren’t happening.
To sift through all the misinformation, the president also wants a new environmental council of advisers who are led by William Happer, 79, a physicist who has been quoted as saying, “The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.”
Uh, not helpful or appropriate or, say, true.
Happer is an associate of National Security Adviser John Bolton. Both are “beneficiaries of Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the far-right billionaire and his daughter who have funded efforts to debunk climate science. The Mercers gave money to a super PAC affiliated with Mr. Bolton before he entered government and to an advocacy group headed by Mr. Happer.”
I wonder if an ostrich image would fit on a campaign hat.
People eat at least 50,000 plastic particles a year, study finds
Health effects of ingestion of microplastics via food, water and breathing still unknown
Damian Carrington Environment editor
The Guardian
Wed 5 Jun 2019 08.00 EDT
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 unknown, but they could release toxic substances. Some pieces are small enough to penetrate human tissues, where they could trigger immune reactions.
Microplastic pollution is mostly created by the disintegration of plastic litter and appears to be ubiquitous across the planet. Researchers find microplastics everywhere they look; in the air, soil, rivers and the deepest oceans around the world.
They have been detected in tap and bottled water, seafood and beer. They were also found in human stool samples for the first time in October, confirming that people ingest the particles.
The new research, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, took the data from 26 previous studies that measure the amounts of microplastic particles in fish, shellfish, sugar, salt, beer and water, as well as in the air in cities.
The scientists then used US government dietary guidelines to calculate how many particles people would eat in a year. Adults eat about 50,000 microplastic particles a year and children about 40,000, they estimated.
Most food and drink types have not been tested, however, meaning the study only assessed 15% of calorie intake. “We don’t know a huge amount. There are some major data gaps that need to get filled,” said Kieran Cox, at the University of Victoria in Canada, who led the research.
Other foods, such as bread, processed products, meat, dairy and vegetables, may well contain just as much plastic, he said. “It is really highly likely there is going to be large amounts of plastic particles in these. You could be heading into the hundreds of thousands.”
Some of the best available data is on water, with bottled water containing 22 times more microplastic than tap water on average. A person who only drank bottled water would consume 130,000 particles per year from that source alone, the researchers said, compared with 4,000 from tap water.
Scientists do not know what happens when microplastics are inhaled, but the new study speculates that “most inhaled particles will be ingested” rather than coughed or sneezed out. The researchers also estimated that microplastic particles settling on to a single meal per day could add a further tens of thousands to the annual amount consumed.
Cox was clear that there are no known health effects as yet, but he said the ingested particles are “a high exposure risk in terms of numbers. It could be a potential alarm call for sure”.
Stephanie Wright, at King’s College London, who was not involved in the research, said: “These current estimates suggest microplastic exposure is relatively low compared to other particles. For example, it has been estimated that the average western diet exposes consumers to billions of titanium dioxide microparticles, a common additive, each day. However, what comparatively low microplastic exposures mean for health is unknown.”
The European commission’s chief scientific advisers said in a report in April: “The evidence [on the environmental and health risks of microplastics] provides grounds for genuine concern and for precaution to be exercised.”
They concluded: “Growing scientific evidence on the hazards of uncontrolled microplastic pollution, combined with its long-term persistence and irreversibility, suggests that reasonable and proportional measures should be taken to prevent the release of microplastics.”
Cox said his research had changed his own behaviour. “I definitely steer away from plastic packaging and try to avoid bottled water as much as possible,” he said.
“Removing single-use plastic from your life and supporting companies that are moving away from plastic packaging is going to have a non-trivial impact,” Cox said. “The facts are simple. We are producing a lot of plastic and it is ending up in the ecosystems, which we are a part of.”
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 unknown, but they could release toxic substances. Some pieces are small enough to penetrate human tissues, where they could trigger immune reactions.
Microplastic pollution is mostly created by the disintegration of plastic litter and appears to be ubiquitous across the planet. Researchers find microplastics everywhere they look; in the air, soil, rivers and the deepest oceans around the world.
They have been detected in tap and bottled water, seafood and beer. They were also found in human stool samples for the first time in October, confirming that people ingest the particles.
The new research, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, took the data from 26 previous studies that measure the amounts of microplastic particles in fish, shellfish, sugar, salt, beer and water, as well as in the air in cities.
The scientists then used US government dietary guidelines to calculate how many particles people would eat in a year. Adults eat about 50,000 microplastic particles a year and children about 40,000, they estimated.
Most food and drink types have not been tested, however, meaning the study only assessed 15% of calorie intake. “We don’t know a huge amount. There are some major data gaps that need to get filled,” said Kieran Cox, at the University of Victoria in Canada, who led the research.
Other foods, such as bread, processed products, meat, dairy and vegetables, may well contain just as much plastic, he said. “It is really highly likely there is going to be large amounts of plastic particles in these. You could be heading into the hundreds of thousands.”
Some of the best available data is on water, with bottled water containing 22 times more microplastic than tap water on average. A person who only drank bottled water would consume 130,000 particles per year from that source alone, the researchers said, compared with 4,000 from tap water.
Scientists do not know what happens when microplastics are inhaled, but the new study speculates that “most inhaled particles will be ingested” rather than coughed or sneezed out. The researchers also estimated that microplastic particles settling on to a single meal per day could add a further tens of thousands to the annual amount consumed.
Cox was clear that there are no known health effects as yet, but he said the ingested particles are “a high exposure risk in terms of numbers. It could be a potential alarm call for sure”.
Stephanie Wright, at King’s College London, who was not involved in the research, said: “These current estimates suggest microplastic exposure is relatively low compared to other particles. For example, it has been estimated that the average western diet exposes consumers to billions of titanium dioxide microparticles, a common additive, each day. However, what comparatively low microplastic exposures mean for health is unknown.”
The European commission’s chief scientific advisers said in a report in April: “The evidence [on the environmental and health risks of microplastics] provides grounds for genuine concern and for precaution to be exercised.”
They concluded: “Growing scientific evidence on the hazards of uncontrolled microplastic pollution, combined with its long-term persistence and irreversibility, suggests that reasonable and proportional measures should be taken to prevent the release of microplastics.”
Cox said his research had changed his own behaviour. “I definitely steer away from plastic packaging and try to avoid bottled water as much as possible,” he said.
“Removing single-use plastic from your life and supporting companies that are moving away from plastic packaging is going to have a non-trivial impact,” Cox said. “The facts are simple. We are producing a lot of plastic and it is ending up in the ecosystems, which we are a part of.”
Big Pharma emits more greenhouse gases than the automotive industry
By The Conversation - raw story
May 28, 2019
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. health-care 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 polluting
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.
One immediate and striking result is that the pharmaceutical sector is far from green. We assessed the sector’s emissions for each one million dollars of revenue in 2015. Larger businesses will always generate more emissions than smaller ones; in order to do a fair comparison, we evaluated emissions intensity.
We found it was 48.55 tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) per million dollars. That’s about 55 per cent 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 per cent smaller yet 13 per cent more polluting than the automotive sector.
Extreme variability
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.
In trying to explain this incredibly large deviation, we found that Bayer’s revenues derive from pharmaceutical products, medical equipment and agricultural commodities. While Bayer reports its financial revenues separately for each division, it lumps together the emissions from all the divisions. The company also reports and tracks its emission intensity in terms of tonnes of CO2e produced for each tonne of manufactured goods, whether fertilizer or Aspirin, for example.
This level of opacity makes it not only impossible to assess the true environmental performance of these kind of companies. It also raises questions about the sincerity of these companies’ strategies and actions in reducing their contribution to climate change.
We also estimated how much the pharmaceutical sector would have to reduce its emissions to comply with the reduction targets in the Paris Agreement.
We found that by 2025, the overall pharma sector would need to reduce its emissions intensity by about 59 per cent from 2015 levels.
While this is clearly a far cry from their current levels, it is interesting to note that some of the 15 largest companies are already operating at that level, namely Amgen Inc., Johnson & Johnson and Roche Holding AG.
If those performance levels are achievable by some, why can’t they be achieved by all?
These three leading companies are also the ones with the highest level of profitability and revenue growth in the whole sector. Indeed Roche, Johnson & Johnson and Amgen showed revenue increases of 27.2 per cent, 25.7 per cent and 7.8 per cent respectively between 2012 and 2015, while managing to reduce their emissions by 18.7 per cent, 8.3 per cent and eight per cent respectively. This supports the premise that environmental and financial performance aren’t mutually exclusive.
The pharmaceutical industry is responsible for some serious environmental impacts beyond greenhouse gas emissions. For example, the waste water from drug manufacturers in Patancheru, India has left river sediment, ground water and drinking water polluted.
Researchers estimated that in a single day, 44 kilograms of ciprofloxacin, a broad-spectrum antibiotic, was released — enough to treat everyone in a city of 44,000 inhabitants.
Clearly, there is a dire need for more extensive and sustained research as well as more scrutiny of the pharmaceutical industry’s environmental practices and performance. Healing people is no justification for killing the planet.
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. health-care 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 polluting
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.
One immediate and striking result is that the pharmaceutical sector is far from green. We assessed the sector’s emissions for each one million dollars of revenue in 2015. Larger businesses will always generate more emissions than smaller ones; in order to do a fair comparison, we evaluated emissions intensity.
We found it was 48.55 tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) per million dollars. That’s about 55 per cent greater than the automotive sector at 31.4 tonnes of CO2e/$M for that same year. We restricted our analysis to the direct emissions generated by the companies’ operations and to the indirect emissions generated by the electricity purchased by these companies from their respective utilities companies.
The total global emissions of the pharma sector amounts to about 52 megatonnes of CO2e in 2015, more than the 46.4 megatonnes of CO2e generated by the automotive sector in the same year. The value of the pharma market, however, is smaller than the automotive market. By our calculations, the pharma market is 28 per cent smaller yet 13 per cent more polluting than the automotive sector.
Extreme variability
We also found emissions intensity varied greatly within the pharmaceutical sector. For example, the emissions intensity of Eli Lilly (77.3 tonnes of CO2e/$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.
In trying to explain this incredibly large deviation, we found that Bayer’s revenues derive from pharmaceutical products, medical equipment and agricultural commodities. While Bayer reports its financial revenues separately for each division, it lumps together the emissions from all the divisions. The company also reports and tracks its emission intensity in terms of tonnes of CO2e produced for each tonne of manufactured goods, whether fertilizer or Aspirin, for example.
This level of opacity makes it not only impossible to assess the true environmental performance of these kind of companies. It also raises questions about the sincerity of these companies’ strategies and actions in reducing their contribution to climate change.
We also estimated how much the pharmaceutical sector would have to reduce its emissions to comply with the reduction targets in the Paris Agreement.
We found that by 2025, the overall pharma sector would need to reduce its emissions intensity by about 59 per cent from 2015 levels.
While this is clearly a far cry from their current levels, it is interesting to note that some of the 15 largest companies are already operating at that level, namely Amgen Inc., Johnson & Johnson and Roche Holding AG.
If those performance levels are achievable by some, why can’t they be achieved by all?
These three leading companies are also the ones with the highest level of profitability and revenue growth in the whole sector. Indeed Roche, Johnson & Johnson and Amgen showed revenue increases of 27.2 per cent, 25.7 per cent and 7.8 per cent respectively between 2012 and 2015, while managing to reduce their emissions by 18.7 per cent, 8.3 per cent and eight per cent respectively. This supports the premise that environmental and financial performance aren’t mutually exclusive.
The pharmaceutical industry is responsible for some serious environmental impacts beyond greenhouse gas emissions. For example, the waste water from drug manufacturers in Patancheru, India has left river sediment, ground water and drinking water polluted.
Researchers estimated that in a single day, 44 kilograms of ciprofloxacin, a broad-spectrum antibiotic, was released — enough to treat everyone in a city of 44,000 inhabitants.
Clearly, there is a dire need for more extensive and sustained research as well as more scrutiny of the pharmaceutical industry’s environmental practices and performance. Healing people is no justification for killing the planet.
|
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World's rivers 'awash with dangerous levels of antibiotics'
Largest global study finds the drugs in two-thirds of test sites in 72 countries
Natasha Gilbert
the guardian
Sun 26 May 2019 21.06 EDT
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.
Even rivers contaminated with low levels of antibiotics are a threat, Gaze said. “Even the low concentrations seen in Europe can drive the evolution of resistance and increase the likelihood that resistance genes transfer to human pathogens,” he says.
The researchers tested 711 sites in 72 countries and found antibiotics in 65% of them. In 111 of the sites, the concentrations of antibiotics exceeded safe levels, with the worst cases more than 300 times over the safe limit.
Lower-income countries generally had higher antibiotic concentrations in rivers, with locations in Africa and Asia performing worst. They peaked in Bangladesh, where metronidazole, used to treat vaginal infections, was found at more than 300 times the safe level. The residues were detected near a wastewater treatment facility, which in lower-income countries often lack the technology to remove the drugs.
Inappropriate disposal of sewage and waste dumped straight into rivers, as was witnessed at a site in Kenya, also resulted in high antibiotic concentrations of up to 100 times safe levels.
“Improving the safe management of health and hygiene services in low-income countries is critical in the fight against antimicrobial resistance,” said Helen Hamilton, health and hygiene analyst at the UK-based charity Water Aid.
The research team is now planning to assess the environmental impacts of antibiotic pollution on wildlife including fish, invertebrates and algae. They expect severe effects. The drug levels in some Kenyan rivers were so high that no fish could survive. “There was a total population crash,” Boxall said.
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.
Even rivers contaminated with low levels of antibiotics are a threat, Gaze said. “Even the low concentrations seen in Europe can drive the evolution of resistance and increase the likelihood that resistance genes transfer to human pathogens,” he says.
The researchers tested 711 sites in 72 countries and found antibiotics in 65% of them. In 111 of the sites, the concentrations of antibiotics exceeded safe levels, with the worst cases more than 300 times over the safe limit.
Lower-income countries generally had higher antibiotic concentrations in rivers, with locations in Africa and Asia performing worst. They peaked in Bangladesh, where metronidazole, used to treat vaginal infections, was found at more than 300 times the safe level. The residues were detected near a wastewater treatment facility, which in lower-income countries often lack the technology to remove the drugs.
Inappropriate disposal of sewage and waste dumped straight into rivers, as was witnessed at a site in Kenya, also resulted in high antibiotic concentrations of up to 100 times safe levels.
“Improving the safe management of health and hygiene services in low-income countries is critical in the fight against antimicrobial resistance,” said Helen Hamilton, health and hygiene analyst at the UK-based charity Water Aid.
The research team is now planning to assess the environmental impacts of antibiotic pollution on wildlife including fish, invertebrates and algae. They expect severe effects. The drug levels in some Kenyan rivers were so high that no fish could survive. “There was a total population crash,” Boxall said.
wasting your tax dollars!!!
Trump Administration Wants to Fund More “Clean Coal” Failures
BY Sharon Kelly, DeSmogBlog - truthout
PUBLISHED May 23, 2019
In April, the Department of Justice informed Southern Company that it was under investigation “related to the Kemper County energy facility” in Mississippi, where Southern had spent $7.5 billion, including hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds from the Department of Energy, trying to build a coal-fired power plant that would capture carbon emissions.
Former engineers and officials from the Kemper plant have described evidence of possible intentional fraud at the construction project, alleging that the company knew of design flaws early on but pressed forward with the project in the hopes that costs could be passed on to power customers even if the project ran severely over-budget.
But the while the company remains under investigation, the Trump administration is doubling down by offering new funding — not just millions for more “clean coal” research and development, but also billions more for another construction project, which is also far behind schedule and over-budget, by the same company.
In April, the same month that Southern learned of the Justice Department investigation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy announced it would offer $100 million of federal taxpayer money to fund research and development for new coal power plants that would use carbon capture technology.
A month earlier, Trump’s Energy Secretary Rick Perry also announced $3.7 billion in federal loan guarantees for another Southern Company project, the Vogtle nuclear power plant.
Nuclear Loan Guarantees
Southern Company disclosed the investigation by the Civil Division of the Department of Justice to investors in required Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings earlier this month, warning that it could have a “material impact” on profits for Southern’s Mississippi Power Co. subsidiary.
The Kemper project had been offered over $380 million in federal grants from the Department of Energy (DOE) to generate affordable electrical power from coal with carbon capture — but it ultimately only producedelectricity from its troubled “clean coal” equipment for roughly 100 hours before the company abandoned work on the over-budget and behind-schedule project in 2017.
The Justice Department investigation comes after the Guardian revealedthat Southern officials kept evidence of design flaws and construction problems under wraps at what was promised to be the world’s largest “clean coal” power plant — but which proved to be inoperable.
The Securities and Exchange Commission had mothballed an earlier investigation into the Kemper project without reaching conclusions before the new evidence came to light.
Violations of the False Claims Act, often used by the federal government to sue those who defraud government programs, can potentially carry triple the damages.
Southern has already racked up $6.4 billion in losses from Kemper, according to the Associated Press. It also warned investors this month that it will face additional costs related to closing Kemper’s on-site coal mine and a pipeline that would have carried its captured carbon dioxide from Kemper to the Gulf Coast, for use by the oil and gas industry.
Local utility regulators have warned that Southern should not expect to recoup those costs from power customers. “I think the commission has made clear two years ago that recovery from the Mississippi customer is closed for Kemper County,” Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley told the Associated Press when the DOJ investigation came to light.
In February 2018, Southern announced that Ernest Moniz, former Secretary of the Department of Energy, would join the company’s board of directors. Moniz had championed the Kemper project during his time at DOE. “Projects like Kemper represent the future of fossil energy — and are evidence of the Department of Energy’s commitment to #ActOnClimate by advancing technologies that make coal more efficient, economical and environmentally sustainable,” Moniz, an Obama appointee, wrote five years earlier after visiting the Kemper project.
The Trump administration has now doubled down on funding for another troubled Southern Company project.
Vogtle, the only remaining nuclear power project under construction in the U.S., was originally slated to cost $14 billion total and to start producing power in 2016. Those costs have ballooned to a projected $27.5 billion and the full project isn’t slated to be completed until late 2022.
In March, Sec. Perry announced that the DOE would offer up to $1.67 billion in new loan guarantees to the Southern Company subsidiary, Georgia Power Co., which is building the Vogtle nuclear power plant’s units 3 and 4, along with up to $2.1 billion in financing for the project’s other partners. That’s in addition to $8.3 billion in earlier federal pledges, bringing taxpayer loan guarantees for the nuclear project to roughly $12 billion.
Coal FIRST, Taxpayers Last?
The Department of Energy also continues to spend more taxpayer money on so-called “clean coal” research that has so far produced little progress relative to its costs.
The DOE’s new $100 million Coal FIRST initiative, announced in April, comes at a time when the United Nations warns the entire world must fully stop burning coal for electricity within roughly 30 years.
Coal FIRST will offer companies American taxpayer funding to create small “modular” coal plants that could be transported by 18-wheeler trucks and would use carbon capture technology to offer “near-zero” emissions.
Trump administration officials have said the miniature coal power plants would be marketed to “the developing world” because there’s no domestic demand for them.
“Building a new coal plant today is a bad idea, and building small, modular coal plants is an especially bad idea,” John Walke, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Clean Air Project, told Inside Sources. “They are still dirty, and the costs just don’t add up.”
Top Trump officials have described the possibilities for federal “clean coal” research in even more ambitious terms. “And through the remarkable technology of carbon capture utilization and storage or CCUS,” Sec. Perry said at an April speech in Dallas, Texas, “we are advancing innovations that could one day make coal as clean as renewables.”
But so far, after spending billions, the DOE has little evidence to show it’s making progress towards transforming coal into energy as clean as wind or solar.
A September 2018 Government Accountability Office report tallied $2.66 billion in Department of Energy funding since 2010 for “advanced fossil energy technologies.” The DOE spent $1.12 billion on nine large projects to meant demonstrate that carbon capture and storage could be affordably used, plus another $1.54 billion on smaller projects, 89 percent involving the use of coal.
What does DOE have to show for that spending? Of those nine projects, six were never finished and by 2017, only the Petra Nova power plant was producing power from coal while using carbon capture.
Whether that “clean coal” power can match the affordability of wind or solar, however, is another question. “While the economics of carbon capture and Petra Nova remain challenging,” David Knox, a spokesperson for builder NRG, which will receive DOE funding for Petra Nova until the end of this year, told trade publication POWER, “the plant is running as designed and has captured more than two million tons of CO2.”
Two million tons of carbon sequestration would be on par with the benefits of preserving roughly 25 square miles of U.S. forests (instead of converting them to cropland) for one year, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data.
Kemper also isn’t the only DOE-backed project to draw allegations of fraud. The Clean Coal Power Initiative, run by the same Office of Fossil Energy now behind the Coal FIRST program, was faulted by the Department of Energy’s inspector general last year for failing to collect receipts or invoices for $38 million in federal funds distributed for an “advanced coal-based technologies” project that was never built. At least $2.5 million was in fact spent on lobbying, alcoholic drinks, and “social” expenses, including limos, spa trips and catering on a private jet, auditors discovered.
There are other, more cost-effective ways to avoid carbon pollution while generating electricity. Each year, “wind and solar are displacing roughly 35 times as much CO2 every year as the complete global history of CCS,” an analysis by Clean Technica, reported last month by DeSmog, concluded.
