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"Going green" and child labor

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Sky News investigated the Katanga mines and found Dorsen, 8, and Monica, 4

The pair were working in the vast mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo

They are two of the 40,000 children working daily in the mines, checking rocks for cobalt

Picking through a mountain of huge rocks with his tiny bare hands, the exhausted little boy makes a pitiful sight.

His name is Dorsen and he is one of an army of children, some just four years old, working in the vast polluted mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where toxic red dust burns their eyes, and they run the risk of skin disease and a deadly lung condition. Here, for a wage of just 8p a day, the children are made to check the rocks for the tell-tale chocolate-brown streaks of cobalt - the prized ingredient essential for the batteries that power electric cars.

And it's feared that thousands more children could be about to be dragged into this hellish daily existence - after the historic pledge made by Britain to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2040 and switch to electric vehicles.

It heralds a future of clean energy, free from pollution but - though there can be no doubting the good intentions behind Environment Secretary Michael Gove's announcement last month - such ideals mean nothing for the children condemned to a life of hellish misery in the race to achieve his target.

Dorsen, just eight, is one of 40,000 children working daily in the mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The terrible price they will pay for our clean air is ruined health and a likely early death.

Almost every big motor manufacturer striving to produce millions of electric vehicles buys its cobalt from the impoverished central African state. It is the world's biggest producer, with 60 per cent of the planet's reserves.

The cobalt is mined by unregulated labour and transported to Asia where battery manufacturers use it to make their products lighter, longer-lasting and rechargeable.

The planned switch to clean energy vehicles has led to an extraordinary surge in demand. While a smartphone battery uses no more than 10 grams of refined cobalt, an electric car needs 15kg (33lb).

Goldman Sachs, the merchant bank, calls cobalt 'the new gasoline' but there are no signs of new wealth in the DRC, where the children haul the rocks brought up from tunnels dug by hand.

Adult miners dig up to 600ft below the surface using basic tools, without protective clothing or modern machinery. Sometimes the children are sent down into the narrow makeshift chambers where there is constant danger of collapse.

Cobalt is such a health hazard that it has a respiratory disease named after it - cobalt lung, a form of pneumonia which causes coughing and leads to permanent incapacity and even death.

Even simply eating vegetables grown in local soil can cause vomiting and diarrhoea, thyroid damage and fatal lung diseases, while birds and fish cannot survive in the area.

No one knows quite how many children have died mining cobalt in the Katanga region in the south-east of the country. The UN estimates 80 a year, but many more deaths go unregistered, with the bodies buried in the rubble of collapsed tunnels. Others survive but with chronic diseases which destroy their young lives. Girls as young as ten in the mines are subjected to sexual attacks and many become pregnant.

When Sky News investigated the Katanga mines it found Dorsen, working near a little girl called Monica, who was four, on a day of relentless rainfall.

Dorsen was hauling heavy sacks of rocks from the mine surface to a growing stack 60ft away. A full sack was lifted on to Dorsen's head and he staggered across to the stack. A brutish overseer stood over him, shouting and raising his hand to threaten a beating if he spilt any.

With his mother dead, Dorsen lives with his father in the bush and the two have to work daily in the cobalt mine to earn money for food.

Dorsen's friend Richard, 11, said that at the end of a working day 'everything hurts'.

In a country devastated by civil wars in which millions have died, there is no other way for families to survive. Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) is donating £10.5million between June 2007 and June 2018 towards strengthening revenue transparency and encouraging responsible activity in large and small scale artisanal mining, 'to benefit the poor of DRC'.

There is little to show for these efforts so far. There is a DRC law forbidding the enslavement of under-age children, but nobody enforces it.

The UN's International Labour Organisation has described cobalt mining in DRC as 'one of the worst forms of child labour' due to the health risks.

Soil samples taken from the mining area by doctors at the University of Lubumbashi, the nearest city, show the region to be among the ten most polluted in the world. Residents near mines in southern DRC had urinary concentrates of cobalt 43 higher than normal. Lead levels were five times higher, cadmium and uranium four times higher.

The worldwide rush to bring millions of electric vehicles on to our roads has handed a big advantage to those giant car-makers which saw this bonanza coming and invested in developing battery-powered vehicles, among them General Motors, Renault-Nissan, Tesla, BMW and Fiat-Chrysler.

Chinese middle-men working for the Congo Dongfang Mining Company have the stranglehold in DRC, buying the raw cobalt brought to them in sacks carried on bicycles and dilapidated old cars daily from the Katanga mines. They sit in shacks on a dusty road near the Zambian border, offering measly sums scrawled on blackboards outside - £40 for a ton of cobalt-rich rocks - that will be sent by cargo ship to minerals giant Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt in China and sold on to a complex supply chain feeding giant multinationals.

Challenged by the Washington Post about the appalling conditions in the mines, Huayou Cobalt said 'it would be irresponsible' to stop using child labour, claiming: 'It could aggravate poverty in the cobalt mining regions and worsen the livelihood of local miners.'

Human rights charity Amnesty International also investigated cobalt mining in the DRC and says that none of the 16 electric vehicle manufacturers they identified have conducted due diligence to the standard defined by the Responsible Cobalt Initiative.

Encouragingly, Apple, which uses the mineral in its devices, has committed itself to treat cobalt like conflict minerals - those which have in the past funded child soldiers in the country's civil war - and the company claims it is going to require all refiners to have supply chain audits and risk assessments. But Amnesty International is not satisfied. 'This promise is not worth the paper it is written on when the companies are not investigating their suppliers,' said Amnesty's Mark Dummett. 'Big brands have the power to change this.'

After DRC, Australia is the next biggest source of cobalt, with reserves of 1million tons, followed by Cuba, China, Russia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Car maker Tesla - the market leader in electric vehicles - plans to produce 500,000 cars per year starting in 2018, and will need 7,800 tons of cobalt to achieve this. Sales are expected to hit 4.4 million by 2021. It means the price of cobalt will soar as the world gears itself up for the electric car revolution, and there is evidence some corporations are cancelling their contracts with regulated mines using industrial technology, and turning increasingly to the cheaper mines using human labour.

After the terrible plight of Dorsen and Richard was broadcast in a report on Sky News, an emotive response from viewers funded a rescue by children's charity Kimbilio. They are now living in a church-supported children's home, sleeping on mattresses for the first time in their lives and going to school.

But there is no such happy ending for the tens of thousands of children left in the hell on earth that is the cobalt mines of the Congo.

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Child miners living a hell on Earth so YOU can drive an electric car

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Sky News investigated the Katanga mines and found Dorsen, 8, and Monica, 4 The pair were working in the vast mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo They are two of the 40,000 children working daily in the mines, checking rocks for cobalt Picking through a mountain of huge rocks with his tiny bare hands, the exhausted little boy makes a pitiful sight.

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Smuggling King Cobras

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Suspicious that a package shipped from Hong Kong might contain smuggled animals, U.S. agents who opened the package found three live king cobra snakes hidden in potato chip cans. The man who was to receive the package outside Los Angeles has been arrested on federal charges.

Rodrigo Franco, 34, could face 20 years in prison on a charge of illegally importing merchandise, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. U.S. officials accuse him of violating the Endangered Species Act and falsifying records.

The package had been sent via the U.S. Postal Service. Each of the deadly king cobra snakes that were sent to Franco's address were about 2 feet long, according to an affidavit filed in federal court. In addition to the venomous snakes, agents found three albino Chinese soft-shelled turtles when they opened the parcel on March 2.

Agents who searched the package removed the cobras but allowed the turtles to be delivered to Franco's address the next day under controlled circumstances before carrying out a raid, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in announcing the charges.

When agents from the FWS and the Homeland Security Department executed a search warrant at Franco's home, they found that the package had been left in what looked to be a child's bedroom. There, more animals were found living in tanks, including a baby Morelet's crocodile, two types of snapping turtles and five terrapins.

Franco returned home while agents were at his apartment in Monterey Park. Under questioning, he told them he had received 20 king cobras in two earlier shipments - and that they had died, prosecutors said. But analysis of records on his phone led agents to believe that at least some of those snakes had survived, because Franco had mentioned feeding them and delivering five snakes.

As for the location of those snakes, the suspect "said that one of his contacts in China had a cousin that flew to Los Angeles from Virginia, collected the snakes, and returned to Virginia," the federal affidavit against Franco states, noting that the suspect had claimed the snakes were dead.

The package had initially been flagged by an agriculture specialist of Customs and Border Protection - who opened it under suspicion that it might contain drugs, based on the shipper's address. When they saw something moving, they called inspectors at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The shipper's address was also recognized by Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Stephanie Johnson, whose portion of the affidavit mentions having an online exchange with the Hong Kong provider last year that included an offer of selling venomous snakes.

Johnson lays out the discovery in the court document:

"I directed the Wildlife Inspectors and the CBP Agricultural Specialists to not open the small potato chip canisters until we could take them to a more controlled and safe environment. However, while I was interviewing Agricultural Specialist [Jaime] Pimentel (described above), WI [Cory] Kawabata opened one of the canisters and verified there was a snake inside (at the time, the snake was passive and did not attempt to strike at WI Kawabata)."

Passive or no, the rest of the canisters were run through an X-ray machine.

With the king cobras intercepted, the agents had to figure out what to do with them.

According to court documents, FWS Special Agent Erin Dean had verified the snakes were king cobras by sending photographs to Ian Recchio, the reptile curator at the Los Angeles Zoo. But Recchio said he couldn't house the snakes at his zoo because it didn't have anti-venom to protect against possible bites.

Recchio told Dean "that if someone had been bitten by one of the cobras, they likely would have died as there is not a ready source of anti-venom that he knew about in Los Angeles," the affidavit states, noting that the closest source, at San Diego's zoo, was too far for someone with a king cobra bite to travel.

Agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they believe Franco had been exchanging rare animals with a contact in Hong Kong for several months.

On the same day the snakes were found in a can, Franco shipped a package containing six turtles - desert box turtles, three-toed box turtles and Florida box turtles - to an address in Hong Kong. That package was also intercepted by U.S. officials.

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King Cobras In A Can: Deadly Snakes Arrive In U.S., Shipped As Potato Chips

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Suspicious that a package shipped from Hong Kong might contain smuggled animals, U.S. agents who opened the package found three live king cobra snakes hidden in potato chip cans. The man who was to receive the package outside Los Angeles has been arrested on federal charges.

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Over the past 40 years, sperm counts in men from North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand have dropped by over 50 percent, researchers announced on Tuesday.

Researchers examined 7,500 studies conducted between 1973 and 2001. They selected 185 studies with consistent counting methods and performed analyses on data from almost 43,000 men.

Their findings, released in Human Reproduction Update, showed that sperm concentration fell from 99 million per milliliter to 47.1 million per milliliter during the span of the study, indicating a 52.4% decline in sperm concentration and a 59.3% decline in total sperm count for men in these nations. What's more, the scientists found that the decrease in sperm count is not slowing. As sperm counts have implications for morbidity and mortality, these results raise potential concerns for health and fertility.

While previous studies on sperm count were criticized for not accounting for confounding variables like age, sexual activity, or infertility, this study used consistent sperm count methods and broad data sets from many locations to address these concerns.

The study did not directly address causes for the decline, though in interviews with New Scientist, study author Shanna Swan of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai indicated that since the decline occurred in these specific nations, there may be a causal relation with chemicals. The impact of chemicals, like phthalates that are often found in food packaging and make their way into nearly every brand of macaroni and cheese, has been called into question lately by data that suggests they may interfere with testosterone production and endocrine systems.

Here's Kate Kelland, reporting for Scientific American:

"This study is an urgent wake-up call for researchers and health authorities around the world to investigate the causes of the sharp ongoing drop in sperm count," said Hagai Levine, who co-led the work at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine in Jerusalem.

The analysis did not explore reasons for the decline, but researchers said falling sperm counts have previously been linked to various factors such as exposure to certain chemicals and pesticides, smoking, stress and obesity.

This suggests measures of sperm quality may reflect the impact of modern living on male health and act as a "canary in the coal mine" signaling broader health risks, they said.

But it's not all bad news-47.1 million sperm per milliliter is still well above the 15 million sperm threshold that is considered low from a fertility standpoint. The study revealed no clear decline in sperm count for men in South America, Asia, or Africa, but the authors note that far fewer studies have been conducted in these regions.

For now, the question of what is causing sperm count decline is still open, but the evidence of the trend is increasingly apparent.

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Sperm Count is Decreasing in Rich Nations-and No One Knows Why - NOVA Next | PBS

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Over the past 40 years, sperm counts in men from North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand have dropped by over 50 percent, researchers announced on Tuesday. Researchers examined 7,500 studies conducted between 1973 and 2001. They selected 185 studies with consistent counting methods and performed analyses on data from almost 43,000 men.

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"Flushable" wipes

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Disposable wipes - essentially baby wipes designed for adults - have become the scourge of residential and municipal sewer systems around the world.

Nonwoven cloths have been getting stuck in pipes and sewer machinery, creating massive, expensive clogs in New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, Toronto, Sydney, London and many other places for years, sparking lawsuits from cities and consumers.

