Wassup World? This is the Weekly Environmental Wrap Up from Wassup World News. Today is Wednesday September 19th, and as usual this Wednesday and every Wednesday moving forward we'll be rebreaking news regarding water, air, soil, urban spaces, power and people.
Research from Newcastle University, has found that 99.99% of the oceans’s plastic is hidden suspended in the watter column and embeded deep within the ocean beds. Using computer modelling, researchers have estimated that of the 393 million tons of plastic thought to be in the oceans, only 246,000 tons is on the surface. In response Dr Dan Parsons of Hull University said - “The scary thing is, we really don’t know what sort of harm this is doing to organisms,” He argues that the volume is so great that earth has entered a new age he calls, “the plastic age”
A forecast completed by researchers at Stony Brook University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory showed that Hurricane Florence would bring 50% more rainfall to the US east coast due to human-induced climate change, delivering as much as 20in (51cm) of rainfall in coastal areas. Parts of North Carolina is still underwater 5 days after the storm made landfall. 39 People are reported dead along with millions of chickens and thousands of pigs that were left locked in pens and cages through the floods.
Lakes across Alaska and Siberia have started to bubble with methane in a phenonmenon scientists are calling abrupt thawing. 72 incidents have been reported so far. In total there is about 1,500 billion tons of carbon locked up in the permafrost—almost double the amount of carbon in the atmosphere right now. https://www.newsweek.com/arctic-permafrost-lakes-bubbling-methane-nasa-1119624?amp=1
Thursday United Airlines became the first U.S. airline to make a public commitment to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions - 50 percent by the year 2050.To commerate the announcement, United operated the longest transatlantic biofuel flight to date, from their hub in San Francisco to Zurich on Friday..
On Saturday france became the first country in Europe to ban all five pesticides known as neonicotinoids which researchers believe are killing off bees. Scientific studies have shown that neonicotinoids cut bees’ sperm count and scramble their memory and homing skills. Research out this week even suggests the bees can develop a dangerous addiction to the neonicotinoids, much like smokers for nicotine.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/31/france-first-ban-five-pesticides-killing-bees/
Washington State University researchers have found that plastic products meant to replace the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, are also causing genetic abnormalities in mice.
Jamaica moved on Monday to ban the importation, manufacturing, distribution, and use of all single-use plastic carrier bags as of Jan 1, 2019. A ban on polysterene foam and plastic straws was also enacted which will take effect Jan 1, 2021.
The world’s first plastic bicycle path made of recycled bottles, cups and packaging has opened in the Netherlands, as part of a pilot that could see similar roads open up across the country. The 30-metre path, made of recycled plastic equivalent to more than 218,000 plastic cups.
A plan recently finalized by the European Union would classify wood burned for fuel as a carbon neutral energy source. Critics say the plan would encourage deforestation around the world. In A paper published in response to the plan, eight international scientists condemned the plan for ignoring the advice of hundreds of experts, and likely increasing atmospheric carbon “for decades to centuries” to come.
University of California, Berkeley, scientists discovered that a common diarrhea-causing bacterium, Listeria monocytogenes, produces electricity using an entirely different technique from known electrogenic bacteria, and that hundreds of other bacterial species use this same process.Such "green" bioenergetic technologies could, for example, generate electricity from bacteria in waste treatment plants. https://m.phys.org/news/2018-09-hundreds-electricity-generating-bacteria-pathogenic-probiotic.html
The United States passed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest crude oil producer earlier this year, based on preliminary estimates in EIA’s (Energy Information Administration).
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Friday introduced legislation that would require public companies to disclose risks to their business posed by climate change. The Climate Risk Disclosure Act would impose sweeping rules mandating that publicly traded companies disclose direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions, the value of all fossil-fuel related assets, and risk-management strategies to deal with a warming world. Companies also would have to tell investors how their valuation would change under worst-case and best-case scenarios to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Harrison Ford took Aim at Climate Change Deniers last week during the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. The actor took the stage to voice his concerns over environmental destruction and anti-science political leaders.Fordtouched on a number of issues, wrapping up his speech by saying “For God’s sake, stop electing leaders who don’t believe in science,” https://www.thedailybeast.com/harrison-ford-takes-aim-at-climate-change-deniers-stop-electing-leaders-who-dont-believe-in-science
California Governor Jerry Brown on Friday pledged to launch a satellite that will track and detect the sources of climate pollutants, his state’s latest effort to challenge the Trump administration’s skepticism about the science of climate change. Brown told a gathering of political, environmental and business leaders. “We’re going to launch our own satellite. Our own damn satellite to figure out where the pollution is and how we’re going to end it,”
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Until next time, Peace Out World.