Some utilities are in fact now proposing to do away with coal power all together. Xcel Energy announced on Monday that it would close its last two coal power plants a decade early, drawing support from environmental groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists despite the utility’s plans to continue using nuclear and natural gas power.
Other environmental organizations warn that continued funding for carbon capture not only offers false hope that coal can be “clean,” but it also undermines progress toward more realistic goals.
Incentivizing carbon capture “through policy and relying on it in planning will likely slow the transition away from fossil fuel investments and undermine broader efforts to mitigate climate change,” a March report by the Center for International Environmental Law concluded.
“Confronting the challenge of climate change is not a matter of future technology, but present political will and economic investment.”
Former engineers and officials from the Kemper plant have described evidence of possible intentional fraud at the construction project, alleging that the company knew of design flaws early on but pressed forward with the project in the hopes that costs could be passed on to power customers even if the project ran severely over-budget.
But the while the company remains under investigation, the Trump administration is doubling down by offering new funding — not just millions for more “clean coal” research and development, but also billions more for another construction project, which is also far behind schedule and over-budget, by the same company.
In April, the same month that Southern learned of the Justice Department investigation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy announced it would offer $100 million of federal taxpayer money to fund research and development for new coal power plants that would use carbon capture technology.
A month earlier, Trump’s Energy Secretary Rick Perry also announced $3.7 billion in federal loan guarantees for another Southern Company project, the Vogtle nuclear power plant.
Nuclear Loan Guarantees
Southern Company disclosed the investigation by the Civil Division of the Department of Justice to investors in required Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings earlier this month, warning that it could have a “material impact” on profits for Southern’s Mississippi Power Co. subsidiary.
The Kemper project had been offered over $380 million in federal grants from the Department of Energy (DOE) to generate affordable electrical power from coal with carbon capture — but it ultimately only producedelectricity from its troubled “clean coal” equipment for roughly 100 hours before the company abandoned work on the over-budget and behind-schedule project in 2017.
The Justice Department investigation comes after the Guardian revealedthat Southern officials kept evidence of design flaws and construction problems under wraps at what was promised to be the world’s largest “clean coal” power plant — but which proved to be inoperable.
The Securities and Exchange Commission had mothballed an earlier investigation into the Kemper project without reaching conclusions before the new evidence came to light.
Violations of the False Claims Act, often used by the federal government to sue those who defraud government programs, can potentially carry triple the damages.
Southern has already racked up $6.4 billion in losses from Kemper, according to the Associated Press. It also warned investors this month that it will face additional costs related to closing Kemper’s on-site coal mine and a pipeline that would have carried its captured carbon dioxide from Kemper to the Gulf Coast, for use by the oil and gas industry.
Local utility regulators have warned that Southern should not expect to recoup those costs from power customers. “I think the commission has made clear two years ago that recovery from the Mississippi customer is closed for Kemper County,” Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley told the Associated Press when the DOJ investigation came to light.
In February 2018, Southern announced that Ernest Moniz, former Secretary of the Department of Energy, would join the company’s board of directors. Moniz had championed the Kemper project during his time at DOE. “Projects like Kemper represent the future of fossil energy — and are evidence of the Department of Energy’s commitment to #ActOnClimate by advancing technologies that make coal more efficient, economical and environmentally sustainable,” Moniz, an Obama appointee, wrote five years earlier after visiting the Kemper project.
The Trump administration has now doubled down on funding for another troubled Southern Company project.
Vogtle, the only remaining nuclear power project under construction in the U.S., was originally slated to cost $14 billion total and to start producing power in 2016. Those costs have ballooned to a projected $27.5 billion and the full project isn’t slated to be completed until late 2022.
In March, Sec. Perry announced that the DOE would offer up to $1.67 billion in new loan guarantees to the Southern Company subsidiary, Georgia Power Co., which is building the Vogtle nuclear power plant’s units 3 and 4, along with up to $2.1 billion in financing for the project’s other partners. That’s in addition to $8.3 billion in earlier federal pledges, bringing taxpayer loan guarantees for the nuclear project to roughly $12 billion.
Coal FIRST, Taxpayers Last?
The Department of Energy also continues to spend more taxpayer money on so-called “clean coal” research that has so far produced little progress relative to its costs.
The DOE’s new $100 million Coal FIRST initiative, announced in April, comes at a time when the United Nations warns the entire world must fully stop burning coal for electricity within roughly 30 years.
Coal FIRST will offer companies American taxpayer funding to create small “modular” coal plants that could be transported by 18-wheeler trucks and would use carbon capture technology to offer “near-zero” emissions.
Trump administration officials have said the miniature coal power plants would be marketed to “the developing world” because there’s no domestic demand for them.
“Building a new coal plant today is a bad idea, and building small, modular coal plants is an especially bad idea,” John Walke, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Clean Air Project, told Inside Sources. “They are still dirty, and the costs just don’t add up.”
Top Trump officials have described the possibilities for federal “clean coal” research in even more ambitious terms. “And through the remarkable technology of carbon capture utilization and storage or CCUS,” Sec. Perry said at an April speech in Dallas, Texas, “we are advancing innovations that could one day make coal as clean as renewables.”
But so far, after spending billions, the DOE has little evidence to show it’s making progress towards transforming coal into energy as clean as wind or solar.
A September 2018 Government Accountability Office report tallied $2.66 billion in Department of Energy funding since 2010 for “advanced fossil energy technologies.” The DOE spent $1.12 billion on nine large projects to meant demonstrate that carbon capture and storage could be affordably used, plus another $1.54 billion on smaller projects, 89 percent involving the use of coal.
What does DOE have to show for that spending? Of those nine projects, six were never finished and by 2017, only the Petra Nova power plant was producing power from coal while using carbon capture.
Whether that “clean coal” power can match the affordability of wind or solar, however, is another question. “While the economics of carbon capture and Petra Nova remain challenging,” David Knox, a spokesperson for builder NRG, which will receive DOE funding for Petra Nova until the end of this year, told trade publication POWER, “the plant is running as designed and has captured more than two million tons of CO2.”
Two million tons of carbon sequestration would be on par with the benefits of preserving roughly 25 square miles of U.S. forests (instead of converting them to cropland) for one year, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data.
Kemper also isn’t the only DOE-backed project to draw allegations of fraud. The Clean Coal Power Initiative, run by the same Office of Fossil Energy now behind the Coal FIRST program, was faulted by the Department of Energy’s inspector general last year for failing to collect receipts or invoices for $38 million in federal funds distributed for an “advanced coal-based technologies” project that was never built. At least $2.5 million was in fact spent on lobbying, alcoholic drinks, and “social” expenses, including limos, spa trips and catering on a private jet, auditors discovered.
There are other, more cost-effective ways to avoid carbon pollution while generating electricity. Each year, “wind and solar are displacing roughly 35 times as much CO2 every year as the complete global history of CCS,” an analysis by Clean Technica, reported last month by DeSmog, concluded.
Some utilities are in fact now proposing to do away with coal power all together. Xcel Energy announced on Monday that it would close its last two coal power plants a decade early, drawing support from environmental groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists despite the utility’s plans to continue using nuclear and natural gas power.
Other environmental organizations warn that continued funding for carbon capture not only offers false hope that coal can be “clean,” but it also undermines progress toward more realistic goals.
Incentivizing carbon capture “through policy and relying on it in planning will likely slow the transition away from fossil fuel investments and undermine broader efforts to mitigate climate change,” a March report by the Center for International Environmental Law concluded.
“Confronting the challenge of climate change is not a matter of future technology, but present political will and economic investment.”
Plastic a bigger threat to whales than oil spills or drilling, study says
Are green-minded people fixating on the wrong pollution threat?
NICOLE KARLIS - salon
MAY 22, 2019 10:00PM (UTC)
Tragic photos of oil-soaked sea animals solidified in the public consciousness the notion that oil drilling and shipping were one of the major pollutive threat to sea life. Yet a new study suggests that plastic pollution may be far worse, especially for whales.
A team of researchers at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia published a paper in The Royal Society Open Science journal on the effects of petroleum-based hydrocarbon oils (read: plastics) on the baleen of a whale. Baleen is a unique keratinous oral tissue, made up of the same protein in human fingernails, that can be found on the jaws of large whales. The eponymous Baleen whales, a class of whale that includes humpback whales and gray whales, use their baleen plates to separate food from the water when they are skim-feeding.
Considering oil has historically posed great risks to baleen whales — as it can irritate eyes, skin, and increase risk of infection when ingested — the likelihood of it impacting a whale’s baleen structure seemed high. But to the researchers' surprise, it was not.
“Oils of different weights and viscosities were tested, including six petroleum-based oils and two fish or plankton oils of common whale prey,” the authors wrote. “No notable differences were found by oil type or whale species.”
Instead of absorbing the oil, it rinsed off by flowing water, the study states, which focused on the baleen of four different whale species: bowhead, fin, humpback whales, and the North Atlantic right whales, which are severely endangered. The baleen, according to the study, either came from subsistence hunters or whales who died naturally, and was immersed in various oils tested, some for seven days.
“Microscopic examination shows minimal wrinkling or peeling of baleen's cortical keratin layers, probably due to oil repelling infiltrated water,” the authors stated. “Combined results cast doubt on fears of baleen fouling by oil; filter porosity is not appreciably affected, but oil ingestion risks remain.”
Researchers stated baleen whales likely face a greater danger from plastic pollution.
“We conclude that ingestion of microplastics may pose a greater risk to whales than ingestion of oil,” the researchers stated. “This conclusion is based on our findings of poor adsorption of oil to baleen, whereas we found (from our particle capture experiments) that the baleen filter is highly effective in trapping and accumulating small plastic particles, such that plastic is both more likely to clog the baleen filter and also perhaps more likely to be ingested by whales than oil.”
This study is timely considering the rising numbers of whales dying across the world due to plastic consumption. Marine animals often ingest plastic waste because they mistake it for food. Once a whale has ingested the plastic, it can’t be metabolized or broken down. This can cause them to become sick because of the buildup in the stomach. In this case, the whale will stop eating and ultimately starve to death. Just last week a sperm whale washed up on the shore in Italy with a stomach full of plastic. Likewise, microscopic plastic particles — known as microplastics — outnumber zooplankton in some parts of the ocean.
The study is not meant to suggest oil drilling and spills are not a threat to marine life, but to merely put into perspective the plastic problem in the world's oceans.
“Combined results cast doubt on fears of baleen fouling by oil; filter porosity is not appreciably affected, but oil ingestion risks remain,” the researchers emphasized. “Particle capture studies suggest potentially greater danger to mysticetes [Baleen whales] from plastic pollution than oil.”
More than 8.8 million tons of plastic end up in the oceans each year, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Since the 1950s, annual production of plastics has increased by nearly 200-fold. An estimated 80 percent of ocean plastics come from land-based sources, and 20 percent from marine sources, according to the nonprofit Our World in Data. If this pace continues, one report published in Science Advances estimates by 2050 the world will have produced 26 billion metric tons of plastic waste. Half of that will be dumped in landfills, and the other half becomes pollution in the environment.
Wellsley Brown, a plastics campaign associate at Oceana, told Salon in April there is a likely connection between the rise in plastic production and whale deaths.
“It makes sense that unfortunately, just because more plastic is going into the ocean, more whales are eating and dying from it,” Brown said. “We are living in a single-use plastic society where companies are wrapping so many of their products in single-use plastics, and plastic production has outpaced waste management's ability to keep up.”
A team of researchers at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia published a paper in The Royal Society Open Science journal on the effects of petroleum-based hydrocarbon oils (read: plastics) on the baleen of a whale. Baleen is a unique keratinous oral tissue, made up of the same protein in human fingernails, that can be found on the jaws of large whales. The eponymous Baleen whales, a class of whale that includes humpback whales and gray whales, use their baleen plates to separate food from the water when they are skim-feeding.
Considering oil has historically posed great risks to baleen whales — as it can irritate eyes, skin, and increase risk of infection when ingested — the likelihood of it impacting a whale’s baleen structure seemed high. But to the researchers' surprise, it was not.
“Oils of different weights and viscosities were tested, including six petroleum-based oils and two fish or plankton oils of common whale prey,” the authors wrote. “No notable differences were found by oil type or whale species.”
Instead of absorbing the oil, it rinsed off by flowing water, the study states, which focused on the baleen of four different whale species: bowhead, fin, humpback whales, and the North Atlantic right whales, which are severely endangered. The baleen, according to the study, either came from subsistence hunters or whales who died naturally, and was immersed in various oils tested, some for seven days.
“Microscopic examination shows minimal wrinkling or peeling of baleen's cortical keratin layers, probably due to oil repelling infiltrated water,” the authors stated. “Combined results cast doubt on fears of baleen fouling by oil; filter porosity is not appreciably affected, but oil ingestion risks remain.”
Researchers stated baleen whales likely face a greater danger from plastic pollution.
“We conclude that ingestion of microplastics may pose a greater risk to whales than ingestion of oil,” the researchers stated. “This conclusion is based on our findings of poor adsorption of oil to baleen, whereas we found (from our particle capture experiments) that the baleen filter is highly effective in trapping and accumulating small plastic particles, such that plastic is both more likely to clog the baleen filter and also perhaps more likely to be ingested by whales than oil.”
This study is timely considering the rising numbers of whales dying across the world due to plastic consumption. Marine animals often ingest plastic waste because they mistake it for food. Once a whale has ingested the plastic, it can’t be metabolized or broken down. This can cause them to become sick because of the buildup in the stomach. In this case, the whale will stop eating and ultimately starve to death. Just last week a sperm whale washed up on the shore in Italy with a stomach full of plastic. Likewise, microscopic plastic particles — known as microplastics — outnumber zooplankton in some parts of the ocean.
The study is not meant to suggest oil drilling and spills are not a threat to marine life, but to merely put into perspective the plastic problem in the world's oceans.
“Combined results cast doubt on fears of baleen fouling by oil; filter porosity is not appreciably affected, but oil ingestion risks remain,” the researchers emphasized. “Particle capture studies suggest potentially greater danger to mysticetes [Baleen whales] from plastic pollution than oil.”
More than 8.8 million tons of plastic end up in the oceans each year, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Since the 1950s, annual production of plastics has increased by nearly 200-fold. An estimated 80 percent of ocean plastics come from land-based sources, and 20 percent from marine sources, according to the nonprofit Our World in Data. If this pace continues, one report published in Science Advances estimates by 2050 the world will have produced 26 billion metric tons of plastic waste. Half of that will be dumped in landfills, and the other half becomes pollution in the environment.
Wellsley Brown, a plastics campaign associate at Oceana, told Salon in April there is a likely connection between the rise in plastic production and whale deaths.
“It makes sense that unfortunately, just because more plastic is going into the ocean, more whales are eating and dying from it,” Brown said. “We are living in a single-use plastic society where companies are wrapping so many of their products in single-use plastics, and plastic production has outpaced waste management's ability to keep up.”
Exposing the Dirty Business Behind the Designer Label
BY Michelle Chen, Truthout
PUBLISHED May 19, 2019
Even before it gets worn once, that new T-shirt you bought is already dirtier than you can imagine. It’s soaked through with toxic waste, factory smog and plastic debris—all of which is likely just a few spin cycles away from an incinerator, or maybe a landfill halfway around the world. Our obsession with style rivals our hunger for oil, making fashion the world’s second-most polluting industry after the oil industry.
According to the think tank Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF), the majority of fast-fashion products —the hyperactive production and marketing cycle fueled by high-volume, high-speed supply chains, which often bludgeon the environment while driving ultra-cheap retail market —are incinerated or trashed within a year. In the U.S., wasted leather, cloth, rubber and other scraps constitute over 8 percent of the total volume of solid waste. Global clothing consumption averages about 22 pounds annually per person, though the U.S. and Europe each average roughly triple that amount.
While local pollution piles up, a more chronic hazard looms on the horizon. At the current rate of pollution, the apparel sector’s carbon emissions will balloon by 60 percent by 2030, according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, amounting to about a quarter of the global carbon budget. The total share of carbon emissions from the sector by 2050 would actually be equivalent to roughly 300 million tons of oil—more than tripling within a generation.
The premature trashing of clothes wastes money as well as resources, costing an estimated $460 billion in product value per year. Around the world, the number of times people wear a garment has dropped by a third over the past 15 years, while clothing production has doubled. Americans in particular “wear out” clothes at roughly four times the global rate—snatching up jeans and boots practically faster than we can break them in. And although spring and fall are the main shopping seasons, brands now compete on “micro seasons,” ranging anywhere from 50 to 100 per year—so a hot collection might rotate from the display window to the landfill within weeks.
The whole clothing supply chain, from the seed to the sales floor, also ravages water and soil resources. A pair of jeans and a T-shirt, which amount to roughly two pounds of cotton, represent an estimated 20,000 liters of water. In addition, conventional cotton crops absorb about 24 percent of global insecticide sales and 11 percent of pesticide sales. Non-biodegradable plastic, synthetic fibers that are shed in the laundry flush into oceans and poison marine ecosystems, contributing roughly a third of global microplastic water pollution, or half a million tons of plastics. According to the World Bank, textile processing and dyeing contribute up to an estimated 20 percent of industrial water pollution today, the impacts of which are concentrated major producing countries that are already suffering massive water stress, like China.
In addition to the harm it is causing to the planet, all this waste is also bad for business in the long run. A recent industry analysis by The Boston Consulting Group warned that fashion manufacturing is reaching economically unsustainable limits, as revenues could drop by 3 percent by 2030 at current levels of production, amounting to yearly losses of roughly $50 billion.
“The fashion industry has been marking its own homework for too long,” says Orsola de Castro, co-founder of Fashion Revolution, a global campaign founded in the wake of the horrific factory collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh in 2013. The veteran designer points out that even the limited “ethical sourcing” programs that brands use to audit their overseas factories are often toothless and unregulated. Although consumer pressure is rising, she observes, fashion remains “a profoundly growth-driven market, rather than a quality-driven market.” And once overproduced goods hit Western retail storefronts, “brands are burning millions and millions and millions worth of product that is unsold.”
Meanwhile, synthetic fiber consumption is soaring worldwide and streaming into poorer markets. Consumers in the Global South are driving an estimated 63 percent of clothing-based plastics consumption. Global clothing sales are set to roughly triple as Asian and African economies start to adopt “Western lifestyle” habits. The migration of consumption that has followed “development” underscores an even more visceral irony in the Global South’s exploitative labor system. The industry is notorious for abusive conditions, including the use of child labor and unsafe and fire-prone facilities across Asia; the economic injustices are underscored by the same region’s disproportionate vulnerability to both industrial pollution and climate crisis.
However, consumers are slowly waking up to the massive pollution crisis surrounding our wardrobes, and brands are facing pressure to clean up the dirty business behind the designer label. Like consumer-driven mobilizations against sweatshops in the Global South, campaigns for ecologically conscious fashion have spawned green style trends. Community initiatives promote “upcycling” or renewing old clothes, and fostering repair programs, while some brands commit to eliminating toxic chemicals or creating net-zero emissions in garment manufacturing. Fashion today remains a ritual of mass consumption, but rising environmental consciousness among designers and the public have foregrounded the need for sustainable style.
Earlier this year, following a months-long investigation, the Environmental Audit Committee of the British Parliament recommended an unprecedented 1-pence tax on clothing purchases, dubbed a “producer responsibility charge.” The fee would support the development of reuse and recycling programs and “take-back” schemes for used garments. Clearly, a pence won’t dramatically change the industry, but the initiative reflects the ethical conundrum coloring the fashion market: Isn’t it worth it to pay a little more for a shirt that harms the planet a little less?
The political momentum to propose the fashion tax may be inspired in part by a bonfire on the U.K.’s High Street last year. The classic British luxury brand Burberry was faced with a waste scandal after it was discovered to have destroyed $40 million worth of unsold stock. Last fall, the company sought to redeem its reputation through a media-genic partnership with “sustainable luxury” brand Elvis & Kresse, seeking to recycle 120 tons of leather scraps over the next five years into renewed products. But Burberry’s atonement hardly redeemed an industry that is fueled by the most wasteful, environmentally destructive production processes. Truly combating the waste that is endemic in clothing production requires a total makeover.
Cleaning up fast fashion would necessitate a radical re-imagining of what we wear, who makes it and what it represents. Today, rankings of fashion brands according to the environmental impact of their supply chains show that the vast majority fail to incorporate eco-friendly production methods, including controlling chemical and energy use.
Some designers, like Stella McCartney, have branded themselves as sustainable fashion pioneers, with upcycled product lines featuring organic cotton and water-bottle-cum-handbags. But such eco-focused brands occupy just a tiny percentage of the market.
According to Francois Souchet, head of EMF’s Make Fashion Circular program, “Just slowing down isn’t enough … we need to change the way the industry operates quite fundamentally.”
To help reverse destructive cycle, Souchet says, the fashion sector should adopt a fully “circular” industrial infrastructure which relies on renewable energy and recyclable fiber. The circular-economy concept advocates “designing out” waste—deliberately constructing styles for durability, using recycled materials or organic fibers, without requiring hazardous pigments and other chemicals. For brands and consumers, Souchet says, “the incentive is on using what’s been produced more, on producing better, and on ensuring that once it can’t be used anymore, it can actually be turned into [something] new.”