Now, New York City's city council, with the backing of Mayor Bill de Blasio, is working on a bill that would require companies to clearly label their products. Councilman Donovan Richards, who introduced the bill, told me that it was inspired by conversations with New York's Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP is spending an extra $10m per year to process the cloths, he says.

Wipes make up a large and broad market, used for household cleaning, makeup removal, hand sanitization, sunscreen application and more. Adam Page, a business manager for market research publisher Smithers Apex, says the wipes market - currently valued at $13.2bn - has been growing at 6% to 7% percent annually for much of the past decade. Smithers Apex predicts it will continue to grow at a compound annual rate of 6.8% until at least 2019.

A cleaning tool becomes a dirty problem

For sewer systems, the most problematic type of wipes are the personal wipes that adults are increasingly using at the toilet. Baby wipes, which spearheaded the wipes revolution, represented a simple disposal problem. Used to clean babies during diaper changes, the cloths went - along with the soiled nappies - into a diaper pail or other receptacle, and then into the solid waste stream.

However, as the use of personal wipes expanded from babies to adults, a problem emerged: most adults don't keep a diaper pail in the bathroom. "We've found that consumers are reluctant to put used wipes in the bathroom trash can," says Cynthia Finley, director of regulatory affairs for the advocacy group the National Association of Clean Water Agencies. "That is why there is a demand for wipes that are flushable."

Unfortunately, the majority of wipes on the market don't biodegrade quickly enough to avoid clogging the pipes. According to Joe Munafo, a plumbing engineer with New York-based Dagher Engineering, even toilet paper - which is designed to biodegrade - can get caught in pipes with imperfections.

"And the more durable the material is, the more likely it is to clog," he adds. "If you're flushing paper towels, you're running a bigger risk than with toilet paper. And if you're flushing wipes - even flushable wipes - the chance of a clog goes up."

Once stuck, toilet paper or wipes create a blockage. "Other things catch on, and the next thing you know you're calling the Roto Rooter man and paying a few hundred bucks to get your drain snaked," Munafo says. "And if a few flushed wipes can cause a problem for a home, then this only becomes additive for municipal systems, which are meant for handling items that break down relatively easily."

This problem has been borne out in sewer systems around the world, which already are being pushed to the limit by growing populations, climate change, insufficient infrastructure investment and other problems.

According to experts at Thames Water, flushable wipes were a major factor in London's notorious fatberg, a 15-ton lump of congealed grease that nearly flooded the city's already stressed sewer system and took three weeks to dismantle in 2013. "We have 59,000 miles of sewer, and fat and wet wipes are the main partners in 'sewer abuse' crime," spokesman Simon Evans told the Guardian at the time.

More recently, wipes also have caused a big stink in New York City, where officials say they have resulted in $18m in equipment problems in the past five years. The city's water management facilities are already straining at the seams without the wipes - in some areas, as little as one-tenth of an inch of stormwater per hour can overwhelm the sewer system and cause flash flooding.

For overstressed systems, flushable wipes can be the last straw.

A matter of definition?

Part of the problem, Finley says, is that many consumers are confused about which wipes are flushable and which are not. Manufacturers are partially to blame: given the marketing benefits of flushability, some are reticent to tell users that their products should not go in the toilet. In response, the International Nonwovens and Disposables Association and the European Disposables and Nonwovens Association have published a voluntary code of practice, which includes a requirement that nonflushable wipes be clearly marked with a "do not flush" logo.

But the code doesn't specify where the logo should go, and some manufacturers to put it in places where the average consumer will never notice it. "Instructions to not flush a wipe product need to be more prominent than most companies are currently using," Finley says. "The instructions are often easy to miss, on the back of the package in fine print or even under the package flap."

Some companies go further, claiming their products are flushable when they actually could cause sewer problems, says Bob Brand, director of external communications for wipes manufacturer Kimberly-Clark. "It's bad for the marketplace and bad for consumers when there are products making 'flushable' claims that are not supported by the performance of the product," he says.

New York Councilman Richards agrees. "Basically, our bill states that, if a company puts 'flushable' on a nonflushable wipe, they will be fined."

Meanwhile, the federal trade commission has also taken aim at underlabeling. On 18 May, it reached a settlement in which wipes manufacturer Nice-Pak agreed to stop advertising its products as "safe to flush" or "safe for septic systems" when they are not.

Nice-Pak sells many of its products under other labels, including Costco, CVS and Target. Some of these companies, in turn, have come under fire for selling insufficiently labeled products.

In response, Finley says, Costco has emerged as a labeling leader. "They've put a 'do not flush' logo on the top of every wipes package and box of wipes," she says. "The wastewater industry wants this policy to spread. We want clear labels on top of all wipes packages, regardless of where they're sold."

Truly flushable?

Another problem, Finley points out, is that many "flushable" wipes are too thick and strong for sewer systems. One solution, which Finley's organization is pursuing, involves working with the wipes industry to create products that are truly safe for sewer systems. "Some companies have developed flushable wipes that you can actually see falling apart in water," she says. "In fact, they're better than some types of toilet paper."

Brand claims that his company has worked to develop flushable wipes that are compatible with wastewater systems because they lose strength rapidly and break down.

But even in the best of circumstances, the very term "wipes" can create confusion. Finley points out that some utilities instruct customers that they should only flush the "three Ps": pee, poop and toilet paper.

In this context, distinguishing flushable from nonflushable wipes could be an exercise in futility. "It may be best not to call flushable products 'wipes,' so we can clearly tell people not to flush wipes," Finley says.

Choosing the best path

Some of the pressure for voluntary labeling comes from the twin forces of lawsuits and potential government regulations. "The most useful pressure on this issue has come from class action lawsuits aimed at the industry," Finley says.

By drawing consumer attention to the problem, lawsuits - such as the $5m suit launched in New York City last year - have made companies more aware of the risks of insufficient labeling.

Another possible solution might be to restrict the wipes industry via legal guidelines. But Finley argues that such restrictions would likely be difficult to pass. "California, Maine and New Jersey have all tried to pass legislation that would regulate wipes," she says. "The wipes industry pushed back, and the legislation failed."

Finley doesn't believe that government regulation is the best approach, in any case. It can take a long time to get regulations ratified and enacted, she says. "Then, when they're passed, they can be almost impossible to change. The industry is quickly developing, and we need policies that are flexible enough to develop with it."

A big part of the problem is that, for all its recent growth, the wipes market is still something of a mystery. Companies still have little idea about how wipes are used or regarded by customers. "We don't yet have all the answers to this problem," Finley says. "Any regulations would be premature."

Richards disagrees, saying that regulation is needed. "We have very little faith in self regulation," he says. "If it was working, there wouldn't be any need for the government to step in. But the DEP has been talking to us about this for years. And while some wipes makers are progressing, the adjustment isn't happening as quickly as we would want to see it."

Richards says his office is also working with wipes producers directly, and adds that consumers will also have a big role to play in solving the problem. "Even when we pass this bill - and it will pass - the public will have to be educated," he says.

At least he and Finley agree on this: as the wipes industry evolves, consumers - and companies - alike need to learn more about what is and isn't responsible to put in the toilet.
The values-led business hub is funded by SC Johnson. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled "brought to you by". Find out more here.

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Don't believe the label 'flushable': disposable wipes clog sewers around the world

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Grownups are now using the same wipes once reserved for babies, leading to millions of dollars of sewer problems. A New York City bill takes aim at the lack of transparency - and mislabeling - some say is to blame

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US scientists have calculated the total amount of plastic ever made and put the number at 8.3 billion tonnes.

It is an astonishing mass of material that has essentially been created only in the last 65 years or so.

The 8.3 billion tonnes is as heavy as 25,000 Empire State Buildings in New York, or a billion elephants.

The great issue is that plastic items, like packaging, tend to be used for very short periods before being discarded.

More than 70% of the total production is now in waste streams, sent largely to landfill - although too much of it just litters the wider environment, including the oceans.

"We are rapidly heading towards 'Planet Plastic', and if we don't want to live on that kind of world then we may have to rethink how we use some materials, in particular plastic," Dr Roland Geyer told BBC News.

A paper authored by the industrial ecologist from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and colleagues appears in the journal Science Advances. It is described as the first truly global assessment of how much plastic has been manufactured, how the material in all its forms is used, and where it ends up. Here are some of its key numbers.

8,300 million tonnes of virgin plastics have been produced

Half of this material was made in just the past 13 years

About 30% of the historic production remains in use today

Of the discarded plastic, roughly 9% has been recycled

Some 12% has been incinerated, but 79% has gone to landfill

Shortest-use items are packaging, typically less than a year

Longest-use products are found in construction and machinery

Current trends point to 12 billion tonnes of waste by 2050

Recycling rates in 2014: Europe (30%), China (25%), US (9%)

There is no question that plastics are a wonder material. Their adaptability and durability have seen their production and use accelerate past most other manmade materials apart from steel, cement and brick.

From the start of mass-manufacturing in the 1950s, the polymers are now all around us - incorporated into everything from food wrapping and clothing, to aeroplane parts and flame retardants. But it is precisely plastics' amazing qualities that now present a burgeoning problem.

None of the commonly used plastics are biodegradable. The only way to permanently dispose of their waste is to destructively heat it - through a decomposition process known as pyrolysis or through simple incineration; although the latter is complicated by health and emissions concerns.

In the meantime, the waste mounts up. There is enough plastic debris out there right now, Geyer and colleagues say, to cover an entire country the size of Argentina. The team's hope is that their new analysis will give added impetus to the conversation about how best to deal with the plastics issue.

"Our mantra is you can't manage what you don't measure," Dr Geyer said. "So, our idea was to put the numbers out there without us telling the world what the world should be doing, but really just to start a real, concerted discussion."

The Inquiry: Time to ban the plastic bottle?

A mission to the Pacific plastic patch

Plastic heading for oceans quantified

Plastic-eating caterpillar 'may cut waste'

Recycling rates are increasing and novel chemistry has some biodegradable alternatives, but manufacturing new plastic is so cheap the virgin product is hard to dislodge.

The same team - which includes Jenna Jambeck from the University of Georgia and Kara Lavender Law from the Sea Education Association at Woods Hole - produced the seminal report in 2015 that quantified the total amount of plastic waste escaping to the oceans each year: eight million tonnes.

This particular waste flow is probably the one that has generated most concern of late because of the clear evidence now that some of this discarded material is getting into the food chain as fish and other marine creatures ingest small polymer fragments.

Dr Erik van Sebille from Utrecht University in the Netherlands is an oceanographer who tracks plastics in our seas. Of the new report, he said: "We're facing a tsunami of plastic waste, and we need to deal with that.

"The global waste industry needs to get its act together and make sure that the ever-increasing amounts of plastic waste generated don't end up in the environment.

"We need a radical shift in how we deal with plastic waste. On current trends, it will take until 2060 before more plastic gets recycled than landfilled and lost to the environment. That clearly is too slow; we can't wait that long," he told BBC News.

And Richard Thompson, professor of marine biology at Plymouth University, UK, commented: "If plastic products are designed with recyclability in mind they can be recycled many times over. Some would say a bottle could be recycled 20 times. That's a substantial reduction in waste. At the moment poor design limits us."

To illustrate that point, Dr Geyer said: "The holy grail of recycling is to keep material in use and in the loop for ever if you can. But it turns out in our study that actually 90% of that material that did get recycled - which I think we calculated was 600 million tonnes - only got recycled once."

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

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Earth is becoming 'Planet Plastic' - BBC News

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US scientists have calculated the total amount of plastic ever made and put the number at 8.3 billion tonnes. It is an astonishing mass of material that has essentially been created only in the last 65 years or so. The 8.3 billion tonnes is as heavy as 25,000 Empire State Buildings in New York, or a billion elephants.

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Mangrove trees, particularly their leaf litter, filter copper out of soil and water in Indonesia.

Grey mangrove trees, Avicennia marina, filter heavy metals out of the surrounding soil and water. A new study from Indonesia has found that their leaf litter accumulates the most copper, followed by leaves and then roots.

Researchers from Universitas Diponegoro analysed copper concentrations in a mangrove forest in Tapak Tuguerjo, an area along the northern coast of Java, Indonesia. The forest is downstream from a river polluted by a nearby factory. Copper concentrations in seawater samples from the study area ranged from 0.02 milligrams per litre (mg/L) to 0.05 mg/L; as much as six times the 0.008 mg/L maximum permissible level for marine biota set by the Indonesian Ministry of Envi-ronment.

Over the span of 12 weeks, the team collected samples of water, soil, roots, young leaves and leaf litter (fallen leaves). After drying and grinding the plant material, they analysed its copper content using atomic absorption spectroscopy.

They found that copper concentrations in the plant material were up to ten times more than the water samples. Leaf litter carried the highest concentration, followed by live leaves and then roots, according to the study published in the Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science.

The results confirm findings from several other studies and demonstrate the mangrove's ability to defend "itself against contaminated environments by excreting copper through its leaves, which will then be discarded through defoliation." Mangroves are able to do this better than many other plant species, due in part to their adaptation to living in coastal zones, where they absorb and eliminate salt in a similar way.

