Wassup World! Today is August First Two Thousand Eighteen and this is Wassup World News coming to you not so live with the Weekly Wednesday Wrap Up where we rebreak stories that impact our planets flora and fauna. Today, and every Wednesday moving forward we will be rebreaking news regarding Water, Air, Soil, Urban Spaces, Power and People.
We regret to inform you that today, August First, marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services has exceeded what Earth can regenerate this calendar year. This is called Earth Overshoot Day. For more information go to www.overshootday.org/
After years of advocacy, some 17,500 square miles of ocean around the main Hawaiian isles will be designated as protected critical habitat for Hawaii’s endangered false killer whales. The new rule by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service goes into effect Aug. 23.
Comprehensive analysis of aerial photography of Earth’s oceans have revealed that 118 million square miles of ocean ecosystems are unable to function naturally due to human impacts like commercial shipping, fertilizer runoff, and fishing. Only 13 percent of the planet’s ocean waters remain free from human activity, less than half of which are in protected marine areas.
https://www.popsci.com/marine-wilderness-13-percent?dom=rss-default&src=syn
A state of emergency has been declared in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, after high levels of man-made PFAS chemicals were found in the drinking water in two towns. The contaminants pose severe health risks and can lead to cancer. Local authorities began giving out bottled water on Saturday. Tests from one of the town’s water supply system showed a level of 1,410 parts per trillion (ppt) of PFAS, 20 times more than the EPA lifetime health advisory stands of 70 ppt. PFAS play a key economic role for companies such as DuPont, 3M, and W. L. Gore & Associates as they are required ingredients for products in two main markets: a $1 billion annual market for use in stain repellents, and a $100 million annual market for use in polishes, paints, and coatings
https://www.rt.com/usa/434600-parchment-water-contamination-emergency-pfas/
An international trade court judge has ordered the Trump administration to ban all seafood harvested with gill nets in Mexico’s northern Gulf of California..The order to save the vaquita porpoise, nicknamed “panda of the sea” for its chubby frame and black-ringed eyes, comes despite arguments from the U.S. government that a ban could negatively affect ongoing negotiations with Mexico. The ban, affects an estimated $16 million worth of fish and shrimp. Scientists say the vaquita population has dwindled from 567 in 1997 to fewer than 20 today. The species’ range is about 1,500 square miles — the smallest of any marine mammal.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-vaquita-seafood-ban-20180726-story.html
FEMA has confirmed that it is looking into switching to risk-based pricing in 2020, which would end the subsidies most coastal communities enjoy on their flood insurance premiums. The change would show the true dollar cost of living in areas repeatedly pounded by hurricanes and drenched with floods — like South Florida. Flood insurance in at risk areas will likely rise dramatically.
8 days ago an Orca named Tahlequah, also known as J35, birthed a calf. The calf passed away only 30 minutes aftwerward. Since then, Tahlequah has carried her deceased calf on her back over hundreds of miles, all the way around the San Juan Islands off the state of Washington’s north west coast at least once and to British Columbia’s Fraser River and back at least twice, diving down to retrieve her deceased calf each time it slides off her back. The whales have not had a successful birth in three years and another member of the pod, J50, appears to be starving. https://www.seattletimes.com/news/we-wont-give-up-as-long-as-she-doesnt-orca-mother-carries-dead-calf-for-fourth-day/ Researchers searched all day for the grieving orca mother. Then they found her, still clinging to her calf. | The Seattle Times
Three wildfires in California are burning so hot that they are forming pyrocumulus cloud systems up to five miles high. These clouds are typically seen above volcanic eruptions as they are produced by massive amounts of steam. The clouds can create dry lightning and are dark gray due to the smoke and ash from the wildfires. The peculiar cloud formations are making firefighting even more difficult due to decreased visibility.
The Mexican Government has proposed new methane regulations, delivering on a commitment Mexico made in trilateral accord with Canada and the United States to cut methane emissions from their oil and gas industries 40-45 percent by 2025. Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that is much stronger than carbon dioxide (CO2), 34 times stronger if compared over a 100-year period. While concentrations of methane in the atmosphere are about 200 times lower than carbon dioxide, methane was responsible for 60% of the equivalent radiative forcing caused by carbon dioxide since the onset of the Industrial Revolution.
https://eos.org/editors-vox/methane-climate-change-and-our-uncertain-future https://www.edf.org/media/mexico-advances-methane-raises-bar-canadian-climate-leadership
258 Million acres of federal public lands are managed by The Bureau of Land MGMT. The BLM issued a new policy this week which shields industries profiting from exploitation of public lands from the responsibility of offsetting environmental harms they cause.