Still, because of the endemic waste that plagues the current manufacturing supply chain, some limit on new production of clothes is essential. To that end, creating an infrastructure for reuse and resale is key. The secondary market for clothes is huge, but ill-equipped to process much of the Global North’s waste stream without creating more waste elsewhere. Currently, about 60 percent of the clothes salvaged by U.S. charities for reuse are exported to markets in the Global South, many of them in Africa. The overseas used-clothes trade, like the rest of the fashion supply chain, exploits the poorer markets of the Global South by externalizing the industry’s endemic economic abuses onto the most vulnerable communities. The mass dumping of secondhand clothes is hardly a sustainable form of “reuse,” critics say, because it hampers higher-quality regional manufacturing in countries like Kenya and Uganda, by distorting the potential market for locally made fashion.
Patsy Perry, a lecturer in fashion marketing at the University of Manchester, says that measures like the U.K. Parliament’s proposed tax mark a symbolic first step toward accountability across the supply chain for brands and retailers, by “leveling the playing field and making it non-optional. Otherwise, we will always have the situation where some companies behave well and try to do better, while others do not bother.” Nonetheless, given that fast fashion dominates the current consumer culture, she adds, tax incentives should be complemented by a societal effort to shift consumer culture to “normalize sustainable behavior,” perhaps through public campaigns to promote ecologically safer forms of disposal, or extending secondhand and repair economies. The U.K. Parliament’s study on the proposed fashion tax notes that, “Extending the life of clothing by an extra nine months could reduce carbon, waste and water footprints by around 20 to 30 percent each.”
Implementing stronger environmental and labor regulations, such as sharply restricting the use of plastics in manufacturing, can drive producers to switch to more ethical sourcing practices. But a true fashion makeover will have to interweave consumer culture with public policies to reduce overall consumption. Although there is no comprehensive national legislation aimed specifically at combating fashion waste, some cities and states have targeted various forms of plastic waste, particularly microbeads from personal care products and single-use plastic bags. But piecemeal bans and taxes would still barely dent the overall waste burden clogging global waterways.
Other efforts have emerged in the social, rather than policy making arena, generated instead by grassroots environmental campaigns collaborating with brands and consumers. On the community level, Fashion Revolutionhas collaborated with designers on workshops on sustainable productionand transparency, and partnered with Greenpeace on a “Haulternative challenge” to encourage eco-friendly initiatives to resell, redesign, repair, or swap apparel. Some communities have offered workshops on repair and reuse to mend or renew, rather than trash, old items. And as part of a broader waste-reduction agenda, the #MakeFashionCircular campaign has partnered with New York City’s Sanitation Department and megabrands like Zara and H&M to launch a digitally mapped network of local drop-off sites, from churches to boutiques, to divert clothes from landfills.
Still, although brand campaigns and DIY culture can promote the concept of sustainable fashion, the best way to reduce waste is to reduce production in the first place. According to an analysis of the supply chain by economists Simon Mair and Jacquetta Lee, “take-back” schemes to upcycle old items will not necessarily curb the overall volume of the fashion market, “largely because they do not discourage people from reducing the amount of clothes they buy. That is, they do not challenge the core fashion business model based on high volume sales through which consumers are encouraged to buy more and more.”
At the same time, recycling alone would not address fast fashion’s social problems, particularly labor abuses in Global South factories. A sustainable supply chain should also support decent jobs. Ideally, a revamped manufacturing system would foster opportunities for workers in exporting countries to produce environmentally conscious apparel, while earning living wages under healthy conditions. Labor and environmental advocates, Mair and Lee argue, should champion “shifting the focus of production from profits to a wider set of social and environmental values.”
Fashion does have perhaps one edge on other industries: It is, by definition, constantly changing. But instead of just switching fabrics or adjusting hemlines, designers and consumers can start redesigning our economy to redefine the classic adage of style: Less is more.
According to the think tank Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF), the majority of fast-fashion products —the hyperactive production and marketing cycle fueled by high-volume, high-speed supply chains, which often bludgeon the environment while driving ultra-cheap retail market —are incinerated or trashed within a year. In the U.S., wasted leather, cloth, rubber and other scraps constitute over 8 percent of the total volume of solid waste. Global clothing consumption averages about 22 pounds annually per person, though the U.S. and Europe each average roughly triple that amount.
While local pollution piles up, a more chronic hazard looms on the horizon. At the current rate of pollution, the apparel sector’s carbon emissions will balloon by 60 percent by 2030, according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, amounting to about a quarter of the global carbon budget. The total share of carbon emissions from the sector by 2050 would actually be equivalent to roughly 300 million tons of oil—more than tripling within a generation.
The premature trashing of clothes wastes money as well as resources, costing an estimated $460 billion in product value per year. Around the world, the number of times people wear a garment has dropped by a third over the past 15 years, while clothing production has doubled. Americans in particular “wear out” clothes at roughly four times the global rate—snatching up jeans and boots practically faster than we can break them in. And although spring and fall are the main shopping seasons, brands now compete on “micro seasons,” ranging anywhere from 50 to 100 per year—so a hot collection might rotate from the display window to the landfill within weeks.
The whole clothing supply chain, from the seed to the sales floor, also ravages water and soil resources. A pair of jeans and a T-shirt, which amount to roughly two pounds of cotton, represent an estimated 20,000 liters of water. In addition, conventional cotton crops absorb about 24 percent of global insecticide sales and 11 percent of pesticide sales. Non-biodegradable plastic, synthetic fibers that are shed in the laundry flush into oceans and poison marine ecosystems, contributing roughly a third of global microplastic water pollution, or half a million tons of plastics. According to the World Bank, textile processing and dyeing contribute up to an estimated 20 percent of industrial water pollution today, the impacts of which are concentrated major producing countries that are already suffering massive water stress, like China.
In addition to the harm it is causing to the planet, all this waste is also bad for business in the long run. A recent industry analysis by The Boston Consulting Group warned that fashion manufacturing is reaching economically unsustainable limits, as revenues could drop by 3 percent by 2030 at current levels of production, amounting to yearly losses of roughly $50 billion.
“The fashion industry has been marking its own homework for too long,” says Orsola de Castro, co-founder of Fashion Revolution, a global campaign founded in the wake of the horrific factory collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh in 2013. The veteran designer points out that even the limited “ethical sourcing” programs that brands use to audit their overseas factories are often toothless and unregulated. Although consumer pressure is rising, she observes, fashion remains “a profoundly growth-driven market, rather than a quality-driven market.” And once overproduced goods hit Western retail storefronts, “brands are burning millions and millions and millions worth of product that is unsold.”
Meanwhile, synthetic fiber consumption is soaring worldwide and streaming into poorer markets. Consumers in the Global South are driving an estimated 63 percent of clothing-based plastics consumption. Global clothing sales are set to roughly triple as Asian and African economies start to adopt “Western lifestyle” habits. The migration of consumption that has followed “development” underscores an even more visceral irony in the Global South’s exploitative labor system. The industry is notorious for abusive conditions, including the use of child labor and unsafe and fire-prone facilities across Asia; the economic injustices are underscored by the same region’s disproportionate vulnerability to both industrial pollution and climate crisis.
However, consumers are slowly waking up to the massive pollution crisis surrounding our wardrobes, and brands are facing pressure to clean up the dirty business behind the designer label. Like consumer-driven mobilizations against sweatshops in the Global South, campaigns for ecologically conscious fashion have spawned green style trends. Community initiatives promote “upcycling” or renewing old clothes, and fostering repair programs, while some brands commit to eliminating toxic chemicals or creating net-zero emissions in garment manufacturing. Fashion today remains a ritual of mass consumption, but rising environmental consciousness among designers and the public have foregrounded the need for sustainable style.
Earlier this year, following a months-long investigation, the Environmental Audit Committee of the British Parliament recommended an unprecedented 1-pence tax on clothing purchases, dubbed a “producer responsibility charge.” The fee would support the development of reuse and recycling programs and “take-back” schemes for used garments. Clearly, a pence won’t dramatically change the industry, but the initiative reflects the ethical conundrum coloring the fashion market: Isn’t it worth it to pay a little more for a shirt that harms the planet a little less?
The political momentum to propose the fashion tax may be inspired in part by a bonfire on the U.K.’s High Street last year. The classic British luxury brand Burberry was faced with a waste scandal after it was discovered to have destroyed $40 million worth of unsold stock. Last fall, the company sought to redeem its reputation through a media-genic partnership with “sustainable luxury” brand Elvis & Kresse, seeking to recycle 120 tons of leather scraps over the next five years into renewed products. But Burberry’s atonement hardly redeemed an industry that is fueled by the most wasteful, environmentally destructive production processes. Truly combating the waste that is endemic in clothing production requires a total makeover.
Cleaning up fast fashion would necessitate a radical re-imagining of what we wear, who makes it and what it represents. Today, rankings of fashion brands according to the environmental impact of their supply chains show that the vast majority fail to incorporate eco-friendly production methods, including controlling chemical and energy use.
Some designers, like Stella McCartney, have branded themselves as sustainable fashion pioneers, with upcycled product lines featuring organic cotton and water-bottle-cum-handbags. But such eco-focused brands occupy just a tiny percentage of the market.
According to Francois Souchet, head of EMF’s Make Fashion Circular program, “Just slowing down isn’t enough … we need to change the way the industry operates quite fundamentally.”
To help reverse destructive cycle, Souchet says, the fashion sector should adopt a fully “circular” industrial infrastructure which relies on renewable energy and recyclable fiber. The circular-economy concept advocates “designing out” waste—deliberately constructing styles for durability, using recycled materials or organic fibers, without requiring hazardous pigments and other chemicals. For brands and consumers, Souchet says, “the incentive is on using what’s been produced more, on producing better, and on ensuring that once it can’t be used anymore, it can actually be turned into [something] new.”
Still, because of the endemic waste that plagues the current manufacturing supply chain, some limit on new production of clothes is essential. To that end, creating an infrastructure for reuse and resale is key. The secondary market for clothes is huge, but ill-equipped to process much of the Global North’s waste stream without creating more waste elsewhere. Currently, about 60 percent of the clothes salvaged by U.S. charities for reuse are exported to markets in the Global South, many of them in Africa. The overseas used-clothes trade, like the rest of the fashion supply chain, exploits the poorer markets of the Global South by externalizing the industry’s endemic economic abuses onto the most vulnerable communities. The mass dumping of secondhand clothes is hardly a sustainable form of “reuse,” critics say, because it hampers higher-quality regional manufacturing in countries like Kenya and Uganda, by distorting the potential market for locally made fashion.
Patsy Perry, a lecturer in fashion marketing at the University of Manchester, says that measures like the U.K. Parliament’s proposed tax mark a symbolic first step toward accountability across the supply chain for brands and retailers, by “leveling the playing field and making it non-optional. Otherwise, we will always have the situation where some companies behave well and try to do better, while others do not bother.” Nonetheless, given that fast fashion dominates the current consumer culture, she adds, tax incentives should be complemented by a societal effort to shift consumer culture to “normalize sustainable behavior,” perhaps through public campaigns to promote ecologically safer forms of disposal, or extending secondhand and repair economies. The U.K. Parliament’s study on the proposed fashion tax notes that, “Extending the life of clothing by an extra nine months could reduce carbon, waste and water footprints by around 20 to 30 percent each.”
Implementing stronger environmental and labor regulations, such as sharply restricting the use of plastics in manufacturing, can drive producers to switch to more ethical sourcing practices. But a true fashion makeover will have to interweave consumer culture with public policies to reduce overall consumption. Although there is no comprehensive national legislation aimed specifically at combating fashion waste, some cities and states have targeted various forms of plastic waste, particularly microbeads from personal care products and single-use plastic bags. But piecemeal bans and taxes would still barely dent the overall waste burden clogging global waterways.
Other efforts have emerged in the social, rather than policy making arena, generated instead by grassroots environmental campaigns collaborating with brands and consumers. On the community level, Fashion Revolutionhas collaborated with designers on workshops on sustainable productionand transparency, and partnered with Greenpeace on a “Haulternative challenge” to encourage eco-friendly initiatives to resell, redesign, repair, or swap apparel. Some communities have offered workshops on repair and reuse to mend or renew, rather than trash, old items. And as part of a broader waste-reduction agenda, the #MakeFashionCircular campaign has partnered with New York City’s Sanitation Department and megabrands like Zara and H&M to launch a digitally mapped network of local drop-off sites, from churches to boutiques, to divert clothes from landfills.
Still, although brand campaigns and DIY culture can promote the concept of sustainable fashion, the best way to reduce waste is to reduce production in the first place. According to an analysis of the supply chain by economists Simon Mair and Jacquetta Lee, “take-back” schemes to upcycle old items will not necessarily curb the overall volume of the fashion market, “largely because they do not discourage people from reducing the amount of clothes they buy. That is, they do not challenge the core fashion business model based on high volume sales through which consumers are encouraged to buy more and more.”
At the same time, recycling alone would not address fast fashion’s social problems, particularly labor abuses in Global South factories. A sustainable supply chain should also support decent jobs. Ideally, a revamped manufacturing system would foster opportunities for workers in exporting countries to produce environmentally conscious apparel, while earning living wages under healthy conditions. Labor and environmental advocates, Mair and Lee argue, should champion “shifting the focus of production from profits to a wider set of social and environmental values.”
Fashion does have perhaps one edge on other industries: It is, by definition, constantly changing. But instead of just switching fabrics or adjusting hemlines, designers and consumers can start redesigning our economy to redefine the classic adage of style: Less is more.
Scientists are baffled by a giant spike in this greenhouse gas — and it’s not CO2
Grist - raw story
17 MAY 2019 AT 13:00 ET
The unexpected culprit that could throw a wrench in the world’s efforts to stop climate change? Runaway methane levels. Researchers monitoring air samples have noticed an alarming observation: Methane levels are on the rise and no one’s quite sure why.
NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory scientists have been analyzing air samples since 1983. Once a week, metal flasks containing air from around the world at different elevations find their way to the Boulder, Colorado, lab. The scientists look at 55 greenhouse gases, including methane and its more-famous climate villain, CO2.
You might know methane as the stuff of cow farts, natural gas, and landfills. It’s also an incredibly potent greenhouse gas, absorbing heat 25 times more effectively than CO2. While the rise of carbon dioxide has been stealing the spotlight as of late, methane levels have also been on the incline.
Methane levels, not surprisingly, have been steadily rising since the Industrial Revolution. Things picked up in 1980 and soon after, the NOAA scientists began consistently measuring methane. Levels were high but flattened out by the turn of the millenium. So when levels began to increase at a rapid rate in 2007, and then even faster in 2014, scientists were baffled. No one’s best guesses came close to predicting current methane levels of around 1,867 parts per billion as of 2018. This means studies evaluating the effects of climate change and action plans to address them, like the Paris Climate Agreement, may be based on downplayed climate crisis forecasts.
So what’s the big deal? Carbon dioxide emissions are relatively well understood and can be tracked to various human activities like transportation and electricity, which means policies can be enacted to target and lower emissions. Pinning down the source of methane, on the other hand, is a little more complicated.
“The really fascinating thing about methane,” Lori Bruhwiler, a NOAA research scientist, told Undark, “is the fact that almost everything we humans do has an effect on the methane budget, from producing food to producing fuel to disposing of waste.”
As if things weren’t complicated enough, a study published in AGU100 distinguished microbe-produced methane from fossil fuel methane — historically the more abundant one — and found that “natural” methane had taken the lead. This unexpected result might explain the upticks in methane levels that do not seem correlated with human activity. Of course, it could also be any number of human-made causes, including warming temperatures freeing up the gas and more frequent floods amplifying the methane output of wetlands.
Natural methane or not, this finding doesn’t exonerate anyone. The study’s authorsmade that clear in their concluding remarks.
“If the increased methane burden is driven by increased emissions from natural sources,” they wrote, “and if this is a climate feedback—the warming feeding the warming—then there is urgency to reduce anthropogenic emissions, which we can control.”
Curbing methane could be a powerful tool in our upcoming climate fight. Since the greenhouse gas is relatively short lived, only around 12 years, versus the 20 to 200 years of CO2, and is more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, addressing methane emissions could be effective as a short-term climate remediation tool. The first step? Bringing more attention to methane so we can figure out where it comes from and nip it in the bud.
NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory scientists have been analyzing air samples since 1983. Once a week, metal flasks containing air from around the world at different elevations find their way to the Boulder, Colorado, lab. The scientists look at 55 greenhouse gases, including methane and its more-famous climate villain, CO2.
You might know methane as the stuff of cow farts, natural gas, and landfills. It’s also an incredibly potent greenhouse gas, absorbing heat 25 times more effectively than CO2. While the rise of carbon dioxide has been stealing the spotlight as of late, methane levels have also been on the incline.
Methane levels, not surprisingly, have been steadily rising since the Industrial Revolution. Things picked up in 1980 and soon after, the NOAA scientists began consistently measuring methane. Levels were high but flattened out by the turn of the millenium. So when levels began to increase at a rapid rate in 2007, and then even faster in 2014, scientists were baffled. No one’s best guesses came close to predicting current methane levels of around 1,867 parts per billion as of 2018. This means studies evaluating the effects of climate change and action plans to address them, like the Paris Climate Agreement, may be based on downplayed climate crisis forecasts.
So what’s the big deal? Carbon dioxide emissions are relatively well understood and can be tracked to various human activities like transportation and electricity, which means policies can be enacted to target and lower emissions. Pinning down the source of methane, on the other hand, is a little more complicated.
“The really fascinating thing about methane,” Lori Bruhwiler, a NOAA research scientist, told Undark, “is the fact that almost everything we humans do has an effect on the methane budget, from producing food to producing fuel to disposing of waste.”
As if things weren’t complicated enough, a study published in AGU100 distinguished microbe-produced methane from fossil fuel methane — historically the more abundant one — and found that “natural” methane had taken the lead. This unexpected result might explain the upticks in methane levels that do not seem correlated with human activity. Of course, it could also be any number of human-made causes, including warming temperatures freeing up the gas and more frequent floods amplifying the methane output of wetlands.
Natural methane or not, this finding doesn’t exonerate anyone. The study’s authorsmade that clear in their concluding remarks.
“If the increased methane burden is driven by increased emissions from natural sources,” they wrote, “and if this is a climate feedback—the warming feeding the warming—then there is urgency to reduce anthropogenic emissions, which we can control.”
Curbing methane could be a powerful tool in our upcoming climate fight. Since the greenhouse gas is relatively short lived, only around 12 years, versus the 20 to 200 years of CO2, and is more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, addressing methane emissions could be effective as a short-term climate remediation tool. The first step? Bringing more attention to methane so we can figure out where it comes from and nip it in the bud.
Nearly all countries agree to stem flow of plastic waste into poor nations
US reportedly opposed deal, which follows concerns that villages in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia had ‘turned into dumpsites’
Emily Holden and agencies
the guardian
Fri 10 May 2019 19.02 EDT
Almost all the world’s countries have agreed on a deal aimed at restricting shipments of hard-to-recycle plastic waste to poorer countries, the United Nations announced on Friday.
Exporting countries – including the US – now will have to obtain consent from countries receiving contaminated, mixed or unrecyclable plastic waste. Currently, the US and other countries can send lower-quality plastic waste to private entities in developing countries without getting approval from their governments.
Since China stopped accepting recycling from the US, activists say they have observed plastic waste piling up in developing countries. The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (Gaia), a backer of the deal, says it found villages in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia that had “turned into dumpsites over the course of a year”.
“We were finding that there was waste from the US that was just piled up in villages throughout these countries that had once been primarily agricultural communities,” said Claire Arkin, a spokeswoman for Gaia.
The legally binding framework emerged at the end of a two-week meeting of UN-backed conventions on plastic waste and toxic, hazardous chemicals that threaten the planet’s seas and creatures. The pact comes in an amendment to the Basel convention. The US is not a party to that convention so it did not have a vote, but attendees at the meeting said the country argued against the change, saying officials didn’t understand the repercussions it would have on the plastic waste trade.
Plastic debris clutters pristine land, floats in huge masses in oceans and entangles and endangers wildlife. Less valuable and harder to recycle plastic is likely to end up discarded rather than turned into new products. The deal affects products used in a broad array of industries, such as healthcare, technology, aerospace, fashion and food and beverages.
Rolph Payet of the United Nations Environment Program called the agreement – signed by 187 countries in Geneva, Switzerland, under the convention – “historic”, because countries will have to monitor where plastic waste goes when it leaves their borders. Payet said the negotiations, which began 11 days ago and brought together 1,400 delegates, had gone much further than anticipated.
He compared plastic pollution to an “epidemic”, with “an estimated 100m tonnes of plastic [110m US tons] now found in the oceans, 80 to 90% of which comes from land-based sources”.
The Basel convention sets rules for first-world countries shipping hazardous waste to less wealthy nations. Backers say the amendment will make the global trade in plastic waste more transparent and better regulated, protecting humans and the environment.
The US and other countries now will not be able to send the plastic waste to developing countries that are part of the Basel convention and are not part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a press release from major advocacy organizations explained.
Officials attributed the progress partly to growing public awareness – reinforced by documentary films by the British naturalist Sir David Attenborough and others – of the dangers of plastic pollution, especially to marine life.
“It was those iconic images of the dead albatross chicks on the Pacific Islands with their stomachs open and all recognizable plastic items inside it, and most recently, it’s been when we discovered the nano-particles do cross the blood-brain barrier, and we were able to prove that plastic is in us,” said Paul Rose, expedition leader for the National Geographic “pristine seas” expeditions, aimed at protecting the oceans.