As the leaf litter breaks down, copper can then be reintroduced back to the soil and water. However, the researchers suspect the impact is minimal: the estimated amount released is less than 3.5 percent of the total absorbed, and is spread over a large area.

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soil types; botany; trees; agriculture and food; water; rainforests; mining; exotic species

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Mangrove trees, particularly their leaf litter, filter copper out of soil and water in Indonesia. Grey mangrove trees, Avicennia marina, filter heavy metals out of the surrounding soil and water. A new study from Indonesia has found that their leaf litter accumulates the most copper, followed by leaves and then roots.

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Electric cars are not the answer to air pollution, says top UK adviser

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Prof Frank Kelly says fewer not cleaner vehicles are needed, plus more cycling and walking and better transit systems

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Go Green or fewer cars

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Plans to promote electric vehicles in the UK do not go far enough to tackle air pollution, according to a leading government adviser.

Writing in the Guardian, Prof Frank Kelly said fewer cars, not just cleaner ones, were the key to cleaner air.

Electric cars produce particulates from their tyres and brakes which are linked to serious health problems.

Prof Kelly said that London should lead the way in promoting non-polluting transport policies.

Just last week the government unveiled its strategy for tackling illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide in the air.

The key element was a promise to end the sale of all new diesel and petrol cars from 2040.

The government said there would be significant investments in ultra-low emission vehicles, with some £600m going into the development and manufacture of such vehicles by 2020.

But according to Frank Kelly, who is professor of environmental health at Kings College London, and chair of the government advisory committee on the medical effects of air pollutants, these steps would not go far enough.

"Our cities need fewer cars, not just cleaner cars," Prof Kelly writes.

"One issue is that electric vehicles will not sufficiently reduce particulate matter (PM), the other toxic pollutant emitted by road transport.

"This is because PM components include not only engine emissions, but also a contribution from brake and tyre wear and road surface abrasion," he added.

The government has focussed on dealing with nitrogen dioxide because of consistent breaches of legal limits in many areas of the country.

However levels of PM are not above the law, although they do breach World Health Organisation recommended safety guidelines.

According to the Royal College of Physicians the early deaths of around 29,000 people in the UK each year are linked to particle pollution, which is more than the 23,500 premature deaths attributed to nitrogen dioxide.

The combined total is estimated to be around 40,000 as some people are harmed by both pollutants.

Particulate matter has also been found in human brains and there are concerns that exposure to PM may have a role to play in developing debilitating conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.

Prof Kelly's views have been supported by environmental lawyers, ClientEarth, who used the courts to force the government to come forward with their air quality strategy.

"Electric vehicles have a role to play in tackling air pollution but they are not the only solution," said lawyer Anna Heslop.

"What we need, and what the government has so far failed to deliver, is a comprehensive plan to bring down air pollution in the UK."

In his article Prof Kelly puts significant emphasis on the role of London in showing the way forward for other big cities in tackling these sources of pollution.

He says that as London's population is growing quickly, there needs to be more and better public transport, instead of letting people rely on owning cars and using them for short journeys.

There should be "as much active transport in the form of walking and cycling as is feasibly possible," he says.

Prof Kelly believes that attitudes towards cars are changing rapidly, with younger Londoners in particular opting for car club membership and ride-sharing apps instead of buying a car.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has already committed the city to a future of fewer car journeys, aiming to cut the number by three million per day from 2041.

In his draft strategy, unveiled in June this year, he proposed making the entire transport system in London free of emissions by 2050.

"Leaving the car at home must be the affordable, safest and most convenient option for Londoners going about their daily lives," Mr Khan said.

"This is not only essential for dealing with congestion as London grows, but crucial for reducing our toxic air pollution, and improving the health of all Londoners."

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Fewer cars not cleaner ones key to tackling air quality - BBC News

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Plans to promote electric vehicles in the UK do not go far enough to tackle air pollution, according to a leading government adviser. Writing in the Guardian, Prof Frank Kelly said fewer cars, not just cleaner ones, were the key to cleaner air.

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Fever in cold blooded animals

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At this moment, all across Europe and North America, zebrafish are cruising over colourful aquarium gravel and darting in and out of sparkling pink castles and plastic plants.

These small, stripey fish are considered cheap and easy pets. You just need to drop in a couple of pinches of flaky fish food and clean the tank once in a while. With fresh water and bountiful food, it looks like a good life - until they get sick.

A poorly zebrafish actually has a big problem if it is stuck in a bowl of water that is maintained at the same temperature day in and day out. By keeping fish tanks at constant temperatures, well-meaning fish owners may be denying zebrafish and other pet fish the chance to survive when they get an infection.

The reason is simple: the fish cannot get a fever to help fight the infection.

Wait a moment, you might say. How does a cold-blooded animal like a fish get a fever?

After all, fish are "ectotherms", meaning they have little or no ability to generate heat internally. Many of us are told that fish, along with amphibians, reptiles and insects, cannot exercise much control over their bodies' internal temperature. Instead, they are at the mercy of the external environment.

There is a lot of truth in this idea, but it is a simplification. Yes, ectotherms cannot generate a fever from within, as we do. However, if an ectotherm like a zebrafish gets an infection, it may well move to a warmer place in an effort to elevate its temperature outside the normal range.

This phenomenon is known as "behavioural fever" and it was first identified in the 1970s. In early experiments, animals like desert iguanas, bluegill fish, and American bullfrog tadpoles all showed either a preference for warmer temperatures after being infected with bacteria, or increased survival when placed in warmer temperatures.

But it was not clear how this worked. Scientists variously suggested that behavioural fever might overheat the invading pathogens, optimise the host's immune system, or both.

In the past two decades, scientists have become increasingly interested in understanding the mechanisms that underpin behavioural fever. That is partly because they want to understand how Earth's warming climate will affect ectotherm species, and partly out of a growing social consciousness about how we treat captive animals like fish.

Many scientists also want to understand how to control disease and parasites in the aquaculture industry and pet trade. One need look no further than the success of Gyrodactylusparasites to understand why.

These tenacious attackers thrust small grappling hooks into the flesh of their fish victims. The hooks gouge relatively big holes in the skin, creating a host of health problems, says Joanne Cable of Cardiff University in the UK. As the holes multiply, the fish produces more and more mucus, and the rays of its fins begin to fuse together. Eventually, the fish cannot swim and dies.

Cable and her colleagues have called the Gyrodactylus parasites the Russian-Doll Killers, because each female is born pregnant with another female embryo nested inside her. That female will be born within 24 hours, and 24 hours after that, they will both have another. "That means that you only need one parasite to be transferred to a new stock of fish, and the numbers just take off," says Cable.

"It can literally be that one fish will flick their fin against the other, and that is enough for a parasite to jump over," she says. If left untreated, 80-90% of infected fish purchased from a pet shop will die. "It's a big problem."

Gyrodactylus are not just an issue for the pet trade.

In Norway, is a significant cause of death for wild salmon. Back in 2008, officials went as far as poisoning stretches of rivers with rotenone in an effort to get rid of the parasites. Cable says Norway puts a high priority on maintaining healthy fish stocks, because fishing is so crucial to the country's economy.

Cable is also trying to find better control measure for parasites like Gyrodactylus. In a study published in 2016, she and her colleagues studied how guppies use behavioural fever to fight off G. turnbulli.

The team gave guppies a choice of three aquarium tanks, which were kept at 18, 24, and 32C. Infected fish spent more time in the warmest tank, compared to uninfected fish. When the parasites were exposed to the warmest temperature for three days, they completely died out.

It had previously been shown that putting infected fish in warmer water improved their response to infection. However, Cable did not expect that the fish would so clearly choose the warmer temperatures on their own.

"It could be a direct effect of the higher temperature killing off the parasites, with nothing to do with an immune response," says Cable. However, she thinks it is more likely that the move to warmer water somehow makes the immune system more effective - or that both factors are in operation. She says the next logical step is to measure whether host immunity is linked to the behaviour.

In a bid to understand the molecular mechanisms underpinning behavioural fever, Simon MacKenzie of the University of Stirling and his colleagues have studied zebrafish. In a 2013 study, they showed that the immune response associated with behavioural fever is highly orchestrated: it is not simply that the immune system speeds up in warmer temperatures.

Once a zebrafish detected an infection, its immune system sent a signal to the brain telling the fish to seek out warmer temperatures. The higher temperature then "allowed the organism to focus its immune response at the molecular level," says MacKenzie. The zebrafish that displayed behavioural fever rapidly cleared their infections.

"It's the very clear focalisation of the immune response, and the way it is coupled with temperature, that is quite surprising," says MacKenzie. "This had not been previously observed."

Behavioural fever is so important, MacKenzie says, some pathogens are making a huge evolutionary effort to undermine it.

Koi herpesvirus, also known as cyprinid herpesvirus 3, attacks fish in the carp family, including domesticated koi carp. It causes lethargy, erratic behaviour, loss of mucus, sunken eyes and, ultimately, death.

The virus carries a gene that specifically inhibits behavioural fever in its host, preventing it from moving to warmer water. This gene is part of an evolutionary arms race between ectotherms and the parasites that invade them.

There is another twist. While behavioural fever usually benefits the host, it can sometimes also benefit the attacker.

Cable highlights a 2011 study showing that, when three-spined sticklebacks are infected with tapeworms, warmer temperatures also benefit the parasite. However, she cautions that "this parasite is known to manipulate the behaviour of its host, so there's a whole range of other factors that are coming into play with that particular system."

As scientists unravel the complexities of behavioural fever, MacKenzie says their research is raising some big questions.

For starters, many captive fish cannot opt for behavioural fever to help fight infections. Is that an animal welfare issue?

"It stops them from expressing what would be a normal behaviour," says MacKenzie. He wonders at what point such treatment impinges on the fishes' Five Freedoms; a set of basic animal rights laid out by animal welfare groups like the World Organization for Animal Health, which include freedom from pain, injury and disease.

There is also the question of how animals with these temperature-coupled adaptations will cope with changing habitats and climate change.

A 2013 study of tree frogs in northern Queensland, Australia showed that they were less likely to be infected by the lethal fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis if they spent more time with body temperatures above 25C - which they achieved by moving around. This seems to imply that, as the global climate warms, this particular fungus will become less infectious - but that is far from certain.

Finally, can the study of behavioural fever in ectotherms tell us anything about fever in ourselves? Strangely, the two phenomena do not look much alike.

"In mammals, it's not too clear fever has a value in terms of infectious outcomes," says MacKenzie. When most people get a fever, they take antipyretic drugs like ibuprofen to bring the fever down - and still recover from the infection. So while ectotherms get clear benefits from behavioural fever, mammalian fever may not be directly related to immune response.

Still, there must be a reason for the existence of fever in mammals. "Fever has to have a functional reason, or it's linked to other evolutionary processes that we can't get rid of," says MacKenzie. "Otherwise, we wouldn't have it."

Regardless of whether or not behavioural fever helps us learn something about mammalian fever, understanding it offers several benefits. It could help us conserve ectotherms in the wild, even as their world changes around them. It could also help us improve the lives of those in our care.

By understanding these animals better, we can promote their wellbeing, says MacKenzie. "That's really what we aim toward."
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Why some cold-blooded animals can get a fever

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At this moment, all across Europe and North America, zebrafish are cruising over colourful aquarium gravel and darting in and out of sparkling pink castles and plastic plants. These small, stripey fish are considered cheap and easy pets. You just need to drop in a couple of pinches of flaky fish food and clean the tank once in a while.

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Saving Keystone Otters

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Loveable, playful, inquisitive, tenacious, energetic, versatile, charming and undeniably cute. These are just some of the words that can be used to describe an otter. If you've been lucky enough to see one of these shy semi-aquatic animals in the wild, you'll instantly understand why.

But despite all their lovable qualities, otter populations all over the world hang in the balance.

Because they haven't always been appreciated (at least not alive), sea otters were almost hunted to extinction for their warm and luxurious pelts. More recently, many species including the common, or Eurasian, otter have been hunted and trapped because they were seen as threats to fish stocks and competition for our food. Sometimes they were even killed for fun.

It is not just deliberate hunting, trapping and persecution that cause otters to suffer; they have to cope with shrinking habitats and a shortage of food, are vulnerable to chemicals, pollutants and (for some species) oil spills. Accidentally getting caught in fishing nets, parasites and infectious diseases are yet further causes of fatalities.

These are big problems and a tall order for any group of animals to deal with.

Despite all these challenges, they are fighters with a range of skills and behaviours making them superbly adapted to life on land and in water.

Found on every continent except Oceania and Antarctica, not one of the 13 species has yet become extinct.

This says a lot about the tenacious nature of these members of the mustelid family, but also about the efforts many organisations and individuals have played in their conservation. The approaches and use of technology may differ vastly in different parts of the world, but the long-term survival of the species is what matters.
Sea otters in California
It was a close call for the incredibly cute sea otter ( Enhydra lutris) though.