SkyTruth, Google, and the Universities of Duke and West Virginia teamed up to release research on the impact of surface mining of coal. They found that Coal Mining Has Destroyed 1.5 Million Acres of Appalachian Forest since 1976, an area the size of Delaware.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0197758
The world’s second-largest penguin colony has fallen from half a million breeding pairs in the 1980s to just tens of thousands in 2017. Breeding colonies of king penguins occupy unvegetated ground on islands in the Southern Ocean. Vegetation has overrun much of the penguins’ breeding ground. The team of scientists involved in the study estimates that the colony’s numbers have dropped by 88% in 35 years, down to just 60,000 breeding pairs.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05850-2
Buffaloland Park in Milltown Cross, Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada welcomed five new additions to its buffalo herd this spring, raising the total population to 56. Buffaloland is owned and operated by Moonlight International Foundation, a Buddhist organization. Moonlight took over management of the park four years ago, back when there were only 38 buffalos roaming the 40-hectare pasture. https://www.lionsroar.com/buffalo-park-sees-population-boom-after-buddhists-take-over-management/
a multidisciplinary team of scientists from the US and Mexico — as well as over 2,500 supporting signatory scientists from around the world — forecast that the costs are incalculably high: A border wall, the authors write, would disrupt migrating wildlife, destroy or fragment the habitats of endangered plants and animals, and stifle regional scientific research. Meanwhile, the US Corp of engineers is accepting qualifications from companies who wish to submit bids for the border wall contracts totaling 1.8 billion US dollars.
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biy063/5057517
Albania has taken measures to reduce plastic waste and pollution by introducing a ban on the import, manufacture, use and sale of lightweight plastic bags. The country’s Deputy Minister of Environment and Tourism Ornela Çuçi stated that lightweight plastic bags are not recyclable. The decision is aimed at encouraging the production of multi-purpose biodegradable bags that can break down in 36 months. Manufacturers and importers that fail to comply with the ban in Albania will be fined a minimum of 100,000Albanian leks (the equivalent of 700 euros).
https://emerging-europe.com/in-brief/albania-bans-lightweight-plastic-bags/
Japan is aiming to make all passenger cars electric or hybrid by 2050, as reported by an economy ministry panel. The panel, which included Toyota and Nissan, said that it would also be creating a new industry entity sometime next year to allow Japanese automakers to collaborate in the join procurement of cobalt, a heavy metal essential to manufacturing batteries for the electric cars.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180725/p2g/00m/0bu/008000c
Canadian-based solar company Heliene will soon be making modules at a retooled Minnesota production facility. It's the first new plant since Donald Trump announced tariffs on imported crystalline-silicon solar cells and modules. 5 companies have announced moves to expand U.S. operations in recent months. Heliene’s had planned the move before the tariffs were introduced, but none-the-less is the first foreign-owned facility to move into production after the Trump administration’s Section 201 decision.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/donald-trump-solar-tariffs-heliene#gs.TRCC=Gg
The warm weather has resulted in higher temperatures even in the ocean. On Monday, sea water approached temperatures of 25 degrees Celsius at the Ringhals nuclear power plant in Sweden. The unanticipated high temperatures almost caused the plant to shut down. Seawater is used to cool the reactor and has a maximimum allowable temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. During the evening, the situation the sea temperature fell slightly so the reactor instead dropped it’s effective power to 49%.
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/halland/havet-for-varmt-ringhals-2-tas-ur-drift
The world’s largest solar park, the $2.8-billion Benban complex, is set to open next year 400 miles south of Cairo in Egypt’s Western Desert. The government’s aim is that by 2025 Egypt will get 42% of its electricity from renewable sources. Power demand is expected to more than double by 2030, much faster than in any other country in the region.
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-egypt-green-power-20180730-story.html
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is calling on Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to back the state's plan to expand offshore wind generation and forget offshore oil and gas drilling. Cuomo urged the Interior chief to show support to the state as it strives for a goal of 2.4 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.
The Supreme Court has denied the Trump administration’s plea to halt proceedings in a landmark lawsuit by young people seeking stronger federal action on climate change. The case will continue in the District of Oregon as scheduled.
Andrew Wheeler has been head of the EPA for less than a month and is already facing a lawsuit over repeatedly violated vows to avoid potential conflicts of interest after having at least three meetings with former clients from the coal industry and attending other events with a an executive he had been prohibited from being involved with.
2017 the deadliest year on record for environmentalists. More than 200 environmental activists were murdered last year as government-sponsored killings linked to lucrative projects by vast agriculture multinationals soared, a global rights watchdog warned on Tuesday.
http://www.france24.com/en/20180724-record-207-environmental-activists-killed-last-year
That's it for this Wednesday Weekly Wrap Up. Follow, subscribe, and share this podcast with anyone who cares. This has been a podcast by Wassup World News. Things may have changed by the time you've listened to this.
I'm John Brindley, and Until next time, Peace Out World.