Recent images that went viral of dead whales washing up with hundreds of pounds of plastic garbage in their stomachs also widely shocked the public. A new online petition entitled “Stop dumping plastic in paradise!” has attracted almost a million signatures in the past week.
The new rules will take a year to come into force.
Von Hernandez, global coordinator for Break Free from Plastic, said the deal is “a crucial first step towards stopping the use of developing countries as a dumping ground for the world’s plastic waste, especially those coming from rich nations”.
Marco Lambertini, director general of the environmental and wildlife charity WWF International, said the accord is a welcome step and that for too long wealthy countries have abdicated responsibility for enormous quantities of plastic waste.
“However, it only goes part of the way. What we – and the planet – need is a comprehensive treaty to tackle the global plastic crisis,” Lambertini added.
Exporting countries – including the US – now will have to obtain consent from countries receiving contaminated, mixed or unrecyclable plastic waste. Currently, the US and other countries can send lower-quality plastic waste to private entities in developing countries without getting approval from their governments.
Since China stopped accepting recycling from the US, activists say they have observed plastic waste piling up in developing countries. The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (Gaia), a backer of the deal, says it found villages in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia that had “turned into dumpsites over the course of a year”.
“We were finding that there was waste from the US that was just piled up in villages throughout these countries that had once been primarily agricultural communities,” said Claire Arkin, a spokeswoman for Gaia.
The legally binding framework emerged at the end of a two-week meeting of UN-backed conventions on plastic waste and toxic, hazardous chemicals that threaten the planet’s seas and creatures. The pact comes in an amendment to the Basel convention. The US is not a party to that convention so it did not have a vote, but attendees at the meeting said the country argued against the change, saying officials didn’t understand the repercussions it would have on the plastic waste trade.
Plastic debris clutters pristine land, floats in huge masses in oceans and entangles and endangers wildlife. Less valuable and harder to recycle plastic is likely to end up discarded rather than turned into new products. The deal affects products used in a broad array of industries, such as healthcare, technology, aerospace, fashion and food and beverages.
Rolph Payet of the United Nations Environment Program called the agreement – signed by 187 countries in Geneva, Switzerland, under the convention – “historic”, because countries will have to monitor where plastic waste goes when it leaves their borders. Payet said the negotiations, which began 11 days ago and brought together 1,400 delegates, had gone much further than anticipated.
He compared plastic pollution to an “epidemic”, with “an estimated 100m tonnes of plastic [110m US tons] now found in the oceans, 80 to 90% of which comes from land-based sources”.
The Basel convention sets rules for first-world countries shipping hazardous waste to less wealthy nations. Backers say the amendment will make the global trade in plastic waste more transparent and better regulated, protecting humans and the environment.
The US and other countries now will not be able to send the plastic waste to developing countries that are part of the Basel convention and are not part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a press release from major advocacy organizations explained.
Officials attributed the progress partly to growing public awareness – reinforced by documentary films by the British naturalist Sir David Attenborough and others – of the dangers of plastic pollution, especially to marine life.
“It was those iconic images of the dead albatross chicks on the Pacific Islands with their stomachs open and all recognizable plastic items inside it, and most recently, it’s been when we discovered the nano-particles do cross the blood-brain barrier, and we were able to prove that plastic is in us,” said Paul Rose, expedition leader for the National Geographic “pristine seas” expeditions, aimed at protecting the oceans.
Recent images that went viral of dead whales washing up with hundreds of pounds of plastic garbage in their stomachs also widely shocked the public. A new online petition entitled “Stop dumping plastic in paradise!” has attracted almost a million signatures in the past week.
The new rules will take a year to come into force.
Von Hernandez, global coordinator for Break Free from Plastic, said the deal is “a crucial first step towards stopping the use of developing countries as a dumping ground for the world’s plastic waste, especially those coming from rich nations”.
Marco Lambertini, director general of the environmental and wildlife charity WWF International, said the accord is a welcome step and that for too long wealthy countries have abdicated responsibility for enormous quantities of plastic waste.
“However, it only goes part of the way. What we – and the planet – need is a comprehensive treaty to tackle the global plastic crisis,” Lambertini added.
Fresh mountain smog? 96% of national parks have hazardous air quality – study Report finds popular parks
such as Yosemite and Joshua Tree have pollution at levels that threaten visitors and wildlife
Gabrielle Canon
the guardian
Last modified on Wed 8 May 2019 10.11 EDT
Another study found air pollution in national parks has rivaled that of cities such as Los Angeles. Photograph: Westend61/Getty Images
Millions of tourists will head out into America’s national parks this summer in search of fresh mountain air. But according to a new report they should instead expect dangerous levels of pollution; roughly 96% of the nation’s parks are struggling with significant air quality issues.
The report, released yesterday by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), found that some of the most popular parks, including Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Joshua Tree national parks and Mojave national preserve, were among the worst offenders. Last year, these parks recorded up to two months where ozone levels were considered dangerous –mostly in summer when visitation is at its highest.
In 88% of parks, the NPCA found that the elevated levels of air pollution were a direct threat to sensitive species. Air pollution is also exacerbating climate change, adding to a mounting list of threats to national parks that includes wildfire, drought and unnatural seasons.
“We are not doing right by the places that we most cherish,” said Stephanie Kodish, the Clean Air program director for the NPCA. “By protecting these places we are protecting each other, our communities and we are protecting the planet,” she says, emphasizing that the actions that need to be taken to safeguard the parks are the same needed to combat climate change and defend public health.
Bad air quality can cause lung damage, harm immune systems and increase inflammation, having lasting impact on the health of rangers and visitors. It also causes irreversible damage to the parks themselves. Ozone has the ability to affect soil, burn plants and harm habitats. From Yosemite’s ponderosa pines to the arid ecosystems of Joshua Tree, there are already signs of suffering, according to information released by the National Park Service, and the issue has been an urgent one for decades.
Independent researchers came to similar conclusions last year,detailing in a scientific study that, over the last two decades, air pollution in parks has rivaled that of the 20 largest major metropolitan cities, including Los Angeles and Houston. The study also concluded that bad air quality causes some people to stop visiting, sparking economic concerns, but there has still been an impact on visitors’ health.
“There were still tens or hundreds of millions of visitor days since the beginning of our study in 1990,” said Dr David Keiser, an environmental economist at Iowa State University and the lead researcher on last year’s study. “This is a tremendous amount of exposure to the US population and one of the things I don’t think too many people think about.”
Advocates believe the problems will only get worse as the Trump administration continues to repeal regulations and push for more drilling on public lands. The administration has overseen an 85% drop in EPA pollution enforcement, and just last week the Bureau of Land Management took the next step in a plan that would open more than 1.6m acres in California near these parks to fracking.
Still, compliance with the Clean Air Act requires states to protect national parks and new rules could help curb air contamination in the coming years. Under the Regional Haze Rule, states will have to submit updated plans for how they will address the pollution affecting the parks by 2021, and clean up their acts by 2028. The rule, implemented in 1999, set goals to return the air quality in parks to pre-pollution levels by 2064.
Kodish of the NPCA said there was still a long way to go. Some parks remain hundreds of years away from that mark, and states such as Utah and Texas are resisting the regulations. But she remained optimistic that, with growing appreciation of the parks and their importance, Americans will embrace the efforts.
“I hope that people think about our national parks as bipartisan unifiers. That the connection to our national parks is one that can help preserve our future, our history, our culture,” she said. “For the American people, they should serve as a reminder – and a warning cry.”
The report, released yesterday by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), found that some of the most popular parks, including Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Joshua Tree national parks and Mojave national preserve, were among the worst offenders. Last year, these parks recorded up to two months where ozone levels were considered dangerous –mostly in summer when visitation is at its highest.
In 88% of parks, the NPCA found that the elevated levels of air pollution were a direct threat to sensitive species. Air pollution is also exacerbating climate change, adding to a mounting list of threats to national parks that includes wildfire, drought and unnatural seasons.
“We are not doing right by the places that we most cherish,” said Stephanie Kodish, the Clean Air program director for the NPCA. “By protecting these places we are protecting each other, our communities and we are protecting the planet,” she says, emphasizing that the actions that need to be taken to safeguard the parks are the same needed to combat climate change and defend public health.
Bad air quality can cause lung damage, harm immune systems and increase inflammation, having lasting impact on the health of rangers and visitors. It also causes irreversible damage to the parks themselves. Ozone has the ability to affect soil, burn plants and harm habitats. From Yosemite’s ponderosa pines to the arid ecosystems of Joshua Tree, there are already signs of suffering, according to information released by the National Park Service, and the issue has been an urgent one for decades.
Independent researchers came to similar conclusions last year,detailing in a scientific study that, over the last two decades, air pollution in parks has rivaled that of the 20 largest major metropolitan cities, including Los Angeles and Houston. The study also concluded that bad air quality causes some people to stop visiting, sparking economic concerns, but there has still been an impact on visitors’ health.
“There were still tens or hundreds of millions of visitor days since the beginning of our study in 1990,” said Dr David Keiser, an environmental economist at Iowa State University and the lead researcher on last year’s study. “This is a tremendous amount of exposure to the US population and one of the things I don’t think too many people think about.”
Advocates believe the problems will only get worse as the Trump administration continues to repeal regulations and push for more drilling on public lands. The administration has overseen an 85% drop in EPA pollution enforcement, and just last week the Bureau of Land Management took the next step in a plan that would open more than 1.6m acres in California near these parks to fracking.
Still, compliance with the Clean Air Act requires states to protect national parks and new rules could help curb air contamination in the coming years. Under the Regional Haze Rule, states will have to submit updated plans for how they will address the pollution affecting the parks by 2021, and clean up their acts by 2028. The rule, implemented in 1999, set goals to return the air quality in parks to pre-pollution levels by 2064.
Kodish of the NPCA said there was still a long way to go. Some parks remain hundreds of years away from that mark, and states such as Utah and Texas are resisting the regulations. But she remained optimistic that, with growing appreciation of the parks and their importance, Americans will embrace the efforts.
“I hope that people think about our national parks as bipartisan unifiers. That the connection to our national parks is one that can help preserve our future, our history, our culture,” she said. “For the American people, they should serve as a reminder – and a warning cry.”
SHRIMP ARE TESTING POSITIVE FOR COCAINE AND SCIENTISTS DON’T KNOW WHY
BY KASHMIRA GANDER - newsweek
ON 5/2/19 AT 7:55 AM EDT
Scientists investigating the contamination of wildlife with drugs have found cocaine in every shrimp they studied, as well as other chemicals such as banned pesticides.
To carry out their study published in the journal Environment International, scientists collected shrimp samples in July 2018 from 15 sites across five river catchments in the non-metropolitan county of Suffolk on the east coast of England, U.K.. These included Gipping, Alde, Deben, Stour and Waveney.
Cocaine was the most commonly found drug and identified in every sample, as well as the anesthetic lidocaine. This is often used by dealers to bulk up the cocaine, according to the study authors. The scientists believe cocaine could have entered the water because of leakages or overflows from sewers.
Pesticides banned in the U.K. were also discovered, including fenuron. Ketamine, the animal tranquilizer which is used as a party drug, was also identified, as well as the opioid medication Tramadol and an antidepressant.
Dr. Leon Barron, senior lecturer in forensic science at King’s College London and co-author of the study said: “Such regular occurrence of illicit drugs in wildlife was surprising.”
The team might have expected to find drugs in urban areas like the UK capital London, he said, but not in rural areas. Pinpointing the source of banned pesticides remains unclear and poses a challenge to experts, he said.
Dr. Thomas Miller lead author of the study at King’s College London commented: “Although concentrations were low, we were able to identify compounds that might be of concern to the environment and crucially, which might pose a risk to wildlife.
“As part of our ongoing work, we found that the most frequently detected compounds were illicit drugs, including cocaine and ketamine and a banned pesticide, fenuron. Although for many of these, the potential for any effect is likely to be low.”
Study co-author professor Nic Bury from the University of Suffolk said: “Whether the presence of cocaine in aquatic animals is an issue for Suffolk, or more widespread an occurrence in the UK and abroad, awaits further research.
“Environmental health has attracted much attention from the public due to challenges associated with climate change and microplastic pollution. However, the impact of ‘invisible’ chemical pollution (such as drugs) on wildlife health needs more focus in the UK as policy can often be informed by studies such as these.”
The contamination of wildlife with illicit substances is not isolated to rural England. Last year, separate research by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife discovered the opioid oxycodone in shellfish off the coast of the state for the first time.
To carry out their study published in the journal Environment International, scientists collected shrimp samples in July 2018 from 15 sites across five river catchments in the non-metropolitan county of Suffolk on the east coast of England, U.K.. These included Gipping, Alde, Deben, Stour and Waveney.
Cocaine was the most commonly found drug and identified in every sample, as well as the anesthetic lidocaine. This is often used by dealers to bulk up the cocaine, according to the study authors. The scientists believe cocaine could have entered the water because of leakages or overflows from sewers.
Pesticides banned in the U.K. were also discovered, including fenuron. Ketamine, the animal tranquilizer which is used as a party drug, was also identified, as well as the opioid medication Tramadol and an antidepressant.
Dr. Leon Barron, senior lecturer in forensic science at King’s College London and co-author of the study said: “Such regular occurrence of illicit drugs in wildlife was surprising.”
The team might have expected to find drugs in urban areas like the UK capital London, he said, but not in rural areas. Pinpointing the source of banned pesticides remains unclear and poses a challenge to experts, he said.
Dr. Thomas Miller lead author of the study at King’s College London commented: “Although concentrations were low, we were able to identify compounds that might be of concern to the environment and crucially, which might pose a risk to wildlife.
“As part of our ongoing work, we found that the most frequently detected compounds were illicit drugs, including cocaine and ketamine and a banned pesticide, fenuron. Although for many of these, the potential for any effect is likely to be low.”
Study co-author professor Nic Bury from the University of Suffolk said: “Whether the presence of cocaine in aquatic animals is an issue for Suffolk, or more widespread an occurrence in the UK and abroad, awaits further research.
“Environmental health has attracted much attention from the public due to challenges associated with climate change and microplastic pollution. However, the impact of ‘invisible’ chemical pollution (such as drugs) on wildlife health needs more focus in the UK as policy can often be informed by studies such as these.”
The contamination of wildlife with illicit substances is not isolated to rural England. Last year, separate research by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife discovered the opioid oxycodone in shellfish off the coast of the state for the first time.
profit vs bugs!!!
Trump administration to roll back rare beetle protections opposed by oil lobby
Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to ‘downlist’ the burying beetle, which would allow drilling in Oklahoma and nearby states
Emily Holden in New York
the guardian
Wed 1 May 2019 15.39 EDT
An American burying beetle. The species was listed as endangered in 1989, but the Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to ‘downlist’ it to threatened. Photograph: Boston Globe/Boston Globe via Getty Images
The Trump administration plans to weaken protections for a beetle threatened by extinction from climate change, lifting restrictions on oil and gas drilling in Oklahoma and surrounding states.
The American burying beetle, a shiny black bug covered with orange splotches, feeds it young from carcasses it buries, making it vulnerable to disruptions in soil. The species was listed as endangered in 1989.
The beetle has been reduced to about 10% of its historic range, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. It was native to 35 US states and has been eradicated from all but nine.
Biodiversity advocates said the proposal is yet another move to benefit industry at the expense of at-risk species. The interior department secretary, David Bernhardt, is a former oil and gas lobbyist.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to “downlist” the species, labeling it as threatened rather than endangered. The decision would allow drilling and other industry activity in Oklahoma and parts of Kansas, Arkansas and Texas, with some exceptions in conservation areas. Currently, drillers must obtain permits for any activity that would lead to an “incidental taking”, or killing of beetles.
Noah Greenwald, endangered species director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said: “The science shows the American burying beetle is even more endangered now, yet the Trump administration is severely reducing its habitat protections.
“David Bernhardt and his crew are only downlisting these unique beetles to please their oil and gas industry benefactors.”
Kevin Stubbs, a biologist for a Fish and Wildlife Services field office in Oklahoma, said the analysis “shows that climate change is the overwhelming risk for most of the populations”.
“The southern portions of the range would have temperatures that we think would exceed their tolerances within about a 10- to 30-year window of time,” he said. Beetles living farther north could find their habitats too hot to survive within 50 years, he added.
Stubbs said the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has no clear mechanism for the government to protect species based on the longer-term threats expected from climate change. Those threats include heat, as well as sea-level rise.
“There really isn’t anything we can do ESA protection-wise to address the climate risk,” Stubbs said.
The beetle will only be able to survive farther north after a few more decades of rising temperatures, the science shows.
The service plans to leave some protections in place where the beetle lives in Nebraska and South Dakota and on two islands off the coast of New England. Industries there would need permits to disturb the soil of suitable habitats for the beetle. There would be an exception for ranching and grazing activities.
The Fish and Wildlife Service defended the proposal, noting conservation efforts in the northern habitats and a potential discovery of a burying beetle population in Michigan. A final decision is expected within a year.
The American burying beetle, a shiny black bug covered with orange splotches, feeds it young from carcasses it buries, making it vulnerable to disruptions in soil. The species was listed as endangered in 1989.
The beetle has been reduced to about 10% of its historic range, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. It was native to 35 US states and has been eradicated from all but nine.
Biodiversity advocates said the proposal is yet another move to benefit industry at the expense of at-risk species. The interior department secretary, David Bernhardt, is a former oil and gas lobbyist.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to “downlist” the species, labeling it as threatened rather than endangered. The decision would allow drilling and other industry activity in Oklahoma and parts of Kansas, Arkansas and Texas, with some exceptions in conservation areas. Currently, drillers must obtain permits for any activity that would lead to an “incidental taking”, or killing of beetles.
Noah Greenwald, endangered species director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said: “The science shows the American burying beetle is even more endangered now, yet the Trump administration is severely reducing its habitat protections.
“David Bernhardt and his crew are only downlisting these unique beetles to please their oil and gas industry benefactors.”
Kevin Stubbs, a biologist for a Fish and Wildlife Services field office in Oklahoma, said the analysis “shows that climate change is the overwhelming risk for most of the populations”.
“The southern portions of the range would have temperatures that we think would exceed their tolerances within about a 10- to 30-year window of time,” he said. Beetles living farther north could find their habitats too hot to survive within 50 years, he added.
Stubbs said the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has no clear mechanism for the government to protect species based on the longer-term threats expected from climate change. Those threats include heat, as well as sea-level rise.
“There really isn’t anything we can do ESA protection-wise to address the climate risk,” Stubbs said.
The beetle will only be able to survive farther north after a few more decades of rising temperatures, the science shows.
The service plans to leave some protections in place where the beetle lives in Nebraska and South Dakota and on two islands off the coast of New England. Industries there would need permits to disturb the soil of suitable habitats for the beetle. There would be an exception for ranching and grazing activities.
The Fish and Wildlife Service defended the proposal, noting conservation efforts in the northern habitats and a potential discovery of a burying beetle population in Michigan. A final decision is expected within a year.
poisoning for profit!!!
HIGH LEVELS OF TOXIC PFAS CHEMICALS POLLUTE BREAST MILK AROUND THE WORLD
Sharon Lerner - the intercept
April 30 2019, 6:24 a.m.
DECADES AFTER DUPONT and 3M first discovered that the perfluorinated chemicals making them fortunes could be transmitted from mothers to babies, millions of women around the world are passing dangerous amounts of these toxic compounds to their children, according to a report published on Monday.
Women’s breast milk in many countries now contains chemicals belonging to a class of compounds known as PFAS at levels well above the safety thresholds set by governments, says the report from international environmental group IPEN. In Jordan, for instance, researchers found breast milk contained, on average, 144 parts per trillion of PFOA, according to a 2015 study. That’s more than double the 70 ppt health advisory level the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set for that chemical in drinking water; more than seven times the 20 ppt drinking water safety level recently set by the state of Vermont; and more than 10 times the 14 ppt drinking water threshold the state of New Jersey proposed for PFOA earlier this month.
One woman’s milk contained 1,120 ppt of PFOA, according to the Jordanian study, which also found that 96 percent of cow’s milk samples also contained PFOS and PFOA. Dairy farmers in the U.S. have recently run into a similar contamination problem.
PFAS chemicals — used in nonstick pans, firefighting foam, and hundreds of other products — have also been found in breast milk in at least 19 countries in Europe, Asia, and North America, according to a studypublished in November in Environmental Science and Pollution Research. That article, which noted that scientists have yet to look for the chemicals in breast milk in Africa, Antartica, Australia, and South America, cited research documenting PFAS levels above 100 ppt in breast milk in Hungary, Spain, German, China, Malaysia, and Canada. The highest average level was found in the Ehime region of Japan, where human breast milk contained PFOS at an average level of 232 ppt in 2008.
In the United States, a 2004 study found nine PFAS chemicals in breast milk in Massachusetts, with PFOS being the highest at 131 ppt. But later studies suggest that levels of some of those chemicals may have dropped.
Early exposure to the chemicals can cause permanent harm. PFAS compounds reach fetuses through the placenta and are present at all stages of pregnancy, according to a study published last month. After birth, they can accumulate in breastfeeding babies. Prenatal exposure can affect immunity, the development of the nervous system, and hormonal function, according to a 2018 Japanese study. Other research has shown that the compounds can affect vaccine response, asthma, kidney function, obesity, and the age at which girls first get their periods.