During the fur trade of the 1700s and 1800s, the worldwide sea otter population was reduced from as many as 300,000 animals to as few as 2000, explains Andrew Johnson, Monterey Bay Aquarium's Conservation Research Operations Manager.

They were relentlessly hunted for their pelts. With around a million hairs per square inch, it was regarded as one of the most prized animal furs in the world.

Along the Californian coast, the southern sea otter ( Enhydra lutris nereis) was persecuted particularly badly, where numbers in the early 1900s were down to around 50 individuals (from 15,000) and were close to being wiped out.

Thankfully, they are now protected and their numbers have recovered to around 125,000 - though they remain an endangered species.

Healthy populations have a profound effect on the overall health of kelp forests, estuaries, and coastal and ocean ecosystems, because, Johnson says, "When sea otters are absent, those systems often fall out of balance and become less diverse and resilient."

Monterey Bay Aquarium in California has worked with sea otters since it opened in 1984 and now operates a successful sea otter rescue and release programme, using state-of-the-art facilities and tracking implants to help them in their vital work.

To help stranded sea otters, they have an Intensive Care Unit and multiple enclosures filled with filtered seawater with the capacity to hold 10 animals at one time. To monitor their progress once back in the wild, they use radio transmitters.

"We implant the transmitters so that we can track each otter and watch its behaviour following release," he says.

Because the batteries last at least two years, young animals can often be tracked until they reach adulthood and reproduce, allowing the team to document the significant impact releasing sea otters into an area has on the ecosystem.

Largely due to legislation and the conservation work of dedicated organisations and charities such as Monterey Bay Aquarium, there is good news for California's southern sea otters, as numbers are now up to 3000.

"This charismatic and vital species would not have survived without these protections.

"We need them to survive so they can exert positive effects on kelp forests and estuarine habitats, making those areas healthier and more ecologically diverse," Johnson says.
Hairy-nosed otters in Cambodia
Not all approaches to conservation are so well funded, but this doesn't mean they are any less successful.

The hairy-nosed otter ( Lutra sumatrana) is one of the rarest and most endangered species of otter. In the 1990s, it was thought extinct throughout its range in Southeast Asia due to habitat loss, poaching, local consumption of otter meat and a loss of its sources of food.

However, surveying between 2006 and 2013 at possible habitats confirmed the presence of several small populations. In Cambodia, for example, it was found in four areas; one of the largest populations being around the flooded forest surrounding the Tonle Sap Lake.

Now the species has been 'rediscovered', it needs to be protected so that the populations can be allowed to grow. And that's where organisations such as Conservation International have worked to protect and conserve the area and the species.

As Sokrith Heng, Conservation International's lead researcher for the survey, explains, even though there are a number of laws and regulations to protect the species, enforcement on the ground is weak and limited and local people's awareness of the importance of the wildlife and ecosystems they live in is very limited.

Poverty in areas such as rural Cambodia can also be a problem and often pushes local communities to use natural resources in unsustainable ways.

In response to this, Conservation International took action at Tonle Sap Lake. Their approach was to restore critical habitat, raise awareness in local communities and schools, and suggest laws and regulations to better protect the species. They also established conservation zones, protecting these through collaboration with government and community rangers as well as helping local community fisheries to development alternative livelihoods.

Key to this was directly engaging local community members in otter research and forming a group of 'otter ambassadors' who help spread awareness resulting in stronger support from locals.

This is important Heng says because; "Educating local people means they can share their knowledge to other community members."

An important part of the successful conservation here is ensuring that local communities are able to sustainably use and manage their resources, and that the communities are financially stronger, explains Heng. For example, some community fisheries now have better protection for the otters: they are patrolling the area to stop illegal activities and teaching otter conservation in the local area.

At Tonle Sap Lake, these approaches resulted in fewer otter traps and skins being recorded by officials and researchers, both signs that fewer animals were being killed. While ongoing habitat restoration combined with less hunting and greater awareness is helping to ensure a brighter future for the hairy-nosed otter.

Although the technology maybe very different to that used at Monterey Bay, this method of conservation has been just as successful, as hairy-nosed otters now have at least one stronghold in Cambodia.

It is a good result for the country and for a species that was once thought extinct.
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Conservation success for otters on the brink

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Loveable, playful, inquisitive, tenacious, energetic, versatile, charming and undeniably cute. These are just some of the words that can be used to describe an otter. If you've been lucky enough to see one of these shy semi-aquatic animals in the wild, you'll instantly understand why.

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When you're used to sub-zero temperatures, 17C can feel downright balmy!

King penguins are active throughout the long summer days so they have to deal with a very uncharacteristic polar problem - sizzling heat!

Any effort can easily lead to overheating, so to combat the high temperatures, these heavily insulated birds stretch out on their stomachs so their feet can cool off in the breeze.

Chicks, in their downy winter coats, are at an even greater risk of overheating. Those too young to swim in open water find welcome relief with a quick splash around in a small river or with a trip to the penguin spa, complete with penguin 'mud packs'.

When it comes to the adult penguins, they enjoy nothing more than a bracing dip in the chilly Southern Ocean.

Watch the moment when Sir David Attenborough and BBC filmmakers captured this funny moment for the series Frozen Planet.

Even better, you can watch a further 1,000 more memorable moments, for free, anytime, on your smartphone or tablet, via Attenborough's Story of Life app, which is now available to download via Google Play, or Apple's app store.

Find out more at http://www.bbc.com/earth/storyoflife.

The Story of Life has been produced in collaboration with Sir David Attenborough, BBC Earth and ideas and innovation company AKQA.

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When penguins are in danger of over heating

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When you're used to sub-zero temperatures, 17C can feel downright balmy! King penguins are active throughout the long summer days so they have to deal with a very uncharacteristic polar problem - sizzling heat! Any effort can easily lead to overheating, so to combat the high temperatures, these heavily insulated birds stretch out on their stomachs so their feet can cool off in the breeze.

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Techno-industrial society is in dangerous ecological overshoot - the human ecological footprint is at least 60% larger than the planet can support sustainably. The global economy is using even renewable and replenishable resources faster than ecosystems can regenerate, filling waste sinks beyond nature's capacity to assimilate. (Even climate change is a waste management problem - carbon dioxide is the single greatest waste by weight of industrial economies.)

Despite the accumulating evidence of impending crisis, the world community seems incapable of responding effectively. This situation is clearly unsustainable and, if present trends continue, is likely to lead - in thiscentury - to runaway climate change, the collapse of major biophysical systems, global strife and diminished prospects for continued civilised existence.

The proximate drivers are excess economic production and consumption, and over-population - human impact on the ecosphere is a product of population multiplied by average per capita consumption - exacerbated by an increasingly global compound myth of perpetual economic growth propelled by continuous technological progress. While there is evidence of some decoupling of economic production from nature, this is often an artefact of faulty accounting and trade (eg, wealthy countries are offshoring their ecological impacts onto poorer countries). Overall, economic throughput (energy and material consumption and waste production) is increasing with population and GDP growth [pdf]. Consequently, carbon dioxide is accumulating at an accelerating rate in the atmosphere and 2014, 2015 and 2016 sequentially shared the distinction of being the warmest years in the instrumental record.

There is widespread support for the notion of clean production and consumption but in present circumstances, this must soon translate into less production and consumption by fewer people. It complicates matters that modern society remains dependent on abundant cheap energy still mostly supplied by carbon-based fuels. Despite rapid technological advances and falling costs, it is still not clear that renewable energy alternatives, including wind and photovoltaic electricity, can replace fossil fuels in such major uses as transportation and space/water heating in the foreseeable future.

The problem is that what is politically feasible is often ecologically irrelevant

Nevertheless, in the absence of effective carbon sequestration technologies, reducing fossil fuel use remains essential to avoiding catastrophic climate change. Resolving this energy-climate conundrum will require major conservation efforts, the prioritising of essential non-substitutable uses of fossil fuels and the banning of frivolous ones.

At the same time, this is a world of chronic gross social inequity that erodes population health and social cohesion. According to Oxfam, the world's richest eight billionaires possess the same wealth as the poorest 50% of the human family. More generally, the richest quintile of humanity takes home about 70% of global income [pdf] compared with just 2% by the poorest fifth of the population.

Higher incomes enable citizens of high-income countries to consume, on average, several times their equitable share of global biocapacity, while denizens of poor countries are unable to claim a fair allocation of Earth's bounty. This situation is egregiously unjust, socially destabilising and ecologically precarious.

The major social implications of these realities should be self-evident. In a rational world, the global community ( the UN, the World Bank, the IMF) would cease promoting material growth as the primary solution to both north-south inequity and chronic poverty within nations. On a finite planet already in overshoot it is not biophysically possibleto raise the material standards of the poor to those of the rich sustainably- in other words, without destroying the ecosphere, undermining life-support functions and precipitating the collapse of global society.

The reasoning is simple. Because they facilitate growth and (over)consumption, globalisation and trade have enabled many densely-populated high-income countries (most western European nations and Japan) to greatly exceed their domestic carrying capacities. These nations live mostly on imported biocapacity - they are running "ecological deficit" with other nations and the global commons. Not every country can be a net importer of bioresources: the development path worn by first-world nations cannot be followed by developing countries. (Note that the bloated eco-footprints of many high-income countries make them effectively more over-populated than poorer countries with nominally higher population densities.) In particular, it is irresponsible for the governments of high-income countries to treat economic growth as the panacea for all that ails them.

The evidence argues instead that the global community should cooperate on redistribution - on devising methods to share the benefits of development more equitably. Unsustainability is a collective problem that requires collective solutions. Contrary to politicians' assertions, there is an unavoidable conflict between material economic growth and the environment. The larger the human enterprise, the more diminished the ecosphere. Homo sapiens have competitively displaced countless other species from their habitats and food resources. From only 1% 10,000 years ago, humans and their domestic livestock had grown to comprise over 97% of Earth's mammalian biomass [pdf] by 2000. This number may be closer to 98.5% in 2017.

The goal should be to enhance the material wellbeing of developing countries and the poor while simultaneously reducing both aggregate material throughput and world population. Ensuring an economically secure and ecologically stable environment for all requires:

* That rich nations consume less to free up the ecological space needed for justifiable consumption increases in poorer countries.

* That the world implement a universal population management plandesigned to reduce the total human population to a level that can be supported indefinitely at a more-than-satisfactory average material standard. This is what it means to live sustainably within the means of nature.

Fortunately, planned degrowth toward a quasi steady-state economy [pdf] is technically possible, would benefit the poor and could be achieved while improving the overall quality of life, even in high-income countries. Considering the human suffering that would be avoided and the number of non-human species that would be preserved, it is also a morally compelling strategy.

Obviously, the foregoing diagnosis is anathema to the prevailing growth ethic, the belief that wellbeing is a linear function of income and political correctness pertaining to population policy. Many will therefore object on grounds that the foregoing prescription is politically unfeasible and can never be implemented.

They may well be correct. The problem is that what is politically feasible is often ecologically irrelevant. Effective sustainability policy must be consistent with available scientific evidence; alternative facts are mere self-delusion. Failure to implement a global sustainability plan that addresses excess consumption and over-population while ensuring greater social equity may well be fatal to the human prospect. Indeed, adherence to any variant of the status quo promises a future of uncontrollable climate change, plummeting biodiversity, civil disorder, geopolitical turmoil and resource wars. Under the circumstances, opponents of the present prescription have an obligation to propose an alternative plan that similarly promises ecological stability, economic security, social equity and improved population health to future generations.
William E Rees is a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, and former director of the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC. He originated and co-developed ecological footprint analysis, which is described in the book Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact On the Earth. This blog was first published on the Millenium Alliance for Humanity and Biosphere website.
Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @GuardianGDP on Twitter.

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Wealth redistribution and population management are the only logical way forward | William E Rees

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Techno-industrial society is in dangerous ecological overshoot - the human ecological footprint is at least 60% larger than the planet can support sustainably. The global economy is using even renewable and replenishable resources faster than ecosystems can regenerate, filling waste sinks beyond nature's capacity to assimilate.

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Jakarta at 30 million: my city is choking and sinking - it needs a new Plan B

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Imagining a more stable future for this thrilling but chaotic metropolis - with its 3.5 million daily commuters - is not easy for those who live and work here. One leading Jakarta architect offers his vision for a smaller-scale future

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Swiss police say hundreds of bodies of mountaineers who have gone missing in the Alps in the past century could emerge in coming years as global warming forces the country's glaciers to retreat.

Alpine authorities have registered a significant increase in the number of human remains discovered last month, with the body of a man missing for 30 years the most recent to be uncovered.

Rescue teams in Saas Valley in the Valais canton were called last Tuesday after two climbers retreating from an aborted ascent spotted a hand and two shoes protruding from the Hohlaub glacier.

Rescuers spent two hours freeing the mummified body with icepicks and their bare hands, also recovering a silver wristwatch and a ring. A helicopter flew the remains to Bern, where forensics experts matched the DNA to that of a German citizen, born in 1943, who had gone missing on a hike in 11 August 1987.

