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Tag: animals

Huge Victory: Seismic Blasting Is Halted in Atlantic Ocean

Posted on by dishanth
Huge Victory: Seismic Blasting Is Halted in Atlantic Ocean

The federal government and fossil fuel industry announced at a legal hearing Thursday that seismic blasting will not be carried out in the Atlantic Ocean this year—and possibly not in the near future either—a development welcomed by conservation groups who lobbied forcefully against what they said would have been an “unjustified acoustic attack on our oceans.”

“Communities can breathe a little easier knowing the Atlantic is now safe from seismic airgun blasting in 2020,” said Oceana campaign director Diane Hoskins, who called the news “a bright spot and in line with the court of public opinion.”

Confirmation of the pause on the blasting, an initial step in searching for offshore oil, came at a status conference for ongoing litigation over the issuance of so-called Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHAs) that would have allowed fossil fuel companies to “incidentally, but not intentionally, harass marine mammals” including the endangered North Atlantic right whale, humpback whale, and bottlenose dolphin.

The risk was particularly acute for the right whale. Alice M. Keyes, vice president of coastal conservation for One Hundred Miles, warned that “seismic blasting in the Atlantic would sound the death knell for this magnificent species.”

Ocean conservation advocates have long sounded alarm about widespread harms caused by airgun tests that “generate the loudest human sounds in the ocean, short of those made by explosives” and can trigger hearing loss in marine mammals that rely on echolocation. Such blasts can be “repeated every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, for days to weeks at a time.”

Confirming a legal filing from Tuesday, government attorneys said Thursday that the IHAs in question expire at the end of November, and there is no legal or regulatory ability to extend them. Industry lawyers also indicated to the judge at the tele-hearing that even if they were issued new permits, it was unfeasible to begin seismic testing this year. Moreover, acquiring new permits is a lengthy process.

“There will be no boats in the water this year, and because this resets the clock, there will be no boats in the water for a long time,” said Catherine Wannamaker, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Beyond the direct harm from seismic surveys, ocean defenders pointed to the folly of looking for more fossil fuels amid the deepening climate crisis.

“Seismic blasting harms whales in the search for offshore oil that we should leave in the ground. We can’t allow the oil industry’s greed to threaten endangered North Atlantic right whales and other vulnerable species,” said Kristen Monsell, ocean legal director with the Center for Biological Diversity.

“We’re happy these animals will have a reprieve from this unjustified acoustic attack on our oceans,” she said, vowing to “keep fighting to ensure the oil industry stays out of the Atlantic.”

That necessitates a full ban on offshore drilling activities, said Michael Jasny, director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at NRDC.

“The only way to end the threat,” he said, “is to prohibit offshore oil and gas exploration for good.”

 

 

By Andrea Germanos

Source: Common Dreams

This is how worms could help to eat up the planet’s plastic pollution.

Posted on by dishanth
This is how worms could help to eat up the planet’s plastic pollution.
  • Research has found mealworms can eat plastic and still be nutritious as food for other animals.
  • Even those that ate Styrofoam, which contains a toxic chemical, seemed to show no adverse side-effects and the chemical didn’t build up in its body.

New findings suggest mealworms could be the solution to our big plastic problem.

They can not only consume various forms of plastic, but also Styrofoam containing a common and toxic chemical additive. And even after that meal, they can serve as protein-rich feedstock for other animals.

The study is the first to look at where chemicals in plastic end up after being broken down in a natural system—a yellow mealworm’s gut, in this case. It serves as a proof of concept for deriving value from plastic waste.

“This is definitely not what we expected to see,” says Anja Malawi Brandon, a PhD candidate in civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and lead author of the paper in Environmental Science & Technology.

 

The process of how meal worms could help to minimize plastic waste.
Image: Environmental Science and Technology

 

“It’s amazing that mealworms can eat a chemical additive without it building up in their body over time.”

Mealworms as animal food

In earlier work, researchers revealed that mealworms, which are easy to cultivate and widely used as a food for animals ranging from chickens and snakes to fish and shrimp, can subsist on a diet of various types of plastic.

They found that microorganisms in the worms’ guts biodegrade the plastic in the process—a surprising and hopeful finding. However, concern remained about whether it was safe to use the plastic-eating mealworms as feed for other animals given the possibility that harmful chemicals in plastic additives might accumulate in the worms over time.

“This work provides an answer to many people who asked us whether it is safe to feed animals with mealworms that ate Styrofoam“, says Wei-Min Wu, a senior research engineer in the civil and environmental engineering department.

The researchers looked at Styrofoam or polystyrene, a common plastic typically used for packaging and insulation that is costly to recycle because of its low density and bulkiness.