DuPont, which started using PFOA to make Teflon in the 1940s, has known that women pass the chemical onto their newborns since at least 1981, when it was monitoring a small group of pregnant workers in one of its West Virginia factories and found measurable amounts of PFOA in their babies. At the time, both DuPont and 3M, which created PFOA and sold it to DuPont for decades, already knew from their own research that pregnant rats exposed to PFOA could pass the chemical onto their pups. And in 1993, 3M scientists confirmed in an unpublished study that mother goats also transmitted the chemicals to their young through their breast milk.
But for years, the companies didn’t tell the public or regulators about their discoveries — a move that has helped thwart regulation of the chemicals. After 3M and an attorney suing DuPont provided documents to the EPA, both companies were fined in 2006 for withholding evidence of harm, including their research on maternal transmission of PFAS. And in 2009, some 17 years after 3M finished its goat experiment, EPA scientists published their own study documenting the flow of PFOA from one generation to another through breast milk, this time in lab mice.
By then, the chemicals had spread far and wide. In recent years, PFAS have been found at high levels in waterproof clothing made in Bangladesh, soccer shoes made in Indonesia, and in rice and pork liver in Taiwan. Exposure has also been traced to municipal waste dumps, food wrapping, carpets, textiles, fish, and in Thailand, both tap and bottled water.
From any of these sources, the industrial chemicals now make their way into nursing mothers around the world and from there, into babies, many of whom now consume PFAS compounds as part of their very first meals.
Women’s breast milk in many countries now contains chemicals belonging to a class of compounds known as PFAS at levels well above the safety thresholds set by governments, says the report from international environmental group IPEN. In Jordan, for instance, researchers found breast milk contained, on average, 144 parts per trillion of PFOA, according to a 2015 study. That’s more than double the 70 ppt health advisory level the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set for that chemical in drinking water; more than seven times the 20 ppt drinking water safety level recently set by the state of Vermont; and more than 10 times the 14 ppt drinking water threshold the state of New Jersey proposed for PFOA earlier this month.
One woman’s milk contained 1,120 ppt of PFOA, according to the Jordanian study, which also found that 96 percent of cow’s milk samples also contained PFOS and PFOA. Dairy farmers in the U.S. have recently run into a similar contamination problem.
PFAS chemicals — used in nonstick pans, firefighting foam, and hundreds of other products — have also been found in breast milk in at least 19 countries in Europe, Asia, and North America, according to a studypublished in November in Environmental Science and Pollution Research. That article, which noted that scientists have yet to look for the chemicals in breast milk in Africa, Antartica, Australia, and South America, cited research documenting PFAS levels above 100 ppt in breast milk in Hungary, Spain, German, China, Malaysia, and Canada. The highest average level was found in the Ehime region of Japan, where human breast milk contained PFOS at an average level of 232 ppt in 2008.
In the United States, a 2004 study found nine PFAS chemicals in breast milk in Massachusetts, with PFOS being the highest at 131 ppt. But later studies suggest that levels of some of those chemicals may have dropped.
Early exposure to the chemicals can cause permanent harm. PFAS compounds reach fetuses through the placenta and are present at all stages of pregnancy, according to a study published last month. After birth, they can accumulate in breastfeeding babies. Prenatal exposure can affect immunity, the development of the nervous system, and hormonal function, according to a 2018 Japanese study. Other research has shown that the compounds can affect vaccine response, asthma, kidney function, obesity, and the age at which girls first get their periods.
DuPont, which started using PFOA to make Teflon in the 1940s, has known that women pass the chemical onto their newborns since at least 1981, when it was monitoring a small group of pregnant workers in one of its West Virginia factories and found measurable amounts of PFOA in their babies. At the time, both DuPont and 3M, which created PFOA and sold it to DuPont for decades, already knew from their own research that pregnant rats exposed to PFOA could pass the chemical onto their pups. And in 1993, 3M scientists confirmed in an unpublished study that mother goats also transmitted the chemicals to their young through their breast milk.
But for years, the companies didn’t tell the public or regulators about their discoveries — a move that has helped thwart regulation of the chemicals. After 3M and an attorney suing DuPont provided documents to the EPA, both companies were fined in 2006 for withholding evidence of harm, including their research on maternal transmission of PFAS. And in 2009, some 17 years after 3M finished its goat experiment, EPA scientists published their own study documenting the flow of PFOA from one generation to another through breast milk, this time in lab mice.
By then, the chemicals had spread far and wide. In recent years, PFAS have been found at high levels in waterproof clothing made in Bangladesh, soccer shoes made in Indonesia, and in rice and pork liver in Taiwan. Exposure has also been traced to municipal waste dumps, food wrapping, carpets, textiles, fish, and in Thailand, both tap and bottled water.
From any of these sources, the industrial chemicals now make their way into nursing mothers around the world and from there, into babies, many of whom now consume PFAS compounds as part of their very first meals.
BRAZIL’S PESTICIDE INDUSTRY IS CREATING MASSIVE PFOS CONTAMINATION
Sharon Lerner - the intercept
April 29 2019, 7:31 a.m.
WHILE MUCH OF the world struggles to clean up contamination from the toxic industrial compound PFOS, Brazil is still adding to the massive environmental mess with its large-scale production, use, and export of sulfluramid, a pesticide that degrades into PFOS.
Linked to low birth weight, weakened immune response, liver effects, high cholesterol, thyroid dysfunction, cancer, and other health problems, PFOS is no longer made or used in most countries. The chemical, which was phased out in the U.S. by 2015, was originally developed by 3M and was a critical component of Scotchgard and firefighting foam. In the 182 countries that are party to the Stockholm Convention, an international treaty (unsigned by the U.S.) that governs persistent pollutants, the use of PFOS has been severely restricted since 2009.
But the Stockholm Convention carved out several loopholes for PFOS, including one for its use in killing leaf-cutting ants. Sulfluramid is made from PFOS and breaks down into that and several other chemicals within weeks. Brazil, the only country governed by the treaty that has permission to produce the pesticide, has been able to export it without notifying the convention because the treaty restricts PFOS, but makes no mention of sulfluramid, which is now used widely in Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Colombia, and Venezuela, among other countries.
This week, delegates of the Stockholm Convention are meeting in Geneva to discuss whether to close loopholes in the PFOS ban. Environmentalists are pushing to name sulfluramid in the treaty, which would require Brazil to report its sales outside the country and to put a five-year limit on the loophole allowing its use to kill leaf-cutting ants.
Pesticide makers from Brazil are expected to push back. Abraisca, a trade association representing the main manufacturers of the pesticide in Brazil, insists that sulfluramid is necessary “to ensure the safety of people and the environment.” While green organizations point out that there are ways to kill leaf-cutting ants that don’t involve creating persistent toxic waste, the industry group has argued that there are no effective alternatives to sulfluramid. Abraisca did not respond to requests for comment.
In recent years, as PFOS has been phased out in most of the world, the Brazilian sulfluramid industry has blossomed. In 2008, the country made some 30 tons of the pesticide. By 2015, production had grown to between 40 and 60 tons in 2015, according to the most recent estimates.
While the Stockholm treaty language specifically allowed for the use of the chemical only to control two species of leaf-cutting ants, products containing sulfluramid such as Mirex-S, Atta Mex-S, and Dinagro-S are now widely available in stores and online for fighting all sorts of insects in Brazil, according to Zuleica Nycz, coordinator of chemical safety and environmental health for the Brazilian group Toxisphera.
Yet there is little consumer awareness regarding the hazards of this widely restricted compound. Many households may be sprinkling the chemical, which vegetables can absorb from the soil, in their home gardens without realizing its dangers, according to Joe DiGangi, a senior adviser to the international environmental group IPEN.
“Sulfluramid is Brazil’s dirty little secret,” said DiGangi, who will be attending the Geneva meeting.
Not surprisingly, as sulfluramid use has grown, there has been a parallel explosion of PFOS contamination in the country. Between 2004 and 2015, sulfluramid production there resulted in up to 487 metric tons of PFOS being released into the environment — a sizable portion of the chemical’s global contamination. Meanwhile, PFOS, which persists indefinitely in the environment, has increasingly turned up in soil, plants, coastal waters, and rivers in Brazil.
DuPont used to produce sulfluramid in the U.S., where it was sold in products marketed to kill ants, roaches, and termites. New York banned sulfluramid in the 1990s. And in 2001, when the state levied the largest penalty in its history against a company distributing a sulfluramid-containing pesticide, the New York attorney general noted that “if a child ingested the bait, he or she could suffer irreversible reproductive damage, and boys could be rendered infertile.” In 2008, DuPont voluntarily canceled its registration of the chemical.
The ongoing use of sulfluramid in Brazil despite widespread knowledge of its dangers shows just how difficult it is to control the entire family of toxic chemicals to which PFOS belongs. Those chemicals, known as PFAS, now pollute water around the world. While delegates of the Stockholm Convention will be debating how to close the loopholes around PFOS and whether to enact a global ban on the closely related chemical PFOA, well over 1,000 other PFAS chemicals are still in active use.
Linked to low birth weight, weakened immune response, liver effects, high cholesterol, thyroid dysfunction, cancer, and other health problems, PFOS is no longer made or used in most countries. The chemical, which was phased out in the U.S. by 2015, was originally developed by 3M and was a critical component of Scotchgard and firefighting foam. In the 182 countries that are party to the Stockholm Convention, an international treaty (unsigned by the U.S.) that governs persistent pollutants, the use of PFOS has been severely restricted since 2009.
But the Stockholm Convention carved out several loopholes for PFOS, including one for its use in killing leaf-cutting ants. Sulfluramid is made from PFOS and breaks down into that and several other chemicals within weeks. Brazil, the only country governed by the treaty that has permission to produce the pesticide, has been able to export it without notifying the convention because the treaty restricts PFOS, but makes no mention of sulfluramid, which is now used widely in Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Colombia, and Venezuela, among other countries.
This week, delegates of the Stockholm Convention are meeting in Geneva to discuss whether to close loopholes in the PFOS ban. Environmentalists are pushing to name sulfluramid in the treaty, which would require Brazil to report its sales outside the country and to put a five-year limit on the loophole allowing its use to kill leaf-cutting ants.
Pesticide makers from Brazil are expected to push back. Abraisca, a trade association representing the main manufacturers of the pesticide in Brazil, insists that sulfluramid is necessary “to ensure the safety of people and the environment.” While green organizations point out that there are ways to kill leaf-cutting ants that don’t involve creating persistent toxic waste, the industry group has argued that there are no effective alternatives to sulfluramid. Abraisca did not respond to requests for comment.
In recent years, as PFOS has been phased out in most of the world, the Brazilian sulfluramid industry has blossomed. In 2008, the country made some 30 tons of the pesticide. By 2015, production had grown to between 40 and 60 tons in 2015, according to the most recent estimates.
While the Stockholm treaty language specifically allowed for the use of the chemical only to control two species of leaf-cutting ants, products containing sulfluramid such as Mirex-S, Atta Mex-S, and Dinagro-S are now widely available in stores and online for fighting all sorts of insects in Brazil, according to Zuleica Nycz, coordinator of chemical safety and environmental health for the Brazilian group Toxisphera.
Yet there is little consumer awareness regarding the hazards of this widely restricted compound. Many households may be sprinkling the chemical, which vegetables can absorb from the soil, in their home gardens without realizing its dangers, according to Joe DiGangi, a senior adviser to the international environmental group IPEN.
“Sulfluramid is Brazil’s dirty little secret,” said DiGangi, who will be attending the Geneva meeting.
Not surprisingly, as sulfluramid use has grown, there has been a parallel explosion of PFOS contamination in the country. Between 2004 and 2015, sulfluramid production there resulted in up to 487 metric tons of PFOS being released into the environment — a sizable portion of the chemical’s global contamination. Meanwhile, PFOS, which persists indefinitely in the environment, has increasingly turned up in soil, plants, coastal waters, and rivers in Brazil.
DuPont used to produce sulfluramid in the U.S., where it was sold in products marketed to kill ants, roaches, and termites. New York banned sulfluramid in the 1990s. And in 2001, when the state levied the largest penalty in its history against a company distributing a sulfluramid-containing pesticide, the New York attorney general noted that “if a child ingested the bait, he or she could suffer irreversible reproductive damage, and boys could be rendered infertile.” In 2008, DuPont voluntarily canceled its registration of the chemical.
The ongoing use of sulfluramid in Brazil despite widespread knowledge of its dangers shows just how difficult it is to control the entire family of toxic chemicals to which PFOS belongs. Those chemicals, known as PFAS, now pollute water around the world. While delegates of the Stockholm Convention will be debating how to close the loopholes around PFOS and whether to enact a global ban on the closely related chemical PFOA, well over 1,000 other PFAS chemicals are still in active use.
If we care about plastic waste, why won’t we stop drinking bottled water?
We have all seen the damage plastic waste is doing around the world – but sales of bottled water have continued to grow
Simon Usborne
the guardian
Sun 28 Apr 2019 09.00 EDT
Plastic waste on an Egyptian beach. Photograph: Jan-Otto/Getty Images
For all the innovation and choice that define the food and drink industries, if you want to make money, you could do a lot worse than bung some water in a bottle and flog it. A litre of tap water, the stuff we have ingeniously piped into our homes, costs less than half a penny. A litre of bottled water can cost well over a pound, especially for something fancy that has been sucked through a mountain.
Yet the bottled water market is more buoyant than ever, defying the plastics backlash inspired by stricken albatrosses on the BBC’s Blue Planet, and a broader, growing sense that something has to change.
Sales in the UK were worth a record £558.4m in the year to last November, an increase of 7%, according to the latest figures from the market analyst Kantar. Separate data from the analysts Nielsen show that last year we guzzled more than 2.2bn litres of bottled water, including “take-home” and “on-the-go” products. That’s an annual rise in volume of 8.5%.
Imagine laying out half-litre bottles on the pitch at Wembley Stadium. You could fit 1.7m bottles on the grass, packed into a tight grid. Now imagine building up layers of bottles, covering the same area, to build a tower. To contain all the bottled water we buy each year, you would end up with a 514-metre skyscraper – 200 metres taller than the Shard.
Environmental campaigners are struggling to fathom why nations blessed with clean tap water grow only fonder of the bottle. “It’s very surprising to me,” says Sam Chetan-Walsh, a political adviser at Greenpeace and campaigner against ocean plastic. “Public awareness has never been higher, but the message is not quite reaching all the people it needs to.”
Where it is heard, the message is stark. As well as requiring oceans of fossil fuels to make and ship, single-use plastics of all types are polluting our cities and seas. Blue Planet II, broadcast in 2017, showed how albatrosses unwittingly feed plastic fragments to their chicks, ultimately killing them, and how even dolphin milk can become contaminated.
Campaigners cite the show as a watershed moment, and moves against various plastics have gathered pace, from shopping bags to straws and plastic-lined coffee cups. Chetan-Walsh argues that bottled water is different because the alternatives are so obvious. “If a product that is so nakedly unnecessary can exist, then the whole system is failing,” he says.
Hope is not entirely out of reach. That plastic skyscraper conceals attempts in the bottled water industry to change. If nothing else, the rate of growth has begun to ease (sales were up 7% in the year to November 2018, compared with 8% the previous year).
But even if large numbers of us are quitting bottled water because of care for the environment, others are taking it up. The introduction of the “sugar tax” on juices and fizzy drinks has pushed more people to bottled water, while health awareness has boosted its desirability. Kantar says tap water consumption is growing at roughly the same pace (we still drink almost three times as much tap water as bottled water).
So the plastic tide only creeps higher. The industry is quick to point out that all its bottles are recyclable. “But collection rates are, at the most generous estimates, 56%, so the actual recycling rate will be lower than that,” Chetan-Walsh says. And while bottles may be recyclable, very few are made of recycled plastic. Highland Spring launched recycled half-litre “eco” bottles alongside its standard bottles in January; Evian has vowed to use only recycled plastic across its range by 2025.
Chetan-Walsh believes in a ban on single-use bottles. Bans exist in some places. Glastonbury festival organisers announced that water bottles will not be sold this summer. San Francisco has banned them from city property and events. Last year, the UK parliament set out plans to ban single-use plastic from its estate.
Water bottlers, unsurprisingly, don’t support bans. But they raise concerns about health rather than bottom lines. Last month, the chief executive of Harrogate Water, James Cain, said that bans would “result in greater consumption of sugary drinks, adding to all the health dangers of obesity, diabetes and tooth decay”.
Kinvara Carey, general manager of the Natural Hydration Council, an association of the biggest bottled water manufacturers, cites a survey in which people were asked what they would do if bottled water were not available. “Forty-four per cent would buy another drink, which is not great, 14% would go without and 4.5% said they would find a fountain,” she says. “The choice is important.”
What if fountains were more numerous, and tap water more clearly available in cafes, restaurants and elsewhere? The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, is installing dozens of fountains in partnership with Thames Water. There are similar initiatives elsewhere. Before plastic and the marketing that made us think we needed bottled water in the first place, fountains were an urban fixture.
Greenpeace, among others, is also pushing for a “deposit return” scheme in which a levy on bottled water would be refunded to customers who returned the plastic for recycling.
Even if bottled water sales are growing slightly more slowly, the industry is racing to adapt to changing concerns and tastes. Flavoured water is booming: sales of the sparkling variety shot up by 20%, according to the latest Kantar data. Meanwhile, brands including Evian, as well as a range of startups, are selling high-end reusable bottles. And if you must fill them with tap water, why not add flavouring?
As the owner of multiple sugary drink brands – and Aquafina bottled water – PepsiCo is facing challenges on health and environmental fronts. Last year, the company bought SodaStream for $3.2bn (the drinks machines make tap water fizzy; you add flavours). It also launched Drinkfinity, a range of fancy bottles that work with tap water and flavour pods (think more lemongrass and spirulina than 7 Up). The bottle is reusable. The pods? Not so much, and, yes, they are made of plastic, although Pepsi invites users to post them back for recycling.
As is so often the case, ingenious marketing can trump reason; awareness is rarely enough. “There is always this kind of slip between concern, intent and changed behaviour,” says Giles Quick, an analyst at Kantar. “The best example is five a day. Almost everyone is aware of it, but something like 15% of us achieve it.” Unless a far-reaching bottle ban does come into force, it will be up to consumers to not only demand change – but to act themselves.
Yet the bottled water market is more buoyant than ever, defying the plastics backlash inspired by stricken albatrosses on the BBC’s Blue Planet, and a broader, growing sense that something has to change.
Sales in the UK were worth a record £558.4m in the year to last November, an increase of 7%, according to the latest figures from the market analyst Kantar. Separate data from the analysts Nielsen show that last year we guzzled more than 2.2bn litres of bottled water, including “take-home” and “on-the-go” products. That’s an annual rise in volume of 8.5%.
Imagine laying out half-litre bottles on the pitch at Wembley Stadium. You could fit 1.7m bottles on the grass, packed into a tight grid. Now imagine building up layers of bottles, covering the same area, to build a tower. To contain all the bottled water we buy each year, you would end up with a 514-metre skyscraper – 200 metres taller than the Shard.
Environmental campaigners are struggling to fathom why nations blessed with clean tap water grow only fonder of the bottle. “It’s very surprising to me,” says Sam Chetan-Walsh, a political adviser at Greenpeace and campaigner against ocean plastic. “Public awareness has never been higher, but the message is not quite reaching all the people it needs to.”
Where it is heard, the message is stark. As well as requiring oceans of fossil fuels to make and ship, single-use plastics of all types are polluting our cities and seas. Blue Planet II, broadcast in 2017, showed how albatrosses unwittingly feed plastic fragments to their chicks, ultimately killing them, and how even dolphin milk can become contaminated.
Campaigners cite the show as a watershed moment, and moves against various plastics have gathered pace, from shopping bags to straws and plastic-lined coffee cups. Chetan-Walsh argues that bottled water is different because the alternatives are so obvious. “If a product that is so nakedly unnecessary can exist, then the whole system is failing,” he says.
Hope is not entirely out of reach. That plastic skyscraper conceals attempts in the bottled water industry to change. If nothing else, the rate of growth has begun to ease (sales were up 7% in the year to November 2018, compared with 8% the previous year).
But even if large numbers of us are quitting bottled water because of care for the environment, others are taking it up. The introduction of the “sugar tax” on juices and fizzy drinks has pushed more people to bottled water, while health awareness has boosted its desirability. Kantar says tap water consumption is growing at roughly the same pace (we still drink almost three times as much tap water as bottled water).
So the plastic tide only creeps higher. The industry is quick to point out that all its bottles are recyclable. “But collection rates are, at the most generous estimates, 56%, so the actual recycling rate will be lower than that,” Chetan-Walsh says. And while bottles may be recyclable, very few are made of recycled plastic. Highland Spring launched recycled half-litre “eco” bottles alongside its standard bottles in January; Evian has vowed to use only recycled plastic across its range by 2025.
Chetan-Walsh believes in a ban on single-use bottles. Bans exist in some places. Glastonbury festival organisers announced that water bottles will not be sold this summer. San Francisco has banned them from city property and events. Last year, the UK parliament set out plans to ban single-use plastic from its estate.
Water bottlers, unsurprisingly, don’t support bans. But they raise concerns about health rather than bottom lines. Last month, the chief executive of Harrogate Water, James Cain, said that bans would “result in greater consumption of sugary drinks, adding to all the health dangers of obesity, diabetes and tooth decay”.