One rescue worker said the man had worn shoes "unsuitable" for walking on ice, suggesting he may have slipped after walking a few metres onto the glacier and fallen down a crevice. Both feet had become detached from the body, indicating the force of the fall.

The discovery comes less than a week after the bodies of a Swiss couple, missing for 75 years, were found in the Tsanfleuron glacier in the same canton. Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin had disappeared after going out to milk their cows in a meadow above Chandolin on 15 August 1942.

A bottle found near the remains of a couple found preserved in a receding glacier, near Les Diablerets, Switzerland. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Last Thursday, the remains of a person believed to have been killed in an Air India crash more than 50 years ago was also discovered in the French Alps, on Mount Blanc.

Switzerland's glaciers have been melting at an unprecedented rate, losing almost one cubic km in ice volume or about 900 bn litres of water over the past year. According to an investigation by Tagesanzeiger newspaper, eight of the 10 months in which the glaciers have lost the most in volume over the past century have been since 2008.

Since 1850, when glaciers covered 1,735 sq km (670 sq miles) of Swiss land, the total area has shrunk by a half, to about 890 sq km.

Police in Valais expect the bodies of many more missing persons to emerge because of global warming. "It's quite clear," a spokesman, Christian Zuber, told the Guardian.

"The glaciers are retreating, so it's logical that we're finding more and more bodies and body parts. In the coming years we expect that many more cases of missing persons will be resolved."

He said a map that lists everyone who had gone missing since 1925 to the present day contains 306 names and locations, one fewer since the discovery of the German mountaineer.

At least 160 alpinists remain missing in France's Mont Blanc massif, and the Morteratsch glacier in Graubünden is believed to contain the bodies of 40 mountaineers.

Police investigate the site where the body of a German hiker was found in the Valais canton near Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Photograph: AP

Zuber described the "great relief" at being able to pass on the information to the families "who would otherwise never know with 100% certainty whether their loved one had perished on the mountain. Finally when a corpse is discovered, you have an absolute guarantee", he said.

He said that feeling had also been palpable earlier this year when a local woman was able to retrieve the bodies of her dead parents, the Dumoulins, who had disappeared when she was just four years old. "We locals are obviously used to the mountains, but such discoveries are no less emotional for the people here," he said.

Rolf Trachsel, head of mountain rescue in Saas-Fee, who led the operation to recover the German man's body, said it had been discovered in an area popular with hikers. "There was very little snow, and it was not very steep. It was about half an hour's hike away from the next mountain cable-car station."

He said although the team had to deal with the sad fact they were recovering a dead man, they also felt considerable relief. "If someone has gone missing, logic tells you their body has to turn up again one day," Trachsel said.

"It's obviously good that we can put our efforts into recovering someone, especially after 30 years, and knowing how important it is for the family to find out what happened."

Funeral of Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin in Savièse, Switzerland, last month. Photograph: Dominic Steinmann/EPA

The body was taken to the Institute of Forensic Medicine (IRM) at the University of Bern by helicopter for examination and formal identification where it is still being held. Christian Jackowski, a scientist at IRM, said the discovery of human remains was now a regular feature of the Swiss summer holiday season, as climbers started to swarm the Valais region's ice-covered mountains.

Usually bodies emerged from the ice at the top of the glacier, rather than its "tongue" at the bottom of the valley, Jackowski said. The extent to which bodies have been preserved by the ice depends on the circumstances of the person's demise, with some human remains having been mummified by sunshine and dry winds before being engulfed in ice, while others have been reduced to skeletons.

The majority of bodies are trapped in ice, crevices or streams after an accident or a suicide, though some cases are treated in relation to criminal cases.

Other bodies could be the victims of military skirmishes. Though Switzerland stayed neutral in world wars one and two, the Mont Blanc massif became a frontline towards the end of the second world war amid intense fighting between the German army and French resistance fighters.

In most cases, forensic experts face a race against time once bodies have been removed from the ice and start to thaw. Dental records and DNA samples are checked against a database of missing people to determine the identity of the corpse.

Since 2000, authorities in Switzerland have taken DNA samples of missing people's family members immediately after their disappearance to facilitate the process.

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Melting glaciers in Swiss Alps could reveal hundreds of mummified corpses

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Frozen bodies of couple who vanished 75 years ago among those uncovered recently as global warming forces ice to retreat

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India and Pakistan are no strangers to extreme temperatures. In 2015, two heat waves killed more than 3,500 people there. But by the end of the century, new climate simulations suggest, extreme heat and humidity could put hundreds of millions at risk of death.

Published online August 2 in Science Advances, the simulations show fairly specifically where future heat waves will be most dangerous if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated: densely populated agricultural areas in South Asia, particularly in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

"The results of this study are of concern," says climate scientist Christoph Schär of ETH Zurich. In the regions that will be affected, the majority of people don't live in cities, but villages near coastal areas and low-lying river valleys where they cultivate crops and tend livestock. Many are poor with limited access to air conditioning and other infrastructure to combat the health risks of rising temperatures.

Study coauthor Jeremy Pal, an environmental engineer at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, says the team was surprised to see how widespread the projections of such severe heat waves in Asia were. In a previous study, he and a colleague found that future warming will make the Persian Gulf extremely vulnerable to deadly heat waves.

"We weren't expecting the heat waves to be as severe as those we found" in the Persian Gulf, Pal says. "However, parts of South Asia seem to be equally vulnerable."

The new study accounts for the combination of temperature and humidity, which reduces the human body's ability to cool itself through evaporation of sweat. If the ambient temperature in humid conditions, known as the wet-bulb temperature, exceeds skin temperature of 35 ° Celsius (95 ° Fahrenheit), humans quickly overheat. These temperatures can equate to well over 38° C (100 ° F) in standard, or dry-bulb, temperature. Not even the fittest of humans would be able to survive a few hours in these conditions, even in well-ventilated shaded areas, Pal says.
Story continues after graphic

Getting warmer

If global warming continues unabated, by 2100, average global temperatures could rise by 4.25 degrees Celsius compared with current temperatures. Under this scenario, the new study finds that 4 percent of the South Asian population would experience deadly wet-bulb temperatures exceeding 35° C. Approximately 75 percent of the population would experience humid temperatures higher than 31° C, which are dangerous for most humans, but rarely reached right now, Pal and colleagues report.

However, the study shows that number can drop from 75 percent to 55 percent if climate change mitigation strategies are enacted, such as those pledged in the 2015 Paris climate accord (SN: 1/9/16, p. 6)."It is important to take the global projections and zoom them in to regional and local levels to better understand the societal impacts of climate change," Pal says.

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South Asia could face deadly heat and humidity by the end of this century

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India and Pakistan are no strangers to extreme temperatures. In 2015, two heat waves killed more than 3,500 people there. But by the end of the century, new climate simulations suggest, extreme heat and humidity could put hundreds of millions at risk of death.

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The Death and Life of the Great Lakes
Dan Egan
W.W. Norton & Co., $27.95
Every summer, people flock to the Great Lakes to swim and fish in the seemingly infinite waters and hike along the idyllic shores. But an ominous undercurrent flows just out of sight. Below the water's surface rages an environmental catastrophe 200 years in the making.

In The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, journalist Dan Egan describes how the lakes' natural history gave way to an unnatural one. From the effects of global trade and urbanization to climate change, the book offers an exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) account of the abuses the lakes have endured.

Scars left by retreating glaciers and a failed continental rift, lakes Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior are more like inland seas, holding about 20 percent of Earth's surface freshwater. The lakes were mostly isolated from international waters until a series of canals and seaways let in freighters from around the world. "These ships are like syringes," as one biologist put it, injecting into the lakes living pollution.

Nearly 200 nonnative species now call the lakes home. The worst offenders - alewives, sea lampreys and zebra and quagga mussels - have ruined food webs. Egan dedicates a third of the book to these invaders and biologists' best, and sometimes misguided, efforts to contain them.

But the lakes also face lesser-known problems. Egan deftly explains the science of these complex issues, including runoff-induced toxic algal blooms and extreme fluctuations in the lakes' water levels attributed to climate change.
Buy The Death and Life of the Great Lakes from Amazon.com. Sales generated through the links to Amazon.com contribute to Society for Science & the Public's programs.
Despite all the bad news, there are glimmers of hope. After decades of living on the brink of collapse, native whitefish and trout are regaining a foothold - a boon for the ecosystem and local economies. Scientists are also experimenting in the lab with gene drives to stop invasive Asian carp and with new ways to rid ships of stowaways lurking in ballast water.

The lakes still face overwhelming challenges, but their biggest threat, Egan argues, is our own ignorance: "We are still treating the lakes ... as liquid highways that promise a shortcut to unimaginable fortune." With few easy solutions and numerous political roadblocks, future generations are "perhaps the best hope the lakes have to recover," he writes. But if this book is any indication, there's no time to wait.

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Invasive species, climate change threaten Great Lakes

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The Death and Life of the Great Lakes Dan EganW.W. Norton & Co., $27.95 Every summer, people flock to the Great Lakes to swim and fish in the seemingly infinite waters and hike along the idyllic shores. But an ominous undercurrent flows just out of sight.

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The Arctic Ocean is a final resting place for plastic debris dumped into the North Atlantic Ocean, new research suggests.

A 2013 circumpolar expedition discovered hundreds of tons of plastic debris, from fishing lines to plastic films, ecologist Andrés Cózar of the University of Cádiz in Spain and colleagues report April 19 in Science Advances. While many areas remain relatively unpolluted, the density of plastic trash in the Arctic waters east of Greenland and north of Europe rivals plastic pileups in waters closer to the equator, despite few nearby human populations. Even more plastic probably lurks on the seafloor, the researchers suspect.

Ocean currents carried that plastic northward from the North Atlantic Ocean, the researchers propose. Based on the kind of plastic found, the researchers say the debris probably originated from the U.S. East Coast and Europe. While the study estimates that the Arctic contains less than 3 percent of all global floating plastic, that number will only rise as currents continue carrying pollution poleward, putting Arctic ecosystems at risk.

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The Arctic is a final garbage dump for ocean plastic

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The Arctic Ocean is a final resting place for plastic debris dumped into the North Atlantic Ocean, new research suggests. A 2013 circumpolar expedition discovered hundreds of tons of plastic debris, from fishing lines to plastic films, ecologist Andrés Cózar of the University of Cádiz in Spain and colleagues report April 19 in Science Advances.

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If you are like me, you picture the Amazon region as an ever lush, wet, tropical region filled with numerous plant and animal species. Who would imagine the Amazon experiencing drought? I mean sure, if we think of drought as "less water than usual," then any place could have a drought. But what I tend to envision with respect to drought is truly dry.

People who work in this field have a more advanced understanding than I do about drought, how and why it occurs, its frequency and severity, and the impact on natural and human worlds. This recognition brings us to a very interesting paper recently published in Scientific Reports, entitled Unprecedented drought over tropical South America in 2016: significantly under-predicted by tropical SST [sea surface temperature]. So, what did this paper show?

Well, the Amazon region does encounter periodic droughts. There was one in 2005, another in 2010, both of which were 100-year events, and the most recent one in 2015-2016. The authors of this study, Amir Erfanian, Guiling Wang, and Lori Fomenko, all from the University of Connecticut, measured drought in three ways. They quantified the precipitation deficits and water storage on the ground. They also used two different vegetation measures of drought. The results showed that the most recent drought was unprecedented in severity. The video below shows a brief visual overview of the findings of this paper:

But the authors really wanted to know why the drought occurred in the first place and why it was so severe. Droughts in the Amazon region are mainly driven by surface water temperatures in the neighboring oceans, particularly in the El Niño/La Niña region. So, the authors looked at the relationship between changes in precipitation and sea surface temperatures in tropical oceans. They found that warmer than usual water in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was the main driver for the reduced rainfall during the three extreme droughts in the past decade.

The authors also found that the water temperatures alone could not adequately explain the size and severity of the 2015-2016 drought. This suggests that there are other factors involved as well. To be clear, the authors found that the relationship between water temperatures and drought worked well for prior droughts (the 2005 and 2010 droughts as well as 1983 and 1998 droughts, also El Niño years) but fell apart in 2015-2016. That is, using the relationship, the predicted 2015-2016 drought should not have been nearly as severe or as large as it was. The paper also reports that the 2015-2016 drought clearly exceeded that of the 100-year events in 2005 and 2010. So, in approximately one decade, this zone has had three 100-year events. Quite astonishing.

So why was SST unable to explain the 2015-2016 drought, like it had for past events? Part of it has to do with land-use changes. That is, human changes to the land surface such as deforestation. Another part is related to warming from greenhouse gases. It is clear that land-use changes can affect drought. As farmers deforest, for instance, they convert woodlands and forests into agricultural land. This changes not only the darkness (reflectivity) of the land, but it also impacts the transfer of water to and from the atmosphere (evapotranspiration).