It contains a flame retardant called hexabromocyclododecane, or HBCD, commonly added to polystyrene. The additive is one of many used to improve plastics’ manufacturing properties or decrease flammability.

Plastic, worms, shrimp

In 2015 alone, nearly 25 million metric tons of these chemicals were added to plastics, according to various studies. Some, such as HBCD, can have significant health and environmental impacts, ranging from endocrine disruption to neurotoxicity. Because of this, the European Union plans to ban HBCD, and US Environmental Protection Agency is evaluating its risk.

Mealworms in the experiment excreted about half of the polystyrene they consumed as tiny, partially degraded fragments and the other half as carbon dioxide. With it, they excreted the HBCD—about 90% within 24 hours of consumption and essentially all of it after 48 hours.

Mealworms fed a steady diet of HBCD-laden polystyrene remained as healthy as those eating a normal diet. The same was true of shrimp fed a steady diet of the HBCD-ingesting mealworms and their counterparts on a normal diet. The plastic in the mealworms’ guts likely played an important role in concentrating and removing the HBCD.

The researchers acknowledge that mealworm-excreted HBCD still poses a hazard, and that other common plastic additives may have different fates within plastic-degrading mealworms. While hopeful for mealworm-derived solutions to the world’s plastic waste crisis, they caution that lasting answers will only come in the form of biodegradable plastic replacement materials and reduced reliance on single-use products.

“This is a wake-up call,” Brandon says. “It reminds us that we need to think about what we’re adding to our plastics and how we deal with it.”

 

Written by

Rob Jordan-Stanford, ,

This article is published in collaboration with Futurity.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Australia’s bushfires have pumped out half a year’s CO2 emissions.

Posted on by dishanth
Australia’s bushfires have pumped out half a year’s CO2 emissions.
  • Australian CO2 emissions have surged by 250 million tonnes as a result of bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland.
  • Vegetation vital for absorbing CO2 is being destroyed by the blazes.
  • Experts say climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of the fires.

The east coast of Australia is burning. And as bushfires rip through everything in their path, they are generating CO2 emissions that pose a long-term threat to the world.

NASA data, supplied to Guardian Australia, shows that since August fires in New South Wales and Queensland have increased Australia’s annual emissions by 250 million tonnes – that’s half the country’s total emissions in 2018.

Australia is in the grip of a severe heatwave, with forecasters predicting the country’s highest-ever temperature of 50.7°C could soon be exceeded.

 

Temperatures around Australia.
Image: Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology

 

So far, the fires have killed six people, destroyed hundreds of homes, and consumed 2.7 million hectares of countryside, wiping out plant life that is vital for absorbing future CO2 emissions. The cost of the damage has already reached $100 million.

 

Air quality

More than 2,000 firefighters have been tackling the bushfires but fire chiefs say a prolonged drought has made the task much harder.

 

Bushfire at Mount Tomah, New South Wales in December 2019.
Image: Reuters

 

Sydney has recorded air quality 22 worse than standard levels as bushfire smoke has created a smog that has caused respiratory problems for residents. Actor Sam Neill reported smelling the fires at 39,000 feet while his flight was still hundreds of miles from Sydney.

 

 

Bushfires are common in this region of Australia during the summer and autumn, but this year the blazes have arrived early and with unexpected ferocity. The country’s Bureau of Meteorology says climate change is influencing the frequency and severity of dangerous fires.

 

Smog caused by bushfires in the Blue Mountains envelops Sydney.
Image: REUTERS/Stephen Coates

 

The extreme weather has prompted renewed calls for climate action by the Australian government. In response to the crisis, New South Wales is reported to be planning new climate targets, reducing emissions by 35% by 2030, compared to a national target of a 26% cut.

 

Tackling climate change

Australia was ranked 43rd out of 115 nations in the World Economic Forum’s 2019 Energy Transition Index because of its heavy dependence on coal for electricity generation.

However, there are ambitious plans to harness the country’s abundant sunshine to generate renewable energy for export. Plans have been announced to build a huge solar farm, covering 15,000 hectares in the Northern Territory, to supply power to Singapore.

 

Burnt-out cars left behind by the Australian bushfires.
Image: Reuters/Darren Pateman

 

In the Pilbara region of Western Australia an even larger green energy project is under way. The Asian Renewable Energy Hub plans to use wind combined with solar to generate up to 15 gigawatts of electricity at what backers say will be the world’s biggest wind/solar hybrid site.

By greening its industries and becoming a major exporter of renewable energy, Australia would be able to reduce its carbon emissions which, including its coal, oil and gas exports, now account for 5% of the global total.

 

 

Written by

Douglas Broom, Senior Writer, Formative Content

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.