Kinvara Carey, general manager of the Natural Hydration Council, an association of the biggest bottled water manufacturers, cites a survey in which people were asked what they would do if bottled water were not available. “Forty-four per cent would buy another drink, which is not great, 14% would go without and 4.5% said they would find a fountain,” she says. “The choice is important.”
What if fountains were more numerous, and tap water more clearly available in cafes, restaurants and elsewhere? The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, is installing dozens of fountains in partnership with Thames Water. There are similar initiatives elsewhere. Before plastic and the marketing that made us think we needed bottled water in the first place, fountains were an urban fixture.
Greenpeace, among others, is also pushing for a “deposit return” scheme in which a levy on bottled water would be refunded to customers who returned the plastic for recycling.
Even if bottled water sales are growing slightly more slowly, the industry is racing to adapt to changing concerns and tastes. Flavoured water is booming: sales of the sparkling variety shot up by 20%, according to the latest Kantar data. Meanwhile, brands including Evian, as well as a range of startups, are selling high-end reusable bottles. And if you must fill them with tap water, why not add flavouring?
As the owner of multiple sugary drink brands – and Aquafina bottled water – PepsiCo is facing challenges on health and environmental fronts. Last year, the company bought SodaStream for $3.2bn (the drinks machines make tap water fizzy; you add flavours). It also launched Drinkfinity, a range of fancy bottles that work with tap water and flavour pods (think more lemongrass and spirulina than 7 Up). The bottle is reusable. The pods? Not so much, and, yes, they are made of plastic, although Pepsi invites users to post them back for recycling.
As is so often the case, ingenious marketing can trump reason; awareness is rarely enough. “There is always this kind of slip between concern, intent and changed behaviour,” says Giles Quick, an analyst at Kantar. “The best example is five a day. Almost everyone is aware of it, but something like 15% of us achieve it.” Unless a far-reaching bottle ban does come into force, it will be up to consumers to not only demand change – but to act themselves.
Mapping the US counties where traffic air pollution hurts children the most
The Conversation - raw story
18 APR 2019 AT 06:37 ET
In the U.S., over 6 million children had ongoing asthma in 2016. Globally, asthma kills around 1,000 people every day – and its prevalence is rising.
This condition has a high economic cost. Each year in the U.S., more than US$80 billion is lost because of asthma. This is mainly due to premature deaths, medical payments and missed work and school days. The burden is higher for families with asthmatic children, who, on average, spend $1,700 more on health care than families with healthy children.
One major environmental factor that might contribute to the development of asthma is air pollution from traffic. In our study, published on April 3, our team mapped where in the U.S. children are most at risk for developing asthma from this type of pollution.
Traffic and asthma
Asthma is likely the most common chronic disease in childhood, according to the World Health Organization.
Asthma presents as episodes of wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath due to the reversible, or partially reversible, obstruction of airflow. Six in 10 of children with asthma worldwide had a form of persistent asthma, meaning that either they were on long-term medication or their condition could not be controlled even with medication.
Traffic pollution contains a mixture of harmful pollutants like nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, benzene and sulfur. These pollutants are known to harm health in many ways, causing a number of cardiovascular, respiratory and neurological diseases.
One 2013 review suggested that long-term exposure to common traffic-related air pollutants is linked to the development of asthma in children and adults.
A much larger meta-analysis in 2017, which focused on children and included more recently published studies, found consistent connections between this type of pollution and childhood asthma development. The researchers concluded that there is now sufficient evidence showing a relationship between this type of pollution and the onset of childhood asthma.
Studies from the nonprofit research group Health Effects Institute and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have concluded along these lines....
Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/2019/04/mapping-us-counties-traffic-air-pollution-hurts-children/
This condition has a high economic cost. Each year in the U.S., more than US$80 billion is lost because of asthma. This is mainly due to premature deaths, medical payments and missed work and school days. The burden is higher for families with asthmatic children, who, on average, spend $1,700 more on health care than families with healthy children.
One major environmental factor that might contribute to the development of asthma is air pollution from traffic. In our study, published on April 3, our team mapped where in the U.S. children are most at risk for developing asthma from this type of pollution.
Traffic and asthma
Asthma is likely the most common chronic disease in childhood, according to the World Health Organization.
Asthma presents as episodes of wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath due to the reversible, or partially reversible, obstruction of airflow. Six in 10 of children with asthma worldwide had a form of persistent asthma, meaning that either they were on long-term medication or their condition could not be controlled even with medication.
Traffic pollution contains a mixture of harmful pollutants like nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, benzene and sulfur. These pollutants are known to harm health in many ways, causing a number of cardiovascular, respiratory and neurological diseases.
One 2013 review suggested that long-term exposure to common traffic-related air pollutants is linked to the development of asthma in children and adults.
A much larger meta-analysis in 2017, which focused on children and included more recently published studies, found consistent connections between this type of pollution and childhood asthma development. The researchers concluded that there is now sufficient evidence showing a relationship between this type of pollution and the onset of childhood asthma.
Studies from the nonprofit research group Health Effects Institute and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have concluded along these lines....
Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/2019/04/mapping-us-counties-traffic-air-pollution-hurts-children/
fossil fuel's bootlickers are trying to stop progress, again!!!
Republicans push anti-wind bills in several states as renewables grow increasingly popular
In regions like the South, the potential for renewable energy abounds. That isn't going over well with fossil fuel interests.
E.A. CRUNDEN - thinkprogress
APR 15, 2019, 8:00 AM
As the cost of renewable energy drops and its popularity rises around the country, Republican lawmakers in several key states are ratcheting up their attacks on wind power.
Data shows that renewable alternatives to energy sources like coal are increasingly cheaper, in addition to helping offset greenhouse gas emissions. But as they continue to gain prominence, power sources like wind are becoming a popular target for those with a vested interest in fossil fuels. Now, opponents are using everything from national security arguments to targeting tax incentives in order to hobble wind power.
“It’s the inevitability of change. [The] renewable industry is creating jobs, bringing money into the communities… it just gets harder and harder to justify why we shouldn’t be doing them,” said Molly Diggins, state director for the Sierra Club’s North Carolina chapter, in an interview with ThinkProgress.
North Carolina is one of several states in which lawmakers are pushing new proposals to undercut wind energy. State Sen. Harry Brown (R) has long positioned himself as a wind power opponent and this legislative session he is pushing Senate Bill 377, the “Military Base Protection Act.”
The bill argues that wind farms pose a national security risk and uses Department of Defense maps to essentially outlaw wind farms built on land within 100 miles of the state’s coast. Brown has received support from fellow state Sens. Norman Sanderson (R) and Paul Newton (R), the latter of whom was previously an employee of Duke Energy, one of the country’s largest utilities.
But the military already has veto power over any projects that are deemed a national security risk. North Carolina’s Amazon Wind Farm, the first large-scale wind farm in the state, went through years of review and permitting studies, in addition to coordinating with the U.S. Navy and Department of Defense. Proponents of renewable energy say arguments about national security are just another way for fossil fuel interests to dissuade potential wind and solar investments in the state.
“Wind energy, for states like North Carolina… [is part of] climate change goals,” said Cassie Gavin, a senior director with Sierra Club North Carolina. Gavin told ThinkProgress that wind energy plays a critical role in transitioning away from fossil fuels, a growing priority in North Carolina.
Whether or not Brown’s bill succeeds is up for debate — given the economic benefits wind power has brought to eastern North Carolina, advocates are hopeful the measure won’t get far.
But attacks on wind power aren’t helping proponents’ efforts to attract further investment. “This doesn’t encourage the industry to come to North Carolina,” said Gavin.
Wind power has faced setbacks in a number of states in recent years, in areas across the country. Some opposition has been at the grassroots level — in states like Indiana and North Dakota, concerns over wind farms from local residents have resulted in the cancellation of proposed projects. Public support for renewable energy, however, is notably very high across the country, due to job creation and economic benefits.
But much of the real resistance has come from anti-wind activists and groups. In Oklahoma, for instance, organizations like the nonprofit Wind Waste have worked to undermine the industry, arguing against tax subsidies and what it has labeled the “harmful effects of Industrial Wind.” A commercial real estate agent founded the groupin an effort to target the subsidies wind power receives in Oklahoma.
John Droz, a noted anti-wind activist who has marketed himself as a scientist, has targeted wind energy in New York, along with other states. He has falsely described climate change as “a scientifically unresolved matter” and has expressed support for figures like former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt.
According to tracking by the watchdog Energy and Policy Institute (EPI) shared with ThinkProgress, the coal industry has been an active player in efforts to undermine renewables. Oil and gas producers have also played a major role as the fight for the energy market has grown more competitive and renewables have emerged as a serious threat to fossil fuels.
“We’ve seen an increase in the coal industry’s direct involvement in efforts to block utilities from developing new wind and solar power projects in states like Ohio and Indiana,” Dave Anderson, EPI’s policy and communications manager, told ThinkProgress in an email. “Special interest groups backed by the fossil fuel industry, such as the Institute for Energy Research and Manhattan Institute, also work closely with a core group of vocal anti-wind activists to spread disinformation about wind power and attack local renewable energy projects.”
The political debate over wind power has grown especially heated in Texas, the nation’s top producer of wind energy. The Lone Star State leads the country in oil and gas production, but renewables play a significant role in the state’s energy mix, with wind in particular serving as a huge economic boon in many parts of the sprawling state. A report released this week by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) found that Texas is home to around 25% of the nation’s wind power capacity and that the industry is a major Texas employer.
That meteoric rise has attracted the ire of some powerful foes. The Austin-based Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a right-wing think tank backed by the conservative Koch brothers, has come out swinging against wind power. TPPF has fought against efforts to regulate the energy market and its executives are unapologetically aligned with fossil fuel companies.
The group also wields some influence in the GOP-controlled Texas legislature, now in the midst of its biennial session, where a war over wind power subsidies is raging.
The legislature is weighing whether to end the tax break programs that have allowed wind power to prosper in Texas. This debate comes after the last legislative session, during which lawmakers succeeded in restricting wind turbines near military bases, much like the effort underway in North Carolina.
House Bill 2908 and Senate Bill 2232 would both authorize a study assessing the impacts of the tax credits on the state’s electricity market, something wind power opponents hope could lead to taxing the industry. But Joshua Rhodes, a research associate with the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, told ThinkProgress that targeting tax incentives for renewables is unhelpful in a state where wind has proven to be economically viable.
“If we’re going to study these, we should study them at all,” he said, noting that fossil fuels have benefited substantially from decades of subsidies, far more so than wind energy.
And he noted that support for the wind industry is bipartisan; many Republican lawmakers representing wind country have no reason to support measures that would hurt their constituents.
“There are a lot of rural districts in Texas,” said Rhodes, adding that sparsely populated West Texas in particular is a massive wind power hub. “Some of these wind projects are the only economic development they’ve had in decades.”
The wind power push-back is unlikely to end anytime soon, however. Texas is unique as a state that runs on its own electrical grid and energy sources are a major part of its economy, making the battle for the market more heated. And organizations like TPPF also pose a major hurdle. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, TPPF does not have to disclose its donors, but the think tank has a long history of advocating for oil and gas and opposing renewable alternatives, in addition to denying basic climate science. A lengthy investigation by the Austin-American Statesman found that the foundation is hard at work undermining renewables with no plans to back off of wind power.
In both Texas and North Carolina, the issue of climate change looms in the background. Both states are still recovering from major hurricanes — Hurricane Harvey hit southeastern Texas in 2017 and Hurricane Florence devastated North Carolina’s coast a year later.
Many saw Florence as the first big test for renewables’ capacity to stand up to severe weather. While roughly a third of Duke Energy’s customers in North Carolina lost power during the initial days of the storm, solar farms were largely unscathed.
According to the U.S. government’s 2018 National Climate Assessment (NCA), such storms are only expected to grow worse due to global warming, while flooding and droughts will also become more common in the South.
“Texas is the largest global warming polluter in America. To stop the worst impacts of climate change, we must decarbonize Texas,” Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, told ThinkProgress.
Metzger said there is clearly reason for optimism about the rise of wind power in Texas and the growing appeal of solar energy. But he cited TPFF as a threat undermining that progression.
“TPPF is employing a strategy of a death by a thousand cuts. Cut some incentives here, forbid wind and solar farms in certain parts of the state there, mess with the rules of the electricity market here, and so on,” Metzger said. “If they’re successful, it could hamstring renewable energy development in the state where we need it the most.”
While the various attempts to undermine renewable energy may slow the industry’s growth in some states, the economic forecast is clearly positive. According to analysis released last month, replacing 74% of coal plants nationally with renewables would be cheaper than keeping them open, including in many Southern states. And as the cost of batteries continues to drop, renewables plus storage are even cheaper than natural gas in many applications.
That’s good news in places like Texas and North Carolina, as environmental advocates stare down attacks on wind power.
“Thankfully, wind and solar power have enormous support in the state,” said Metzger. “They’re hugely popular with the public.”
RELATED: Warren wants to open public lands to renewables, not fossil fuels
Data shows that renewable alternatives to energy sources like coal are increasingly cheaper, in addition to helping offset greenhouse gas emissions. But as they continue to gain prominence, power sources like wind are becoming a popular target for those with a vested interest in fossil fuels. Now, opponents are using everything from national security arguments to targeting tax incentives in order to hobble wind power.
“It’s the inevitability of change. [The] renewable industry is creating jobs, bringing money into the communities… it just gets harder and harder to justify why we shouldn’t be doing them,” said Molly Diggins, state director for the Sierra Club’s North Carolina chapter, in an interview with ThinkProgress.
North Carolina is one of several states in which lawmakers are pushing new proposals to undercut wind energy. State Sen. Harry Brown (R) has long positioned himself as a wind power opponent and this legislative session he is pushing Senate Bill 377, the “Military Base Protection Act.”
The bill argues that wind farms pose a national security risk and uses Department of Defense maps to essentially outlaw wind farms built on land within 100 miles of the state’s coast. Brown has received support from fellow state Sens. Norman Sanderson (R) and Paul Newton (R), the latter of whom was previously an employee of Duke Energy, one of the country’s largest utilities.
But the military already has veto power over any projects that are deemed a national security risk. North Carolina’s Amazon Wind Farm, the first large-scale wind farm in the state, went through years of review and permitting studies, in addition to coordinating with the U.S. Navy and Department of Defense. Proponents of renewable energy say arguments about national security are just another way for fossil fuel interests to dissuade potential wind and solar investments in the state.
“Wind energy, for states like North Carolina… [is part of] climate change goals,” said Cassie Gavin, a senior director with Sierra Club North Carolina. Gavin told ThinkProgress that wind energy plays a critical role in transitioning away from fossil fuels, a growing priority in North Carolina.
Whether or not Brown’s bill succeeds is up for debate — given the economic benefits wind power has brought to eastern North Carolina, advocates are hopeful the measure won’t get far.
But attacks on wind power aren’t helping proponents’ efforts to attract further investment. “This doesn’t encourage the industry to come to North Carolina,” said Gavin.
Wind power has faced setbacks in a number of states in recent years, in areas across the country. Some opposition has been at the grassroots level — in states like Indiana and North Dakota, concerns over wind farms from local residents have resulted in the cancellation of proposed projects. Public support for renewable energy, however, is notably very high across the country, due to job creation and economic benefits.
But much of the real resistance has come from anti-wind activists and groups. In Oklahoma, for instance, organizations like the nonprofit Wind Waste have worked to undermine the industry, arguing against tax subsidies and what it has labeled the “harmful effects of Industrial Wind.” A commercial real estate agent founded the groupin an effort to target the subsidies wind power receives in Oklahoma.
John Droz, a noted anti-wind activist who has marketed himself as a scientist, has targeted wind energy in New York, along with other states. He has falsely described climate change as “a scientifically unresolved matter” and has expressed support for figures like former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt.
According to tracking by the watchdog Energy and Policy Institute (EPI) shared with ThinkProgress, the coal industry has been an active player in efforts to undermine renewables. Oil and gas producers have also played a major role as the fight for the energy market has grown more competitive and renewables have emerged as a serious threat to fossil fuels.
“We’ve seen an increase in the coal industry’s direct involvement in efforts to block utilities from developing new wind and solar power projects in states like Ohio and Indiana,” Dave Anderson, EPI’s policy and communications manager, told ThinkProgress in an email. “Special interest groups backed by the fossil fuel industry, such as the Institute for Energy Research and Manhattan Institute, also work closely with a core group of vocal anti-wind activists to spread disinformation about wind power and attack local renewable energy projects.”
The political debate over wind power has grown especially heated in Texas, the nation’s top producer of wind energy. The Lone Star State leads the country in oil and gas production, but renewables play a significant role in the state’s energy mix, with wind in particular serving as a huge economic boon in many parts of the sprawling state. A report released this week by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) found that Texas is home to around 25% of the nation’s wind power capacity and that the industry is a major Texas employer.
That meteoric rise has attracted the ire of some powerful foes. The Austin-based Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a right-wing think tank backed by the conservative Koch brothers, has come out swinging against wind power. TPPF has fought against efforts to regulate the energy market and its executives are unapologetically aligned with fossil fuel companies.
The group also wields some influence in the GOP-controlled Texas legislature, now in the midst of its biennial session, where a war over wind power subsidies is raging.
The legislature is weighing whether to end the tax break programs that have allowed wind power to prosper in Texas. This debate comes after the last legislative session, during which lawmakers succeeded in restricting wind turbines near military bases, much like the effort underway in North Carolina.
House Bill 2908 and Senate Bill 2232 would both authorize a study assessing the impacts of the tax credits on the state’s electricity market, something wind power opponents hope could lead to taxing the industry. But Joshua Rhodes, a research associate with the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, told ThinkProgress that targeting tax incentives for renewables is unhelpful in a state where wind has proven to be economically viable.
“If we’re going to study these, we should study them at all,” he said, noting that fossil fuels have benefited substantially from decades of subsidies, far more so than wind energy.
And he noted that support for the wind industry is bipartisan; many Republican lawmakers representing wind country have no reason to support measures that would hurt their constituents.
“There are a lot of rural districts in Texas,” said Rhodes, adding that sparsely populated West Texas in particular is a massive wind power hub. “Some of these wind projects are the only economic development they’ve had in decades.”
The wind power push-back is unlikely to end anytime soon, however. Texas is unique as a state that runs on its own electrical grid and energy sources are a major part of its economy, making the battle for the market more heated. And organizations like TPPF also pose a major hurdle. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, TPPF does not have to disclose its donors, but the think tank has a long history of advocating for oil and gas and opposing renewable alternatives, in addition to denying basic climate science. A lengthy investigation by the Austin-American Statesman found that the foundation is hard at work undermining renewables with no plans to back off of wind power.
In both Texas and North Carolina, the issue of climate change looms in the background. Both states are still recovering from major hurricanes — Hurricane Harvey hit southeastern Texas in 2017 and Hurricane Florence devastated North Carolina’s coast a year later.
Many saw Florence as the first big test for renewables’ capacity to stand up to severe weather. While roughly a third of Duke Energy’s customers in North Carolina lost power during the initial days of the storm, solar farms were largely unscathed.
According to the U.S. government’s 2018 National Climate Assessment (NCA), such storms are only expected to grow worse due to global warming, while flooding and droughts will also become more common in the South.
“Texas is the largest global warming polluter in America. To stop the worst impacts of climate change, we must decarbonize Texas,” Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, told ThinkProgress.
Metzger said there is clearly reason for optimism about the rise of wind power in Texas and the growing appeal of solar energy. But he cited TPFF as a threat undermining that progression.
“TPPF is employing a strategy of a death by a thousand cuts. Cut some incentives here, forbid wind and solar farms in certain parts of the state there, mess with the rules of the electricity market here, and so on,” Metzger said. “If they’re successful, it could hamstring renewable energy development in the state where we need it the most.”
While the various attempts to undermine renewable energy may slow the industry’s growth in some states, the economic forecast is clearly positive. According to analysis released last month, replacing 74% of coal plants nationally with renewables would be cheaper than keeping them open, including in many Southern states. And as the cost of batteries continues to drop, renewables plus storage are even cheaper than natural gas in many applications.
That’s good news in places like Texas and North Carolina, as environmental advocates stare down attacks on wind power.
“Thankfully, wind and solar power have enormous support in the state,” said Metzger. “They’re hugely popular with the public.”
RELATED: Warren wants to open public lands to renewables, not fossil fuels
Global economy would save up to $160 trillion by shifting to renewables, electric cars
"Every dollar spent on energy transition would pay off up to seven times."
JOE ROMM - thinkprogress
APR 11, 2019, 11:24 AM
Imagine a world where 85% of all electricity comes from renewable sources, there are over one billion electric vehicles on the road, and we are on track to preserve a livable climate for our children and future generations.
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reported this week that such a future is not merely possible by 2050, but thanks to plummeting prices in key clean energy technologies, the cost of saving the climate has dropped dramatically.
In fact, according to IRENA’s new report, the most cost-effective strategy to achieve a “climate-safe future” — keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) — is an accelerated energy transition to renewables and energy efficiency coupled with electrification of key sectors like transportation.
This Renewable Energy Roadmap (REmap) scenario “would also save the global economy up to USD 160 trillion cumulatively over the next 30 years in avoided health costs, energy subsidies and climate damages.”
At the same time, IRENA reports, “every dollar spent on energy transition would pay off up to seven times.”