One might ask how warming affects droughts. As air temperatures increase, air is able to evaporate water more rapidly and dry out surfaces. At the same time, air can contain more water vapor so that when rain does occur, it is more often in heavy downpours. These two changes underlie what is referred to as an accelerated hydrological cycle. Simply put, man-made warming is accelerating the movement of water through the ecosystem, which can cause drought even if precipitation does not decrease. Warming also causes changes in the large-scale patterns of air motion (atmospheric circulation) that reduces rainfall in this region.

I communicated with the senior author, Dr. Wang, who told me:

Since oceanic forcing could not fully explain the severity of the latest drought, one will have to account for the roles of greenhouse gas warming, land use land cover changes, and/or dynamic ecosystem feedback in order to advance the understanding, attribution and prediction of extreme droughts in this region. The frequent recurrence of severe droughts in the recent decade may be a precursor of what the future might have in store for this regional climate and ecosystem.

So why do we care? Well, for a number of reasons. First of all, droughts in this part of the world create an increased risk for desertification and fire occurrence and hurt the region's ecosystem, harm trees, and accelerate the release of carbon dioxide. We know that the 2005 drought, which was a 100-year event, led to a record number of wildfires and increased emissions. We also know that similar consequences occurred five years later during the 2010 drought. Similarly, smaller droughts in Brazil in 2007 and 2012 caused widespread water supply problems, particularly in densely populated locations.

To make a long story short, investigating these additional factors may help better explain the most recent Amazon drought. Simply using the past relationship between SST and drought was not a sufficient explanation. This finding, and the recognition that droughts present real consequences for both human societies and natural ecological systems, should motivate us to take actions to reduce harm in the future.

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Study finds human influence in the Amazon's third 1-in-100 year drought since 2005 | John Abraham

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If you are like me, you picture the Amazon region as an ever lush, wet, tropical region filled with numerous plant and animal species. Who would imagine the Amazon experiencing drought? I mean sure, if we think of drought as "less water than usual," then any place could have a drought.

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Extreme heatwaves that kill even healthy people within hours will strike parts of the Indian subcontinent unless global carbon emissions are cut sharply and soon, according to new research.

Even outside of these hotspots, three-quarters of the 1.7bn population - particularly those farming in the Ganges and Indus valleys - will be exposed to a level of humid heat classed as posing "extreme danger" towards the end of the century.

The new analysis assesses the impact of climate change on the deadly combination of heat and humidity, measured as the "wet bulb" temperature (WBT). Once this reaches 35C, the human body cannot cool itself by sweating and even fit people sitting in the shade will die within six hours.

The revelations show the most severe impacts of global warming may strike those nations, such as India, whose carbon emissions are still rising as they lift millions of people out of poverty.

"It presents a dilemma for India between the need to grow economically at a fast pace, consuming fossil fuels, and the need to avoid such potentially lethal impacts," said Prof Elfatih Eltahir, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US who led the new study. "To India, global climate change is no longer abstract - it is about how to save potentially vulnerable populations."

Heatwaves are already a major risk in South Asia, with a severe episode in 2015 leading to 3,500 deaths, and India recorded its hottest ever day in 2016 when the temperature in the city of Phalodi, Rajasthan, hit 51C. Another new study this week linked the impact of climate change to the suicides of nearly 60,000 Indian farmers.

Eltahir said poor farmers are most at risk from future humid heatwaves, but have contributed very little to the emissions that drive climate change. The eastern part of China, another populous region where emissions are rising, is also on track for extreme heatwaves and this risk is currently being examined by the scientists.

Their previous research, published in 2015, showed the Gulf in the Middle East, the heartland of the global oil industry, will also suffer heatwaves beyond the limit of human survival if climate change is unchecked, particularly Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha and coastal cities in Iran.

The new work, published in the journal Science Advances, used carefully selected computer climate models that accurately simulate the past climate of the South Asia to conduct a high resolution analysis of the region, down to 25km.

The scientists found that under a business-as-usual scenario, where carbon emissions are not curbed, 4% of the population would suffer unsurvivable six-hour heatwaves of 35C WBT at least once between 2071-2100. The affected cities include Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh and Patna in Bihar, each currently home to more than two million people.

Vast areas of South Asia - covering 75% of the area's population - would endure at least one heatwave of 31C WBT. This is already above the level deemed by the US National Weather Service to represent "extreme danger", with its warning stating: "If you don't take precautions immediately when conditions are extreme, you may become seriously ill or even die."

However, if emissions are reduced roughly in line with the global Paris climate change agreement, there would be no 35C WBT heatwaves and the population affected by the 31C WBT events falls from 75% to 55%. About 15% exposed are today.

The analysis also showed that the dangerous 31C WBT level would be passed once every two years for 30% of the population - more than 500 million people - if climate change is unchecked, but for only 2% of the population if the Paris goals are met. "The problem is very alarming but the intensity of the heatwaves can be reduced considerably if global society takes action," said Eltahir.

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Distribution of maximum wet bulb temperature (WBT) from 1976-2005 (B), from 2071-2100 with 2.25C of warming (C), from 2071-2100 with 4.5C of warming (D). WBT of more than 31C is considered extremely dangerous and over 35C is fatal within hours. Photograph: Courtesy of AAAS

South Asia is particularly at risk from these extreme heatwaves because the annual monsoon brings hot and humid air on to the land. The widespread use of irrigation adds to the risk, because evaporation of the water increases humidity. The projected extremes are higher in the Gulf in the Middle East, but there they mostly occur over the gulf itself, rather than on land as in South Asia.

The limit of survivability, at 35C WBT, was almost reached in Bandar Mahshahr in Iran in July 2015, where 46C heat combined with 50% humidity. "This suggests the threshold may be breached sooner than projected," said the researchers.

Prof Christoph Schär, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and who was not involved in the study, said: "This is a solid piece of work, which will likely shape our perception of future climate change. In my view, the results are of concern and alarming."

The report demonstrates the urgency of measures to both cut emissions and help people cope better with such heatwaves, he said. There are uncertainties in the modelling - which Schär noted could underestimate or overestimate the impacts - as representing monsoon climates can be difficult and historical data is relatively scarce.

Prof Chris Huntingford, at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said: "If given just one word to describe climate change, then 'unfairness' would be a good candidate. Raised levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are expected to cause deadly heatwaves for much of South Asia. Yet many of those living there will have contributed little to climate change."
Topics

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Climate change to cause humid heatwaves that will kill even healthy people

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Extreme heatwaves that kill even healthy people within hours will strike parts of the Indian subcontinent unless global carbon emissions are cut sharply and soon, according to new research. Even outside of these hotspots, three-quarters of the 1.7bn population - particularly those farming in the Ganges and Indus valleys - will be exposed to a level of humid heat classed as posing "extreme danger" towards the end of the century.

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The global meat industry, already implicated in driving global warming and deforestation, has now been blamed for fueling what is expected to be the worst "dead zone" on record in the Gulf of Mexico.

Toxins from manure and fertiliser pouring into waterways are exacerbating huge, harmful algal blooms that create oxygen-deprived stretches of the gulf, the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay, according to a new report by Mighty, an environmental group chaired by former congressman Henry Waxman.

It is expected that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) will this week announce the largest ever recorded dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. It is expected to be larger than the nearly 8,200 square-mile area that was forecast for July - an expanse of water roughly the size of New Jersey.

Nutrients flowing into streams, rivers and the ocean from agriculture and wastewater stimulate an overgrowth of algae, which then decomposes. This results in hypoxia, or lack of oxygen, in the water, causing marine life either to flee or to die.

Some creatures, such as shrimp, suffer stunted growth. Algal blooms themselves can cause problems, as in Florida last summer when several beaches were closed after they became coated in foul-smelling green slime.

America's vast appetite for meat is driving much of this harmful pollution, according to Mighty, which blamed a small number of businesses for practices that are "contaminating our water and destroying our landscape" in the heart of the country.

"This problem is worsening and worsening and regulation isn't reducing the scope of this pollution," said Lucia von Reusner, campaign director at Mighty. "These companies' practices need to be far more sustainable. And a reduction in meat consumption is absolutely necessary to reduce the environmental burden."

The Mighty report analyzed supply chains of agribusiness and pollution trends and found that a "highly industrialized and centralized factory farm system" was resulting in vast tracts of native grassland in the midwest being converted into soy and corn to feed livestock. Stripped soils can wash away in the rain, bringing fertilisers into waterways.

Arkansas-based Tyson Foods is identified by the report as a "dominant" influence in the pollution, due to its market strength in chicken, beef and pork. Tyson, which supplies the likes of McDonald's and Walmart, slaughters 35m chickens and 125,000 head of cattle every week, requiring five million acres of corn a year for feed, according to the report.

This consumption resulted in Tyson generating 55m tons of manure last year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with 104m tons of pollutants dumped into waterways over the past decade. The Mighty research found that the highest levels of nitrate contamination correlate with clusters of facilities operated by Tyson and Smithfield, another meat supplier.

This pollution has also been linked to drinking water contamination. Last week, a report by Environmental Working Group found that in 2015 water systems serving seven million Americans in 48 states contained high levels of nitrates. Consuming nitrates has been linked to an increased risk of contracting certain cancers.

Large parts of America are being plowed up for corn and soy to raise meat. There is very little regulation

Lucia von Reusner, Mighty

"Large parts of America are being plowed up for corn and soy to raise meat," said von Reusner. "There is very little regulation so we can't wait for that.

"The corporate agriculture sector has shown it is responsive to consumer concerns about meat production so we hope that the largest meat companies will meet expectations on this."

The report urges Tyson and other firms to use their clout in the supply chain to ensure that grain producers such as Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland employ practices that reduce pollution flowing into waterways. These practices include not leaving soil uncovered by crops and being more efficient with fertilizers so plants are not doused in too many chemicals.

The US is an enormous consumer of meat, with the average American chewing through 211lbs in 2015. A study released earlier this year found that US beef consumption fell by nearly one fifth from 2005 to 2014, possibly due to concerns over health or the environment. A new increase is now expected.

According to the US Department of Agriculture, beef and pork production is forecast to grow significantly over the next decade, driven by lower feed costs and healthy demand. By 2025, the average American is expected to eat 219lbs of meat a year. Just 3% of Americans follow a vegetarian or vegan diet.

This voracious appetite for meat has driven the loss of native forests and grasslands in the US and abroad, releasing heat-trapping gases through deforestation and agricultural practices. Agriculture produced 9% of US greenhouse gas emissions in 2015, according to the EPA.

A spokesman for Cargill said the company was an "industry leader" for sustainable practices, pointing to its efforts with environment groups to address air, water and soil quality in Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska.

"Protein consumption is growing globally and we are working to meet increased consumer demand with sustainably and responsibly produced foods and supply chains," said the spokesman. "We are dedicated to protecting animal welfare, reducing environmental impact, increasing transparency and keeping workers and consumers safe.

"We also continue to improve livestock feed efficiency. Over the last 15 years we have seen an overall trend in reducing the volume of feed for each pound of beef produced."

A Tyson spokeswoman said "we don't agree with the group's characterization of our company but share its interest in protecting the environment."

"It's true the livestock and poultry industry is a major buyer of grain for feed, however, the report fails to note that a large percentage of corn raised in the US is used for biofuel and that a significant portion is used for human consumption," she added.

"Tyson Foods is focused on continuous improvement. We are constantly looking to improve and lead the industry, so that we can deliver sustainable food to people every day at a scale that matters to the world."

Archer Daniels Midland were also contacted for comment prior to publication.

This article was amended on 1 August 2017 to clarify a previous version of the standfirst that incorrectly identified the source of the toxins.

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Meat industry blamed for largest-ever 'dead zone' in Gulf of Mexico

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A new report shows toxins from suppliers to companies like Tyson Foods are pouring into waterways, causing marine life to leave or die

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For the largest living things standing on the planet, California's giant sequoias have an unassuming, almost gentle aura to them. The recognizable cinnamon-colored bark is soft and fibrous. Its cones are modest. When cut down, the trees tend to shatter and won't produce reliably sturdy timber.

These majestic plants have a lineage stretching back to the Jurassic period, but fears over their future have prompted a somewhat counterintuitive plan presented to the Trump administration - in order to save the giant sequoias, some say, their surrounding area must be stripped of protected status.

this land is your land ask

As part of the Trump administration's determination to roll back regulation and open public land to private industry, the interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, is currently undertaking a review of more than two dozen national monuments declared since the 1990s. The stated goal of the review is to reboot extractive industries such as mining and logging. Supporters of the Giant Sequoia monument fear a unique ecosystem is at risk from timber industry advocates who would peel back protections.

"If this were a different administration and there was a push by the timber industry and its allies to shrink the monument, I wouldn't take it too seriously," said Chad Hanson, a rangy tree ecologist who has agitated for greater sequoia protections for the past two decades. "But the Trump administration? Oh, yeah. We are taking this threat very seriously."

At a boisterous public meeting in June, the Tulare County supervisors voted 3-2 in support of a plan to shrink the Giant Sequoia national monument, which contains the majority of the world's population of the towering trees, to less than a third its current size. The decision sparked bellowing acrimony that required the county sheriff to step in to restore calm. "It kind of got out of control," said Steve Worthley, vice-chairman of the board of supervisors in Tulare County, California.

Worthley, an attorney and former corporate counsel for Sequoia Forest Industries, argues that the government isn't doing enough. "We have had a passive system and it ain't working - we are losing giant sequoia groves because we aren't taking care of the land," said Worthley. "If we're going to have groves in the future, we have to get back to active management."

In a letter to Zinke, the supervisors decry a "tree mortality epidemic" fueled by lengthy drought and raging wildfires. The solution, the county members suggest, is to reduce the size of the monument area so that loggers can remove trees that may combust and threaten the stands of sequoias.

A 328,000-acre connected protected area on the slopes of the southern Sierra Nevada would be transformed into small pockets of no-logging zones covering just the sequoia clusters themselves - a plan that some scientists warn would degrade the wider ecosystem and, ultimately, the sequoias.

Giant sequoias, the bulkier cousins of the coastal redwoods found along California's coast, only grow in scattered sites along a 260-mile stretch of the Sierra Nevada's western face. A precise cocktail of moisture, elevation and temperature help provide the trees' heft. General Sherman, the most famous giant sequoia of all, is 275ft tall and 36ft in diameter at the base. Some trees are even taller, taking 2,000 years and longer to push more than 300ft towards the heavens.

The Sierra Nevada range boasts three national parks - Yosemite, Sequoia national park and Kings Canyon national park - but it wasn't until the creation of the Giant Sequoia national monument in April 2000 that the majority of giant sequoia groves were placed under formal federal protection.

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Bill Clinton signed a proclamation announcing the park's designation as a national monument to be managed by the United States Forest Service. Photograph: Larry Downing/Reuters

Bill Clinton used his authority under the antiquities act to carve out the protected area, which is split in two zones adjacent to Sequoia national park. The 33 giant sequoia groves are mixed among ponderosa pine, white fir, incense cedar, dozens of animal species and a clutch of chalet-like houses with pitched roofs arranged alongside narrow, twisting roads. The monument is dotted with grandiose granite domes, limestone caverns and archaeological sites that have been shaped by glaciers, volcanic activity and early inhabitants.

Clinton's predecessor, George HW Bush, visited the area to declare a more informal ban on logging in the sequoia groves only in 1992. The tree the president stood next to when signing the proclamation was subsequently dubbed the "Bush bush" and residents of this largely conservative outpost were left with the impression the region's timber industry would be left largely unmolested. Then the monument came.

Kent Duysen's family has run sawmills in Tulare County since the 1960s. The creation of the national monument may have been hailed by conservationists but it also resulted in the rapid closure of Duysen's largest mill in the summer of 2000, putting 105 people out of work.

"It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, work-wise," he said. "There wasn't enough timber to keep it running. It was a land grab by Clinton."

Duysen, who now operates just one sawmill near the town of Terra Bella, said he's "sick of the out-and-out lies" of environmentalists who he said falsely claim he wants to cut down the sequoias.

"I've heard it for years," he said. "We don't want to cut them. But the forest needs to be thinned out. The opponents of the reduction in the monument aren't locals, they are from Los Angeles or San Fransisco or from out of state. I would say 90% of the people here support the change in the size."

Tulare County is a "home-rule sort of county set within a liberal state", according to Gary Adest, a biologist who moved to the area 30 years ago and now runs a 772-acre ranch with his wife, Barbara, near the small town of Springville.

"Donald Trump seems to have a hatred of everything Barack Obama did," said Adest, who cuts a striking figure with his pointy beard and explosive Hawaiian shirts. "Well, local people here feel the same about Bill Clinton - a liberal guy in Washington telling you how you're going to run your backyard."

Tulare County, which is roughly twice the size of Delaware, reaches from the southern Sierra Nevada across a vast slab of the flat farmland of the San Joaquin valley. An 1884 map of the county, which hangs in the supervisors' building, extols the "Italian sky" and fertile soils that provide a "treasury of wealth to the general farmer".

Yet unemployment is notably high here and the county has one of the worst poverty rates in California. Trump won 53% of the county's vote in last year's election. Tourism is a bright spot - the county pulled in about $380m last year from visitors who flock to see the sequoias - that could be blighted by a shrunken monument. "Let me put it this way," said Eric Coyne, deputy Tulare County administrator, in May. "Somebody from Ohio is probably helping to pay for your police and fire."

Worthley insists the monument must be cut down to around 90,000 acres to help stem a number of huge fires he believes put the sequoias at risk. A buildup of vegetation in the untouched monument, he contends, is providing the kindling for fires sparked by lightening, faulty power lines or accidents. And while the US Forest Service, which manages the monument, has the authority to remove dead trees and reduce fuel load through controlled fires, Worthley said in practice the agency had done "virtually nothing".

"There is so much fuel that when a fire gets going it's like a nuclear bomb," he said. "We have lost great sequoias. They can handle a bit of heat but they are still living things and the heat is so intense, the tree just fries."

Hanson is scathing about this stance, pointing to numerous studies that show how fire has actually been suppressed in many protected areas - to the detriment of giant sequoias. Worthley, Hanson said, is "completely ignorant and knows nothing about tree ecology".

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A reporter walks through the trunk of a 2,000-year-old giant sequoia inside the Giant Sequoia national monument. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/AP

Giant sequoias have evolved for millions of years alongside fire. They drop serotinous cones that open up in the heat, with the half-inch seeds found inside germinating best in the ashy remnants of a recent forest fire. The trees are also extremely hard to kill off with fire - a thick hide of bark protects the living tissue within. Flames can gouge holes in the trees, creating cave-like "cat faces" that can house hibernating bears, but this doesn't usually doom the tree.

Hanson also quibbles with the idea that logging removes fire fuel. The timber industry, after all, wants to remove sizable trees - which aren't the things that spread fire. The debris left behind, the scraps of bark and branches, along with bushes, provide a more effective kindling for flames.

We have been loving them to death

"If you curb fire even more, that will harm the sequoias," Hanson said. "We have been loving them to death, in a way. They depend on fire to help release seeds and reproduce.

"Opening up the monument to more logging won't reduce fire intensity, it will just damage the habitat. We need to let more fires burn in remote areas, and suppress them near people and property. Let fire be fire out in the forest."

Culling trees outside the sequoia groves also puts at risk a broader web of biodiversity. The black backed woodpecker, for example, relies upon fire-damaged trees to create its nests. The cavities the birds leave behind provide a home for a host of animals that can't do this beak-breaking work themselves, such as bluebirds and wrens, as well as flying squirrels, martens and chipmunks.

A fire that tore through 29,000 acres of the southern Sierra Nevada last August has resulted in a "beautiful, spectacular regeneration" for wildlife, according to Hanson.

"The giant sequoia ecosystem isn't just the sequoia groves," he said. "They are the centerpiece but there is a broader landscape that includes rare species that have huge home ranges. If you only have protections for the groves, the ecosystem would start to unravel and fall apart."

Hanson said this process would ultimately harm the giant sequoias, either through the lack of reproductive fire or the loss of groundwater through the stripping away of trees that knit together the landscape. "Eventually the risk is that you'd have older trees dying and not being replaced," he added.

The local brawl over the Giant Sequoia national monument predates the Trump presidency but it has striking similarities to how the national conversation has stalled on important issues. Science is deployed to counteract nostalgia, and vice versa. The two sides talk past each other. The common ground of agreed-upon facts shrinks and then calcifies.

For those who hope to retain the monument in its current form, the best hope is not that the administration will be swayed by evidence but that it simply will be distracted by even more contentious protected lands elsewhere.

"There is an attitude here about a way of life, that 'My daddy did this, I'm doing this and my sons and daughters should do this', ad infinitum," said Adest, the biologist, who still is considered a newcomer, 30 years on.

"But in Washington DC, I don't think this monument shows up on the radar. I don't think they know the issues here. So I don't think it will change. But who knows."

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Trump plan could open Giant Sequoia monument to logging

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For the largest living things standing on the planet, California's giant sequoias have an unassuming, almost gentle aura to them. The recognizable cinnamon-colored bark is soft and fibrous. Its cones are modest. When cut down, the trees tend to shatter and won't produce reliably sturdy timber.

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CHINA dominates international trade in many goods, but few more than waste for recycling. It sucked in more than half the world's exports of scrap copper and waste paper in 2016, and half of its used plastic. All in all, China spent over $18bn on imports of rubbish last year. America, meanwhile, is an eager supplier. In 2016 nearly a quarter of America's biggest exporters by volume were recyclers of paper, plastic or metal. Topping the list was America Chung Nam, a California-based supplier of waste paper which last year exported a whopping 333,900 containers, almost all of them to China.

This may soon change. On July 18th China told the World Trade Organisation that by the end of the year, it will no longer accept imports of 24 categories of solid waste as part of a government campaign against yang laji or "foreign garbage". The Ministry of Environmental Protection says restricting such imports will protect the environment and improve public health. But the proposed import ban will disrupt billions of dollars in trade. Recyclers worry that other categories of waste may soon receive the same treatment.

Imports of rubbish have helped feed China's voracious appetite for raw materials. It is often cheaper to recycle scrap copper, iron and steel, as well as waste paper and plastic, than to make such materials from scratch, especially when commodity prices are high. So as commodity prices rose during the 2000s, the burgeoning trade in waste benefited both exporters, who made money from previously worthless trash, and importers, who gained access to a reliable stream of precious feedstock. Between 1995 and 2016 Chinese imports of waste grew tenfold, from 4.5m to 45m tonnes.

But imports of recyclable waste are often dirty, poorly sorted or contaminated with hazardous substances such as lead or mercury. In 1996 factories in Xinjiang inadvertently imported more than 100 tonnes of radioactive metal from Kazakhstan. The following year an American businessman was convicted of smuggling over 200 tonnes of unsorted rubbish labelled as waste paper. Even when the intended material is imported, it is often recycled improperly. In 2002 the authorities faced widespread criticism after a documentary showed workers in Guangdong province crudely dismantling discarded electronic devices and dumping the toxic remains into a river. Officials may have been spurred into the latest restrictions by the release of Plastic China, an unflattering documentary about the plastic-recycling industry which was screened at Sundance, a grand American film festival, in January.

The government had already been campaigning to block imports of illegal and low-quality waste under a crackdown called Operation Green Fence launched in 2013. Customs officials have ramped up inspections of scrap metal for circuit boards, plastic for syringes and other medical waste, and waste paper for plastic or wood. Since then, China's imports of waste have fallen sharply (see chart).

Whereas Green Fence was aimed at improving the quality of imported waste, the government's latest move bans several types of waste outright, threatening some $5bn in trade. The Ministry of Environmental Protection says the ban will cut pollution. But most of the waste consumed by China's recycling industry comes from domestic sources, not imports, notes Joshua Goldstein of the University of Southern California: "This is not really where the problem lies." Indeed, recyclers who rely on imports may now switch to grubbier domestic stock.

"This is going to be very hard on our industry," says Adina Renee Adler of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries. As it is, Operation Green Fence has put lots of small recyclers out of business. Exporters will suffer too. Derek Kellenberg of the University of Montana says, "My suspicion is that the lower-quality stuff is more likely to end up in a landfill."

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CHINA dominates international trade in many goods, but few more than waste for recycling. It sucked in more than half the world's exports of scrap copper and waste paper in 2016, and half of its used plastic. All in all, China spent over $18bn on imports of rubbish last year.

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Extraordinarily hot summers - the kind that were virtually unheard-of in the 1950s - have become commonplace.

This year's scorching summer events, like heat waves rolling through southern Europe and temperatures nearing 130 degrees Fahrenheit in Pakistan, are part of this broader trend.

The chart above, based on data from James Hansen, a retired NASA climate scientist and professor at Columbia University, shows how summer temperatures have shifted toward more extreme heat over the past several decades.

To create the bell curves, Dr. Hansen and two colleagues compared actual summer temperatures for each decade since the 1980s to a fixed baseline average. During the base period, 1951 to 1980, about a third of local summer temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere were in what they called a "near average" or normal range. A third were considered cold; a third were hot.

Since then, summer temperatures have shifted drastically, the researchers found. Between 2005 and 2015, two-thirds of values were in the hot category, and nearly 15 percent were in a new category: extremely hot.

Practically, that means most summers are now either hot or extremely hot compared with the mid-20th century.

The big increase in summer temperatures under the dark red category of extreme heat is "right in line" with what scientists expect to see as the climate warms over all, said Todd Sanford, director of research at Climate Central, a nonprofit science and news organization.

For each time period above, the distribution of summer temperatures forms what is known as a bell curve because most measurements fall near the average, forming the bump - or bell - in the middle. More extreme temperatures, which happen less frequently, fall in the wings, with heat waves on the right and cold-snaps on the left.

As the curve's average - the top of the peak - shifts rightward over time, more temperatures in more places end up in the hot and extremely hot categories and fewer end up in the cold category.

Dr. Hansen's curves also flatten out, which some have suggested is an indication of greater temperature variability. But other climate scientists, including Zeke Hausfather, an energy systems analyst at the University of California, Berkeley, have pointed out that this effect is mainly a reflection that some parts of the world are warming faster than others. There is no evidence that temperatures are becoming more variable in most parts of the world after warming has been accounted for.