IRENA’s reference case scenario, which incorporates current commitments under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, foresees flat energy-related CO2 emissions for the next three decades.
But those emissions must be reduced by 70% to have a good chance of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius. The REmap scenario achieves more than 90% of the necessary reductions through renewable energy and energy efficiency (see chart).
The centerpiece of this strategy is taking advantage of the plummeting cost of renewable energy — especially wind and solar power — to transform the electricity sector. As the IRENA report notes, “in the Power sector, solar and wind energy are on the path to dominance.”
And in their REmap case, wind and solar power by themselves account for the majority of electricity produced in 2050 (see chart).
Another core element of this rapid transition to a low-carbon global economy is to electrify as many of the sectors of the economy as possible — what IRENA calls “Deep Electrification” — to take advantage of the emergence of cheap renewables.
“Electricity would progressively become the central energy carrier,” the report explains, “growing from a 20% share of final consumption to an almost 50% share by 2050.”
One of the most important sectors to electrify in the coming decades is transportation, where improved performance and rapidly dropping prices for batteries have enabled an electric vehicle (EV) revolution in recent years. There are currently some five million EVs on the road today. IRENA projects that in their rapid transition case, which includes investing heavily in EV charging infrastructure, a billion EVs could be on the road in three decades.
Currently, renewables provide about one sixth of the world’s total final energy consumption. But with rapid penetration of both renewables and electrification technologies in key sectors, IRENA projects renewables could provide a remarkable two thirds of all energy consumed around the world.
Thus, another critical sector to decarbonize is heating, much of which is done by natural gas today. That requires a two-pronged strategy: a big push for solar thermal, including solar hot water heaters, and a 16-fold increase in high-efficiency electric heat pumps.
The third key component of the REmap case is a very large investment in energy efficiency in transportation, buildings, and industry. Important measures range from the very simple, such as increased insulation, to the more high tech, such as the use of the latest LED lighting technologies.
Previous research from the International Energy Agency found that the health and productivity benefits from green buildings and high-efficiency industrial processes actually exceeded the energy savings and could increase cumulative economic output through 2035 by $18 trillion.
Finally, IRENA examined the tremendous employment benefits that would come from an aggressive transition to a low-carbon economy.
The report finds “new jobs associated with the transition (i.e. renewable generation, energy efficiency and energy flexibility) significantly outweighing the jobs lost in the fossil fuel sector.” Total net new jobs would number 11 million. At the same time, significant resources should be devoted to helping those in sectors losing jobs.
The bottom line is that thanks to the remarkable innovation in key clean energy technologies in recent years, a transition to a low-carbon economy is not only feasible, it would have enormous benefits in improved health, reduced climate impacts, and employment.
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reported this week that such a future is not merely possible by 2050, but thanks to plummeting prices in key clean energy technologies, the cost of saving the climate has dropped dramatically.
In fact, according to IRENA’s new report, the most cost-effective strategy to achieve a “climate-safe future” — keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) — is an accelerated energy transition to renewables and energy efficiency coupled with electrification of key sectors like transportation.
This Renewable Energy Roadmap (REmap) scenario “would also save the global economy up to USD 160 trillion cumulatively over the next 30 years in avoided health costs, energy subsidies and climate damages.”
At the same time, IRENA reports, “every dollar spent on energy transition would pay off up to seven times.”
IRENA’s reference case scenario, which incorporates current commitments under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, foresees flat energy-related CO2 emissions for the next three decades.
But those emissions must be reduced by 70% to have a good chance of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius. The REmap scenario achieves more than 90% of the necessary reductions through renewable energy and energy efficiency (see chart).
The centerpiece of this strategy is taking advantage of the plummeting cost of renewable energy — especially wind and solar power — to transform the electricity sector. As the IRENA report notes, “in the Power sector, solar and wind energy are on the path to dominance.”
And in their REmap case, wind and solar power by themselves account for the majority of electricity produced in 2050 (see chart).
Another core element of this rapid transition to a low-carbon global economy is to electrify as many of the sectors of the economy as possible — what IRENA calls “Deep Electrification” — to take advantage of the emergence of cheap renewables.
“Electricity would progressively become the central energy carrier,” the report explains, “growing from a 20% share of final consumption to an almost 50% share by 2050.”
One of the most important sectors to electrify in the coming decades is transportation, where improved performance and rapidly dropping prices for batteries have enabled an electric vehicle (EV) revolution in recent years. There are currently some five million EVs on the road today. IRENA projects that in their rapid transition case, which includes investing heavily in EV charging infrastructure, a billion EVs could be on the road in three decades.
Currently, renewables provide about one sixth of the world’s total final energy consumption. But with rapid penetration of both renewables and electrification technologies in key sectors, IRENA projects renewables could provide a remarkable two thirds of all energy consumed around the world.
Thus, another critical sector to decarbonize is heating, much of which is done by natural gas today. That requires a two-pronged strategy: a big push for solar thermal, including solar hot water heaters, and a 16-fold increase in high-efficiency electric heat pumps.
The third key component of the REmap case is a very large investment in energy efficiency in transportation, buildings, and industry. Important measures range from the very simple, such as increased insulation, to the more high tech, such as the use of the latest LED lighting technologies.
Previous research from the International Energy Agency found that the health and productivity benefits from green buildings and high-efficiency industrial processes actually exceeded the energy savings and could increase cumulative economic output through 2035 by $18 trillion.
Finally, IRENA examined the tremendous employment benefits that would come from an aggressive transition to a low-carbon economy.
The report finds “new jobs associated with the transition (i.e. renewable generation, energy efficiency and energy flexibility) significantly outweighing the jobs lost in the fossil fuel sector.” Total net new jobs would number 11 million. At the same time, significant resources should be devoted to helping those in sectors losing jobs.
The bottom line is that thanks to the remarkable innovation in key clean energy technologies in recent years, a transition to a low-carbon economy is not only feasible, it would have enormous benefits in improved health, reduced climate impacts, and employment.
how about replanting new trees, duh!!!
Logging Is the Leading Driver of Carbon Emissions From US Forests
BY Danna Smith, Chad Hanson & Matthew Koehler, Earth Island Journal - alternet
PUBLISHED April 6, 2019
Climate change is having a growing impact on Americans and, as the crisis escalates, communities face growing challenges. The latest report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change underscores that we have eleven short years to make “rapid transformation across all industrial sectors.
Protecting forest ecosystems is critical in the fight to limit global warming — when forests are disturbed they release carbon, but when left to grow they actively pull carbon out of the air and store it. When left standing, forests also provide optimal natural protection against extreme weather events, like flooding and droughts.
As the Trump Administration and industry allies push for increased commercial logging of America’s forests, we feel compelled to call attention to the elephant in the room: the profound ways in which industrial logging not only decimates ecosystems but also exacerbates climate change.
Many people are aware of the importance of protecting rainforests in Brazil to help mitigate climate change, but few realize that more logging occurs in the US, and more wood is consumed here, than in any other nation globally. The rate and scale of logging in the Southeastern US alone is four times that in South American rainforests.
The Trump Administration and industry have been aggressively promoting misinformation about forests and wildland fires, while advocating for large increases in logging under the guises of “forest health,” “fuel reduction,” “renewable energy,” and reducing carbon emissions. A version of this industry narrative was on display during the recent climate change hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee.
But the promotion of logging to supposedly curb carbon emissions is just part of the Administration’s ongoing alignment with industry and troubling pattern of climate science denial. Carbon emissions from logging in the US are ten times higher than the combined emissions from wildland fire and tree mortality from native bark beetles. Fire only consumes a minor percentage of forest carbon, while improving availability of key nutrients and stimulating rapid forest regeneration. Within a decade after fire, more carbon has been pulled out of the atmosphere than was emitted. When trees die from drought and native bark beetles, no carbon is consumed or emitted initially, and carbon emissions from decay are extremely small, and slow, while decaying wood helps keeps soils productive, which enhances carbon sequestration capacity over time.
On the other hand, industrial logging — even when conducted under the euphemism of “thinning” — results in a large net loss of forest carbonstorage, and a substantial overall increase in carbon emissions that can take decades, if not a century, to recapture with regrowth. Logging also tends to make fires burn faster and more intensely while degrading a forest ecosystem’s ability to provide natural protections against extreme weather events.
Consider this: About 28 percent of tree carbon is contained in branches, and this is emitted when they are burned after logging operations. An additional 53 percent of the carbon in trees removed from forests isemitted as waste in the manufacturing and milling process. Overall, about two-thirds of the carbon in trees that are logged for lumber quickly become greenhouse gas emissions.
When trees are cut down and burned to generate “biomass” electricity under the guise of “renewable energy,” 100 percent of the carbon is emitted. Incinerating wood for energy emits evenmore CO2 than burning coal, for equal energy produced. Yet, the expansion of US production of wood pellets to fuel power stations in Europe has been spreading like wildfire across the Southeast, accelerating the destruction of some of our nation’s most ecologically-important forests and putting the health of some of the nation’s most vulnerable communities at increased risk.
The Administration’s efforts to demonize standing dead trees (“snags”) in forest ecosystems is also factually challenged. We have considerablyless fire now on the landscape than we did historically, and the “snag forest habitat” created in some places by fire and native bark beetles is an ecological treasure — comparable to old-growth forest in terms of native biodiversity and wildlife abundance. Woodpeckers and shrub-nesting birds flourish in forest ecosystems following fire, as do elk and deer because of the abundance of nutritious understory vegetation that rapidly grows there.
To effectively mitigate climate change, we must stop burning carbon for fuel and greatly increase forest protection. If we take ambitious steps to protect vastly more of our forests from industrial logging, we can avoid emissions while also actively absorbing large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and storing it back on land in the forest where it belongs.
Now is the time for such bold action. We can protect our National Forests and scale-up protection on private lands, while ensuring a just economic transition by redirecting logging subsidies into green jobs that help create fire-safe rural communities in the West and restore natural flood control in the Southeast. We must create new incentives for landowners who protect forests instead of logging them. This approach has recently been endorsed by over 250 climate change and conservation organizations, scientists, and policymakers. We simply cannot solve the climate crisis without reducing the climate impacts associated with the large-scale industrial logging of America’s forests.
Protecting forest ecosystems is critical in the fight to limit global warming — when forests are disturbed they release carbon, but when left to grow they actively pull carbon out of the air and store it. When left standing, forests also provide optimal natural protection against extreme weather events, like flooding and droughts.
As the Trump Administration and industry allies push for increased commercial logging of America’s forests, we feel compelled to call attention to the elephant in the room: the profound ways in which industrial logging not only decimates ecosystems but also exacerbates climate change.
Many people are aware of the importance of protecting rainforests in Brazil to help mitigate climate change, but few realize that more logging occurs in the US, and more wood is consumed here, than in any other nation globally. The rate and scale of logging in the Southeastern US alone is four times that in South American rainforests.
The Trump Administration and industry have been aggressively promoting misinformation about forests and wildland fires, while advocating for large increases in logging under the guises of “forest health,” “fuel reduction,” “renewable energy,” and reducing carbon emissions. A version of this industry narrative was on display during the recent climate change hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee.
But the promotion of logging to supposedly curb carbon emissions is just part of the Administration’s ongoing alignment with industry and troubling pattern of climate science denial. Carbon emissions from logging in the US are ten times higher than the combined emissions from wildland fire and tree mortality from native bark beetles. Fire only consumes a minor percentage of forest carbon, while improving availability of key nutrients and stimulating rapid forest regeneration. Within a decade after fire, more carbon has been pulled out of the atmosphere than was emitted. When trees die from drought and native bark beetles, no carbon is consumed or emitted initially, and carbon emissions from decay are extremely small, and slow, while decaying wood helps keeps soils productive, which enhances carbon sequestration capacity over time.
On the other hand, industrial logging — even when conducted under the euphemism of “thinning” — results in a large net loss of forest carbonstorage, and a substantial overall increase in carbon emissions that can take decades, if not a century, to recapture with regrowth. Logging also tends to make fires burn faster and more intensely while degrading a forest ecosystem’s ability to provide natural protections against extreme weather events.
Consider this: About 28 percent of tree carbon is contained in branches, and this is emitted when they are burned after logging operations. An additional 53 percent of the carbon in trees removed from forests isemitted as waste in the manufacturing and milling process. Overall, about two-thirds of the carbon in trees that are logged for lumber quickly become greenhouse gas emissions.
When trees are cut down and burned to generate “biomass” electricity under the guise of “renewable energy,” 100 percent of the carbon is emitted. Incinerating wood for energy emits evenmore CO2 than burning coal, for equal energy produced. Yet, the expansion of US production of wood pellets to fuel power stations in Europe has been spreading like wildfire across the Southeast, accelerating the destruction of some of our nation’s most ecologically-important forests and putting the health of some of the nation’s most vulnerable communities at increased risk.
The Administration’s efforts to demonize standing dead trees (“snags”) in forest ecosystems is also factually challenged. We have considerablyless fire now on the landscape than we did historically, and the “snag forest habitat” created in some places by fire and native bark beetles is an ecological treasure — comparable to old-growth forest in terms of native biodiversity and wildlife abundance. Woodpeckers and shrub-nesting birds flourish in forest ecosystems following fire, as do elk and deer because of the abundance of nutritious understory vegetation that rapidly grows there.
To effectively mitigate climate change, we must stop burning carbon for fuel and greatly increase forest protection. If we take ambitious steps to protect vastly more of our forests from industrial logging, we can avoid emissions while also actively absorbing large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and storing it back on land in the forest where it belongs.
Now is the time for such bold action. We can protect our National Forests and scale-up protection on private lands, while ensuring a just economic transition by redirecting logging subsidies into green jobs that help create fire-safe rural communities in the West and restore natural flood control in the Southeast. We must create new incentives for landowners who protect forests instead of logging them. This approach has recently been endorsed by over 250 climate change and conservation organizations, scientists, and policymakers. We simply cannot solve the climate crisis without reducing the climate impacts associated with the large-scale industrial logging of America’s forests.
Skyscrapers are killing up to 1bn birds a year in US, scientists estimate
New report ranks deadliest cities for feathered travelers, who often collide with glass-covered or illuminated buildings
Lauren Aratani in New York
the guardian
Sun 7 Apr 2019 01.00 EDT
Skyscrapers in New York City. Conservationists want buildings adopt more ‘bird-friendly’ designs. Photograph: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
Scientists estimate that at least 100 million and maybe as many as a billion birds die each year in the US when they collide with buildings, especially glass-covered or illuminated skyscrapers. And, in a new report, conservationists now have a better idea which American cities are the deadliest for those on the wing.
Chicago, with its many glass superstructures that spike into what is the busiest US avian airspace during migration, is the most dangerous city for those feathered travelers. More than 5 million birds from at least 250 different species fly through the Windy City’s downtown every fall and spring.
They journey twice a year, many thousands of miles, going north in the spring from Central and South America, across the Great Lakes to Canada, and back south in the fall.
The famous skyline of Manhattan is another death trap for birds, especially those migrating.
“They wind up landing somewhere that’s unfamiliar, like a sidewalk somewhere,” said Susan Elbin, director of conservation and science at New York City Audubon, a leading bird advocacy organization. “Then when daylight comes, and they want to get more food, they’ll fly into a tree that they think is a tree, and it’s really a reflected tree in some glass building … Then they’ll slam into the glass, and then they die.”
Most birds migrating through the US do so at night, when the airspace is cool and calm – and often end up veering through cities because their glow stands out. Scientists have long known that birds are attracted to light, so when they fly over a bright city at night, they are naturally drawn toward it, unaware they are in dangerous territory.
Any city with glass structures and bright lights at night is a culprit, but some are more dangerous to birds than others.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology published a study this week that ranks cities based on the danger they pose to migrating birds.
Houston and Dallas, which also lie along some of the most popular migration paths, round out the top three most deadly cities after Chicago. New York, Los Angeles, St Louis and Atlanta also pose risks during migration.
Kyle Horton, an author of the Cornell study, said that the researchers were not trying to criticize cities per se.
“We’re trying to raise awareness – trying to provide data and insight that could help,” he said.
As the experts admit, it’s hard to get reliable statistics.
New York City Audubon conducts “collision monitoring studies” in September and April each year, sending dozens of volunteers into the city streets to track fallen birds. The organization estimates about 90,000 to 200,000 birds are killed via building collision in the city each year. Local Audubon chapters and other bird conservation groups around the country coordinate similar data collection exercises.
On a national scale, the Smithsonian’s migratory bird center estimated the number of deaths to be between 100 million and one billion birds annually, using data from a wide variety of different groups across the country.
Certain species of birds are more susceptible to building collisions. A separate study from the University of Michigan published this week found that songbirds, such as sparrows and warblers, are more likely to suffer collisions. Songbirds tend to emit “flight calls” during migration and are more likely to chirp when they see the bright lights of a city, potentially luring other birds into the treacherous skyline.
Though the studies bear sad news about the effects cities have on birds, conservationists see them as opportunities to target their activism.
“Every time new scientific literature comes out, we learn more about the problem, and … we can pinpoint the best solutions using the science,” said Kaitlyn Parkins, a conservation biologist at NYC Audubon.
Turning out the lights in buildings at night for a few weeks during peak migration is a simple first step and would make a big difference, Parkins said. The National Audubon Society runs Lights Out, a coordinated effort with local chapters to advocate reducing light during migration. States such as New York and Minnesota have participated in the program, turning out lights in state-operated buildings during migration.
Conservationists also advocate that buildings adopt more “bird-friendly” designs, for example using patterned glass and dimmer lighting. San Francisco and Toronto have already adopted some bird-friendly guidelines, while city council members in New York and Chicago have introduced legislation to adopt similar measures. A bipartisan bill in Congress introduced in January, called the “Bird-Safe Building Act”, would require new federal buildings to adopt designs that keep migrating birds in mind.
“We need to coexist with the ecosystem because we’re part of it, and so are birds,” Elbin said. “What’s good for birds is good for people.”
Chicago, with its many glass superstructures that spike into what is the busiest US avian airspace during migration, is the most dangerous city for those feathered travelers. More than 5 million birds from at least 250 different species fly through the Windy City’s downtown every fall and spring.
They journey twice a year, many thousands of miles, going north in the spring from Central and South America, across the Great Lakes to Canada, and back south in the fall.
The famous skyline of Manhattan is another death trap for birds, especially those migrating.
“They wind up landing somewhere that’s unfamiliar, like a sidewalk somewhere,” said Susan Elbin, director of conservation and science at New York City Audubon, a leading bird advocacy organization. “Then when daylight comes, and they want to get more food, they’ll fly into a tree that they think is a tree, and it’s really a reflected tree in some glass building … Then they’ll slam into the glass, and then they die.”
Most birds migrating through the US do so at night, when the airspace is cool and calm – and often end up veering through cities because their glow stands out. Scientists have long known that birds are attracted to light, so when they fly over a bright city at night, they are naturally drawn toward it, unaware they are in dangerous territory.
Any city with glass structures and bright lights at night is a culprit, but some are more dangerous to birds than others.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology published a study this week that ranks cities based on the danger they pose to migrating birds.
Houston and Dallas, which also lie along some of the most popular migration paths, round out the top three most deadly cities after Chicago. New York, Los Angeles, St Louis and Atlanta also pose risks during migration.
Kyle Horton, an author of the Cornell study, said that the researchers were not trying to criticize cities per se.
“We’re trying to raise awareness – trying to provide data and insight that could help,” he said.
As the experts admit, it’s hard to get reliable statistics.
New York City Audubon conducts “collision monitoring studies” in September and April each year, sending dozens of volunteers into the city streets to track fallen birds. The organization estimates about 90,000 to 200,000 birds are killed via building collision in the city each year. Local Audubon chapters and other bird conservation groups around the country coordinate similar data collection exercises.
On a national scale, the Smithsonian’s migratory bird center estimated the number of deaths to be between 100 million and one billion birds annually, using data from a wide variety of different groups across the country.
Certain species of birds are more susceptible to building collisions. A separate study from the University of Michigan published this week found that songbirds, such as sparrows and warblers, are more likely to suffer collisions. Songbirds tend to emit “flight calls” during migration and are more likely to chirp when they see the bright lights of a city, potentially luring other birds into the treacherous skyline.
Though the studies bear sad news about the effects cities have on birds, conservationists see them as opportunities to target their activism.
“Every time new scientific literature comes out, we learn more about the problem, and … we can pinpoint the best solutions using the science,” said Kaitlyn Parkins, a conservation biologist at NYC Audubon.
Turning out the lights in buildings at night for a few weeks during peak migration is a simple first step and would make a big difference, Parkins said. The National Audubon Society runs Lights Out, a coordinated effort with local chapters to advocate reducing light during migration. States such as New York and Minnesota have participated in the program, turning out lights in state-operated buildings during migration.
Conservationists also advocate that buildings adopt more “bird-friendly” designs, for example using patterned glass and dimmer lighting. San Francisco and Toronto have already adopted some bird-friendly guidelines, while city council members in New York and Chicago have introduced legislation to adopt similar measures. A bipartisan bill in Congress introduced in January, called the “Bird-Safe Building Act”, would require new federal buildings to adopt designs that keep migrating birds in mind.
“We need to coexist with the ecosystem because we’re part of it, and so are birds,” Elbin said. “What’s good for birds is good for people.”
Toxic air will shorten children's lives by 20 months, study reveals
Global air pollution crisis is taking its greatest toll on children in south Asia
Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent
the guardian
Tue 2 Apr 2019 23.01 EDT
The life expectancy of children born today will be shortened by 20 months on average by breathing the toxic air that is widespread across the globe, with the greatest toll in south Asia, according to a major study.
Air pollution contributed to nearly one in every 10 deaths in 2017, making it a bigger killer than malaria and road accidents and comparable to smoking, according to the State of Global Air (SOGA) 2019 study published on Wednesday.
In south Asia, children can expect to have their lives cut short by 30 months, and in sub-Saharan Africa by 24 months, because of a combination of outdoor air pollution caused by traffic and industry, and dirty air indoors, largely from cooking fires. In east Asia, air pollution will shorten children’s lives by an estimated 23 months. However, the life expectancy burden is forecast to be less than five months for children in the developed world.
“That the life of children is being shortened so much came as really quite a shock,” said Robert O’Keefe, the vice-president of the Health Effects Institute, which produced the report. “There is no magic bullet but governments should be taking action.”
Alastair Harper, the head of campaigns and advocacy at Unicef UK, which has warned repeatedly of the threat to children’s health, said: “This adds to a bleak picture of how polluted air impacts the health of society’s most vulnerable groups, particularly children. Evidence continues to mount showing a relationship between exposure to toxic air and low birthweight, reduced lung development and childhood asthma.”
He added: “It’s clear with better monitoring of global pollution data we will improve our understanding of the issue and how we can tackle it. The damage to children’s health is happening right now.”
Although young children face particular threats, such as stunted lung development that will last throughout their lives, older adults are also at risk: nearly nine in 10 deaths attributable to air pollution were in the over-50s. Ageing populations in many parts of the world are likely to increase the death toll for years to come, said O’Keefe.
Air pollution accounts for 41% of global deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 20% from type 2 diabetes, 19% from lung cancer, 16% from ischaemic heart disease, and 11% of deaths from stroke, according to the report, described as the most systematic annual study of the health effects of global air pollution.
However, there are signs that actions taken by governments are working, including reducing forms of some particulate pollution in the developed world.
O’Keefe also pointed to China’s levels of air pollution, which have bucked the developing world trend by starting to fall in the last several years. China’s 2013 action plan set air quality targets and measures to reduce the reliance on coal and make industry cleaner, while controlling the number of vehicles in some cities and investing in clean energy. “They have kept on pursuing this, they have dispatched government officials to these places to enforce, and air pollution has begun to turn a corner in China,” he said.
According to the report, south Asia had the highest level of exposures to PM2.5, a size of particulate that can cause breathing difficulties and cardiovascular problems, with the rate in Nepal and India nearly twice the rate of China’s exposure to the particles. Among the countries with the lowest levels were the US, Norway, Canada, Sweden and New Zealand, though the Maldives, Brunei and Estonia also scored well on the measure.
Broadly, this disparity between less and more developed countries on this form of pollution is seen across the world, with developing countries suffering PM2.5 exposures that are four to five times those of more-developed countries.
Household air pollution is another key issue, with 3.6 billion people estimated to be exposed globally, with a “double whammy” for the health of those also exposed to high levels of outdoor pollution. In the developing world, reliance on solid fuels, such as biomass for cooking and heating, is the main source of indoor pollution.
The report also found ground-level ozone continues to be a major problem in rich countries, where it is produced in the atmosphere by nitrogen oxides and similar pollutants, emitted from traffic and some industrial processes. Breathing in the gas increases the likelihood of dying from respiratory disease and can exacerbate other respiratory problems.
Last year’s SOGA study found dirty air was nearly ubiquitous among the global population, with more than 90% of people worldwide breathing in dangerous air, the result of industrial expansion, increasing traffic and exposure to indoor pollution from solid-fuel cooking fires.
Air pollution is an increasing concern across the world, with studies linking it to a wide range of effects on health, from dementia to miscarriage, and it has been described as a global emergency.
O’Keefe said measures to take included investing in electric vehicles, and renewable energy. But he warned that investing in some infrastructure, such as coal-fired power, could “lock in” air pollution for years to come.
Air pollution contributed to nearly one in every 10 deaths in 2017, making it a bigger killer than malaria and road accidents and comparable to smoking, according to the State of Global Air (SOGA) 2019 study published on Wednesday.
In south Asia, children can expect to have their lives cut short by 30 months, and in sub-Saharan Africa by 24 months, because of a combination of outdoor air pollution caused by traffic and industry, and dirty air indoors, largely from cooking fires. In east Asia, air pollution will shorten children’s lives by an estimated 23 months. However, the life expectancy burden is forecast to be less than five months for children in the developed world.
“That the life of children is being shortened so much came as really quite a shock,” said Robert O’Keefe, the vice-president of the Health Effects Institute, which produced the report. “There is no magic bullet but governments should be taking action.”
Alastair Harper, the head of campaigns and advocacy at Unicef UK, which has warned repeatedly of the threat to children’s health, said: “This adds to a bleak picture of how polluted air impacts the health of society’s most vulnerable groups, particularly children. Evidence continues to mount showing a relationship between exposure to toxic air and low birthweight, reduced lung development and childhood asthma.”
He added: “It’s clear with better monitoring of global pollution data we will improve our understanding of the issue and how we can tackle it. The damage to children’s health is happening right now.”
Although young children face particular threats, such as stunted lung development that will last throughout their lives, older adults are also at risk: nearly nine in 10 deaths attributable to air pollution were in the over-50s. Ageing populations in many parts of the world are likely to increase the death toll for years to come, said O’Keefe.
Air pollution accounts for 41% of global deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 20% from type 2 diabetes, 19% from lung cancer, 16% from ischaemic heart disease, and 11% of deaths from stroke, according to the report, described as the most systematic annual study of the health effects of global air pollution.
However, there are signs that actions taken by governments are working, including reducing forms of some particulate pollution in the developed world.
O’Keefe also pointed to China’s levels of air pollution, which have bucked the developing world trend by starting to fall in the last several years. China’s 2013 action plan set air quality targets and measures to reduce the reliance on coal and make industry cleaner, while controlling the number of vehicles in some cities and investing in clean energy. “They have kept on pursuing this, they have dispatched government officials to these places to enforce, and air pollution has begun to turn a corner in China,” he said.
According to the report, south Asia had the highest level of exposures to PM2.5, a size of particulate that can cause breathing difficulties and cardiovascular problems, with the rate in Nepal and India nearly twice the rate of China’s exposure to the particles. Among the countries with the lowest levels were the US, Norway, Canada, Sweden and New Zealand, though the Maldives, Brunei and Estonia also scored well on the measure.
Broadly, this disparity between less and more developed countries on this form of pollution is seen across the world, with developing countries suffering PM2.5 exposures that are four to five times those of more-developed countries.
Household air pollution is another key issue, with 3.6 billion people estimated to be exposed globally, with a “double whammy” for the health of those also exposed to high levels of outdoor pollution. In the developing world, reliance on solid fuels, such as biomass for cooking and heating, is the main source of indoor pollution.
The report also found ground-level ozone continues to be a major problem in rich countries, where it is produced in the atmosphere by nitrogen oxides and similar pollutants, emitted from traffic and some industrial processes. Breathing in the gas increases the likelihood of dying from respiratory disease and can exacerbate other respiratory problems.
Last year’s SOGA study found dirty air was nearly ubiquitous among the global population, with more than 90% of people worldwide breathing in dangerous air, the result of industrial expansion, increasing traffic and exposure to indoor pollution from solid-fuel cooking fires.
Air pollution is an increasing concern across the world, with studies linking it to a wide range of effects on health, from dementia to miscarriage, and it has been described as a global emergency.
O’Keefe said measures to take included investing in electric vehicles, and renewable energy. But he warned that investing in some infrastructure, such as coal-fired power, could “lock in” air pollution for years to come.
Major victory for environment as Duke Energy ordered to clean up toxic coal ash
Advocates hailed the announcement as "one of the most important steps in the state’s history."
E.A. CRUNDEN - thinkprogress
APR 1, 2019, 3:04 PM
North Carolina has ordered one of the largest utility companies in the United States to excavate coal ash from all remaining sites in the state, in a major victory for environmental advocates and vulnerable communities disproportionately at risk from pollution and contaminated water.
Duke Energy, which is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, must take dramatic steps to reduce the risk posed by the toxic chemicals produced after coal is burned. Coal ash has long threatened drinking water in the state and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) announced Monday that the state is prepared to take action.
The coal ash pits at Duke’s six remaining coal-burning plants must now be excavated. This means the ash — which has been mixed with water and stored in open, unlined ponds — must be moved elsewhere to a location where they do not threaten the environment and the public.
Duke had previously asked to be able to cover the coal ash sites with a waterproof cap, also known as a “cap in place” approach. But North Carolina is demanding that the utility remove the toxins from the six sites.
“DEQ rigorously reviewed the proposals [from Duke], and the science points us clearly to excavation as the only way to protect public health and the environment,” said DEQ Secretary Michael Regan, nodding to the climate and environmental policies put forward by Gov. Roy Cooper (D). “Today’s action sends another clear message that protecting public health and natural resources is a top priority of the Cooper administration.”
The utility is now required to submit final excavation and closure plans to the state by August 1. By December 1, the utility must also submit plans on how it will address groundwater contamination at all six plants. The sites named Monday are in addition to eight plants that Duke has either already excavated or agreed to excavate, according to NC Policy Watch.
For years, communities have begged the state to address Duke’s coal ash problems. Leaking unlined coal ash pits are perilously close to water sources and contain chemicals like mercury and arsenic. In 2014, a leak from a Duke site spilled 39,000 tons of coal ash into the Dan River, coating some 70 miles of the water body with toxic chemicals.
During Hurricane Florence last fall, floodwaters overwhelmed multiple Duke coal ash pits, forcing the company to admit that the chemicals might have entered the Cape Fear River. That river supplies drinking water to the city of Wilmington, North Carolina.
Responding to the state’s decision, Duke stated that the utility will review the decision “and will continue to support solutions that protect our customers and the environment.” The company has argued the process could cost billions of dollars at the expense of ratepayers, in addition to taking decades to complete. It is unclear what the actual impact on ratepayers might be.
Environmental groups welcomed Monday’s news with open arms. “Thank you to Gov. Cooper and Sec. Regan for listening to the communities most impacted by Duke Energy’s poor management of coal ash,” Brian Buzby, executive director of the North Carolina Conservation Network, said in a statement. “Excavating ash into less vulnerable spaces will protect North Carolina rivers and hopefully bring some peace to the families who have spent years fighting for their right to clean water.”
Frank Holleman, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), similarly hailed the announcement as “one of the most important steps in the state’s history” toward addressing pollution and water protection.
“When the coal ash from all of these sites is finally removed, North Carolina’s rivers will be cleaner, North Carolina’s drinking water will be safer, and North Carolina’s communities will be more secure,” Holleman said in a statement. “We will no longer have to hold our breath every time a storm, a flood, or a hurricane hits a community with unlined coal ash pits sitting on the banks of waterways.”
North Carolina joins a growing regional trend, as both South Carolina and Virginia have pushed forward with their own efforts to force coal ash cleanup. According to a national assessment of coal plants published in March by the environmental legal group Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project, coal ash contaminates groundwater at 91% of U.S. coal plants. The Southeast and Midwest are among the most impacted regions.
North Carolina’s actions also come as the Trump administration continues its efforts to gut coal ash regulations. Last summer, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allowed coal ash impoundments at risk of leaks to continue operating well beyond April 2019, when they were set to close.
Moreover, in March 2018, the EPA proposed further modifications to the 2015 Obama-era Coal Ash Rule, which is designed to protect human health and the environment by placing more strident restrictions on coal ash. State-run coal ash permit programs would be allowed to waive groundwater monitoring requirements under the new rule.
The rollback has been tied up in litigation since last fall.
Duke Energy, which is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, must take dramatic steps to reduce the risk posed by the toxic chemicals produced after coal is burned. Coal ash has long threatened drinking water in the state and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) announced Monday that the state is prepared to take action.
The coal ash pits at Duke’s six remaining coal-burning plants must now be excavated. This means the ash — which has been mixed with water and stored in open, unlined ponds — must be moved elsewhere to a location where they do not threaten the environment and the public.
Duke had previously asked to be able to cover the coal ash sites with a waterproof cap, also known as a “cap in place” approach. But North Carolina is demanding that the utility remove the toxins from the six sites.
“DEQ rigorously reviewed the proposals [from Duke], and the science points us clearly to excavation as the only way to protect public health and the environment,” said DEQ Secretary Michael Regan, nodding to the climate and environmental policies put forward by Gov. Roy Cooper (D). “Today’s action sends another clear message that protecting public health and natural resources is a top priority of the Cooper administration.”
The utility is now required to submit final excavation and closure plans to the state by August 1. By December 1, the utility must also submit plans on how it will address groundwater contamination at all six plants. The sites named Monday are in addition to eight plants that Duke has either already excavated or agreed to excavate, according to NC Policy Watch.
For years, communities have begged the state to address Duke’s coal ash problems. Leaking unlined coal ash pits are perilously close to water sources and contain chemicals like mercury and arsenic. In 2014, a leak from a Duke site spilled 39,000 tons of coal ash into the Dan River, coating some 70 miles of the water body with toxic chemicals.
During Hurricane Florence last fall, floodwaters overwhelmed multiple Duke coal ash pits, forcing the company to admit that the chemicals might have entered the Cape Fear River. That river supplies drinking water to the city of Wilmington, North Carolina.
Responding to the state’s decision, Duke stated that the utility will review the decision “and will continue to support solutions that protect our customers and the environment.” The company has argued the process could cost billions of dollars at the expense of ratepayers, in addition to taking decades to complete. It is unclear what the actual impact on ratepayers might be.
Environmental groups welcomed Monday’s news with open arms. “Thank you to Gov. Cooper and Sec. Regan for listening to the communities most impacted by Duke Energy’s poor management of coal ash,” Brian Buzby, executive director of the North Carolina Conservation Network, said in a statement. “Excavating ash into less vulnerable spaces will protect North Carolina rivers and hopefully bring some peace to the families who have spent years fighting for their right to clean water.”
Frank Holleman, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), similarly hailed the announcement as “one of the most important steps in the state’s history” toward addressing pollution and water protection.
“When the coal ash from all of these sites is finally removed, North Carolina’s rivers will be cleaner, North Carolina’s drinking water will be safer, and North Carolina’s communities will be more secure,” Holleman said in a statement. “We will no longer have to hold our breath every time a storm, a flood, or a hurricane hits a community with unlined coal ash pits sitting on the banks of waterways.”
North Carolina joins a growing regional trend, as both South Carolina and Virginia have pushed forward with their own efforts to force coal ash cleanup. According to a national assessment of coal plants published in March by the environmental legal group Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project, coal ash contaminates groundwater at 91% of U.S. coal plants. The Southeast and Midwest are among the most impacted regions.
North Carolina’s actions also come as the Trump administration continues its efforts to gut coal ash regulations. Last summer, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allowed coal ash impoundments at risk of leaks to continue operating well beyond April 2019, when they were set to close.
Moreover, in March 2018, the EPA proposed further modifications to the 2015 Obama-era Coal Ash Rule, which is designed to protect human health and the environment by placing more strident restrictions on coal ash. State-run coal ash permit programs would be allowed to waive groundwater monitoring requirements under the new rule.
The rollback has been tied up in litigation since last fall.
Pesticide residues found in 70% of produce sold in US even after washing
*Strawberries, spinach and kale among most pesticide-heavy
*Conventionally farmed kale could contain up to 18 pesticides
Emily Holden in Washington
the guardian
Wed 20 Mar 2019 00.01 ED
About 70% of fresh produce sold in the US has pesticide residues on it even after it is washed, according to a health advocacy group.
According to the Environmental Working Group’s annual analysis of US Department of Agriculture data, strawberries, spinach and kale are among the most pesticide-heavy produce, while avocados, sweetcorn and pineapples had the lowest level of residues.
More than 92% of kale tested contained two or more pesticide residues, according to the analysis, and a single sample of conventionally farmed kale could contain up to 18 different pesticides.
Dacthal – the most common pesticide found, which was detected in nearly 60% of kale samples, is banned in Europe and classified as a possible human carcinogen in the US.
“We definitely acknowledge and support that everybody should be eating healthy fruits and vegetables as part of their diet regardless of if they’re conventional or organic,” said Alexis Temkin, a toxicologist working with the EWG.
“But what we try to highlight with the Shopper’s Guide to Produce is building on a body of evidence that shows mixtures of pesticides can have adverse effects.”
Other foods on the group’s “dirty dozen” list include grapes, cherries, apples, tomatoes and potatoes. In contrast, its “clean 15” list includes avocados, onions and cauliflower.
Leonardo Trasande, an environmental medicine specialist at the New York University medical school, called the EWG report “widely respected” and said it can inform shoppers who want to buy some organic fruits and vegetables, but would like to know which ones they could prioritize.
Despite a growing body of research, scientists say it is difficult to pinpoint how many pesticides people are exposed to in their daily lives, and in what quantity. And it is also hard to say how those chemicals in combination affect the body.
One recent French study found that people eating organic foods were at a significantly lower risk of developing cancer, although it suggested that if those findings were confirmed, the underlying factors would require more research. Nutritional experts at Harvard University cautioned that that study did not analyze residue levels in participants’ bodies to confirm exposure levels.
While 90% of Americans have detectable pesticide levels in their urine and blood, “the health consequences of consuming pesticide residues from conventionally grown foods are unknown, as are the effects of choosing organic foods or conventionally grown foods known to have fewer pesticide residues,” they said.
A separate Harvard study found that for women undergoing fertility treatment, those who ate more high-pesticide fruits and vegetables were less likely to have a live birth.
The CDC explains that “a wide range of health effects, acute and chronic, are associated with exposures to some pesticides,” including nervous system impacts, skin and eye irritation, cancer and endocrine disorders.
“The health risks from pesticide exposure depend on the toxicity of the pesticides, the amount a person is exposed to, and the duration and the route of exposure,” the CDC says, noting evidence suggests children are at higher risk.
The Environmental Protection Agency sets rules for how pesticides are used, but those rules do not necessarily prevent cumulative exposure in a person’s diet.
The agency is fighting a court order to ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that is associated with development disabilities in children.
EPA has also scaled back what types of exposure it will consider when evaluating human health risks. And President Trump has appointed a former executive from the industry lobbying group the American Chemistry Council, Nancy Beck, as the head of its toxic chemical unit.
According to the Environmental Working Group’s annual analysis of US Department of Agriculture data, strawberries, spinach and kale are among the most pesticide-heavy produce, while avocados, sweetcorn and pineapples had the lowest level of residues.
More than 92% of kale tested contained two or more pesticide residues, according to the analysis, and a single sample of conventionally farmed kale could contain up to 18 different pesticides.
Dacthal – the most common pesticide found, which was detected in nearly 60% of kale samples, is banned in Europe and classified as a possible human carcinogen in the US.
“We definitely acknowledge and support that everybody should be eating healthy fruits and vegetables as part of their diet regardless of if they’re conventional or organic,” said Alexis Temkin, a toxicologist working with the EWG.
“But what we try to highlight with the Shopper’s Guide to Produce is building on a body of evidence that shows mixtures of pesticides can have adverse effects.”
Other foods on the group’s “dirty dozen” list include grapes, cherries, apples, tomatoes and potatoes. In contrast, its “clean 15” list includes avocados, onions and cauliflower.
Leonardo Trasande, an environmental medicine specialist at the New York University medical school, called the EWG report “widely respected” and said it can inform shoppers who want to buy some organic fruits and vegetables, but would like to know which ones they could prioritize.
Despite a growing body of research, scientists say it is difficult to pinpoint how many pesticides people are exposed to in their daily lives, and in what quantity. And it is also hard to say how those chemicals in combination affect the body.
One recent French study found that people eating organic foods were at a significantly lower risk of developing cancer, although it suggested that if those findings were confirmed, the underlying factors would require more research. Nutritional experts at Harvard University cautioned that that study did not analyze residue levels in participants’ bodies to confirm exposure levels.
While 90% of Americans have detectable pesticide levels in their urine and blood, “the health consequences of consuming pesticide residues from conventionally grown foods are unknown, as are the effects of choosing organic foods or conventionally grown foods known to have fewer pesticide residues,” they said.
A separate Harvard study found that for women undergoing fertility treatment, those who ate more high-pesticide fruits and vegetables were less likely to have a live birth.
The CDC explains that “a wide range of health effects, acute and chronic, are associated with exposures to some pesticides,” including nervous system impacts, skin and eye irritation, cancer and endocrine disorders.
“The health risks from pesticide exposure depend on the toxicity of the pesticides, the amount a person is exposed to, and the duration and the route of exposure,” the CDC says, noting evidence suggests children are at higher risk.
The Environmental Protection Agency sets rules for how pesticides are used, but those rules do not necessarily prevent cumulative exposure in a person’s diet.
The agency is fighting a court order to ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that is associated with development disabilities in children.
EPA has also scaled back what types of exposure it will consider when evaluating human health risks. And President Trump has appointed a former executive from the industry lobbying group the American Chemistry Council, Nancy Beck, as the head of its toxic chemical unit.
CARTOON TWEETED OUT BY NOAA SCIENTISTS TUESDAY MORNING. CREDIT: NOAA.
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