Dr. Hansen's data "really highlight that changes in the average, while they may seem modest, have big implications for the extremes. And that's what's going to affect society and ecosystems," Dr. Sanford said. The findings reveal what has happened so far, and also provide "a glimpse to what's in our future."

Temperature categories are determined by the normal distribution, so that a third of temperatures fall in each of the main three categories: hot, cold and normal for 1951 to 1980. Summer temperatures for each subsequent 11-year period are compared to the 1951 to 1980 baseline.

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It's Not Your Imagination. Summers Are Getting Hotter.

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Extraordinarily hot summers - the kind that were virtually unheard-of in the 1950s - have become commonplace. This year's scorching summer events, like heat waves rolling through southern Europe and temperatures nearing 130 degrees Fahrenheit in Pakistan, are part of this broader trend.

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Every person reading this has used a plastic bottle, many of whom likely used one in the past day or week. Plastic, in the recent decades, has become a staple of convenience and a modern lifestyle. The surge in plastic bottle use has accompanied a desire for bottled water as Asia has modernized its lifestyle.

Several recent reports indicate the dire global situation associated with the world's plastic use. Two statistics jump out immediately. One, that globally humans buy a million plastic bottles per minute. The second, 91% of all plastic is not recycled. On top of that, it is estimated that over half a trillion plastic bottles will be sold in 2020.

This presents an overwhelming challenge in responding to an exponential increase in recyclable yet un-recycled products.

Plastic bottles are commonly made from polyethylene terephthalate (Pet), which take 400 years to naturally decompose, yet is highly recyclable. On geologic timescales, 400 years is not significant and one may make the claim that we can just wait it out until the bottles naturally decompose. However, there are two significant issues with this. There are no signs of decreasing plastic use, hence the plastic decomposition clock will constantly be reset. Secondly, and more importantly, we must understand how this increase in plastic waste globally will impact other systems and their function.

Most plastic, bottles included, ends up in either the ocean or in a landfill. Let's look at the potential impacts of storing vast amounts of plastic waste in both locations.
Plastic In The Ocean
It is estimated that by 2050 the ocean will contain more plastic by weight than fish. The plastic that finds its way into the oceans inevitably will pose a risk of ingestion by sea birds, fish, marine mammals, etc. It's not uncommon to see articles of sea life found dead with significant amounts of plastic in their stomach.

While these impacts may seem individualized and uncorrelated with the sushi you eat at your local sushi shop, they are not. Recent studies point to increasing amounts of plastic within the seafood you and I eat on a regular basis. A recent study by Ghent University in Belgium, for example, found that people who regularly eat seafood ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic each year. Another study by Plymouth University found that one-third of all fish caught in the UK contained tiny pieces of plastic.

A tool developed on Plastic Drift shows you where plastic is likely to end up in the oceans when the user chooses an initiation point. This drives home the global impact of a coke bottle leaving the shores of New York on western Europe and Africa.
Plastic In Landfills
Landfills are another major sink for plastic bottles globally and present a wholly different set of issues. Thankfully, landfills have in their favor that the plastic within them are stationary and accessible. Based on current projections, it is estimated that 12 billion metric tons of plastic will find a home in landfills by 2050.

On the positive side, we are able to more directly manage landfills compared to plastic in oceans. There are numerous regulations, albeit they vary widely by country, as to the environmental protections required at a landfill. This means the biggest risk of plastic within landfills is the potential that the plastic will not be contained. Thankfully, if managed correctly, the Pet plastic within landfills does not pose a significant risk to groundwater contamination. However, that says nothing of the vast amounts of other waste in landfills that can be a significant risk to groundwater.

In China, landfills are often absent of plastic bottles due to the army of workers collecting plastic bottles for recycling. The motivation is not, however, environmental but economic. The government provides a high price point per Pet bottle that is turned in, which drives millions of Chinese people to head to landfills. Many people make their entire living collecting recyclable plastics and turning them in for cash. This will become increasingly necessary as we move toward optimizing the plastic life cycle.

One thing is clear, the ever-growing demand for plastic is unlikely to be abated soon. Globally, we will have to manage the increasing risk of plastics in our environment and the harmful consequences that lie therein. As any global challenge such as climate change, the likelihood for global cooperation is difficult at best. One of the many enormously difficult and global challenges we will face in the coming decades.

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We're Now At A Million Plastic Bottles Per Minute - 91% Of Which Are Not Recycled

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Every person reading this has used a plastic bottle, many of whom likely used one in the past day or week. Plastic, in the recent decades, has become a staple of convenience and a modern lifestyle. The surge in plastic bottle use has accompanied a desire for bottled water as Asia has modernized its lifestyle.

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The most effective individual steps to tackle climate change aren't being discussed

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Governments and schools are not communicating the most effective ways for individuals to reduce their carbon footprints, according to new research.

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Devastating floods and landslides have hit India, Nepal, and Bangladesh over the past week, as the monsoon season has brought extremely heavy rains.

Amidst reports of rising death tolls in the region, there's one flicker of positivity - footage has emerged of trained elephants helping with the rescue efforts, as they carry people to safety from areas where they've been trapped by raging floodwater.

On Monday, some 600 tourists got stranded in Sauraha, a popular destination 152 km (95 miles) south-west of Nepal's capital Kathmandu.

Local business owners deployed elephants and tractor trailers to carry the guests to safety, reaching the nearest open road and the local airport.

"We are mobilising all the resources we have to ensure that everyone is safe," local district chief Narayan Prasad Bhatta told BBC News. You can see elephants helping with the rescue mission in the AFP video below:

The Asian elephants mobilised for these rescues are captive animals that are used for transportation in the region fairly often. Intelligent and empathetic, they are able to sense the direness of a natural disaster.

"They would understand that a person is in trouble and that it's a dangerous situation," elephant expert Joyce Poole told Sarah Gibbens at National Geographic.

But unfortunately there's a dark side to this story, too.

Even though elephants carry a deep cultural significance in Asia where people have been taming them for thousands of years, human relationship with the now-endangered species is highly problematic.

This is especially true of captive elephants used for tourism purposes - to offer people rides and photo opportunities. As elephants don't breed well in captivity, calves are captured from the wild and "broken in", often with harsh training methods.

Earlier this year a report from World Animal Protection (WAP) charity showed that three-quarters of the nearly 3,000 captive elephants assessed were found to live in severely cruel conditions.

Already last year the mammoth tourism website TripAdvisor announced the end of ticket sales to wildlife attractions that exploit animals, including elephant rides and dolphin swims.

According to WAP, captive elephants have the best lives when they don't directly have to interact with people, but tourists can still watch them from afar.

"There is an urgent need for tourist education and regulation of wildlife tourist attractions worldwide," Jan Schmidt-Burbach from WAP told BBC News in June.

"Venues that offer tourists a chance to watch elephants in genuine sanctuaries are beacons of hope that can encourage the urgently-needed shift in the captive elephant tourism industry."

So, despite the fact these heroic elephants in Nepal just saved many lives, it's important to keep in mind wider problems associated with the taming of these majestic animals.

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Brave Rescue Elephants Are Helping Save Lives in Severely Flooded Nepal

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Devastating floods and landslides have hit India, Nepal, and Bangladesh over the past week, as the monsoon season has brought extremely heavy rains. Amidst reports of rising death tolls in the region, there's one flicker of positivity - footage has emerged of trained elephants helping with the rescue efforts, as they carry people to safety from areas where they've been trapped by raging floodwater.

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Thousands of 10-pound Atlantic salmon were accidentally released into the waters between Anacortes and the San Juan Islands, and officials are asking people to catch as many as possible. Tribal fishers, concerned about native salmon populations, call the accident "a devastation."

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It's open season on Atlantic salmon as the public is urged to help mop up a salmon spill from an imploded net holding 305,000 fish at a Cooke Aquaculture fish farm near Cypress Island.

Lummi fishers out for chinook on Sunday near Samish, south of Bellingham Bay, were shocked to pull up the spotted, silvery-sided Atlantic salmon - escapees that turned up in their nets again on Monday.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is urging the public to catch as many of the fish as possible, with no limit on size or number. The fish are about 10 pounds each. No one knows yet how many escaped. But the net had some 3 million pounds of fish in it when it imploded about 4 p.m. Saturday, said Ron Warren, fish program assistant director for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The department has been monitoring the situation and crafting a spill-response plan with Cooke, Warren said.

No one at Cooke returned repeated requests for comment Monday. The spill comes as the company is considering a controversial net-pen operation in the Strait of Juan de Fuca at Port Angeles, east of the Ediz Hook.

Warren said the spill was caused by tides pushed unusually high by Monday's approaching total solar eclipse. By Saturday afternoon, anchor lines to the pens broke, and walkways for servicing the pens tipped, making it unsafe for employees even to get in the water and assess the scope of the spill, Warren said.

Lummi fishers were incensed at the Atlantic salmon intruding in home waters of native Washington Pacific salmon. "It's a devastation," said Ellie Kinley, whose family has fished Puget Sound for generations. "We don't want those fish preying on our baby salmon. And we don't want them getting up in the rivers."

G.I. James, a member of the Lummi Natural Resources staff and fish commission, said Pacific salmon face enough trouble as it is without dueling with invaders in their home waters. "It is potentially a disease issue, and impact on our fish, as dire a shape as they are in, right now any impact to them is difficult to absorb."

The WDFW agreed with that concern. The department is urging recreational fishers to get as many of the Atlantic salmon as possible. A valid fishing license is needed, but the fish don't need to be recorded on fish tickets and there are no bag limits. Buyers may also legally buy the Atlantics from commercial and tribal fishers, Warren said.

"Catch as many as you want," he said. "We don't want anything competing with our natural populations. We have never seen a successful cross breeding with Atlantic salmon, but we don't want to test the theory."

He said the fish were placed in the pens in May 2016 and treated for yellow mouth, a bacterial infection, in July 2016. He said the fish that escaped are believed to be healthy and disease-free. "We have no concerns about disease at this point."

Penalties for the escape are being evaluated, Warren said.

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Solar eclipse's high tides break net, dumping up to 305,000 Atlantic salmon into waters near San Juan Islands

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Thousands of 10-pound Atlantic salmon were accidentally released into the waters between Anacortes and the San Juan Islands, and officials are asking people to catch as many as possible. Tribal fishers, concerned about native salmon populations, call the accident "a devastation."

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Starting next year, Seattle restaurants will no longer provide plastic straws and plastic utensils to its patrons after a 2010 ordinance finally takes effect.

"As of July 1, 2018, food services businesses should not be providing plastic straws or utensils," Sego Jackson, the strategic advisor for Waste Prevention and Product Stewardship for Seattle Public Utilities, told Q13 FOX.

"What they should be providing are compostable straws or compostable utensils. But they also might be providing durables, reusables, or encouraging you to skip the straw altogether," he added.

Jackson said the city's effort to ban disposal plastic food service ware had been in the books since 2010 but was stalled because compostable alternatives were not viable yet.

"Early on there weren't many compostable options," he explained. "And some of the options didn't perform well or compost well. That's all changed now."

The exemption that allowed eateries to dispense plastic straws and utensils is set to expire and will not be renewed.

The ban only applies to restaurants serving food, as plastic straws and utensils can still be purchased at city grocery stores. Restaurants that do not comply will be warned and eventually fined but eateries will be given assistance with the transition.

"These things take time to get businesses up to speed and in compliance," Jackson said.

As Q13 FOX reported, many Seattle establishments have already made plastic-free commitments:

"Some businesses are jumping out ahead of the ban. Seattle Aquarium moved away from plastic earlier this summer. Jillian Henze of the Seattle Restaurant Association says a campaign called "Strawless in Seattle" is planned for September. As many as 500 local groups and restaurants will stop using plastic straws for the month."

Plastic straws, in particular, really suck. Scientist and EcoWatch contributor Dr. David Suzuki wrote, "In the U.S. alone, people discard 500 million straws every day, or more than 180 billion a year. That's about 1.4 million kilograms of plastic sent to landfills and into the oceans every day!"

Seattle has made concentrated efforts to reduce its plastic footprint. In 2010, a ban on plastic bags went into effect and cut plastic bag waste from residential garbage from 262 tons to 136 tons by 2014-nearly a 50 percent drop. For commercial and self-haul, it was even better. Plastic bag waste dropped from 273 tons in 2008 to 59 tons in 2012.

From plastic bags to plastic cutlery, a growing movement of people, businesses, cities and even whole countries are pledging to ditch these single-use, non-biodegradable items that clog our oceans and harm marine life.

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Seattle to Ban Plastic Straws, Utensils at Restaurants Next Year

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Starting next year, Seattle restaurants will no longer provide plastic straws and plastic utensils to its patrons after a 2010 ordinance finally takes effect. "As of July 1, 2018, food services businesses should not be providing plastic straws or utensils," Sego Jackson, the strategic advisor for Waste Prevention and Product Stewardship for Seattle Public Utilities, told Q13 FOX.