WOULD IT BE A NEW CATACLYSMIC WORLD?!

As reported in BBC News - Environment

Indian Ocean Dipole: What is it and why is it linked to floods and bushfires? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50602971

The Dipole Indian Ocean

Flooding and landslides in East Africa have killed dozens of people and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in Australia, a period of hot, dry weather has led to a spate of bushfires.

The dipole is a climate phenomenon similar to El Niño
The Indian Ocean Dipole - often called the "Indian Niño" because of its similarity to  its Pacific equivalent - refers to the difference in sea-surface temperatures in opposite parts of the Indian Ocean.

GOOD NEWS FOR A NEW START AGAINST AN UNSUSPECTED POLLUTION

As reported in BBC NEWS - Environment

About 600,000 mattresses are sent to Scottish landfill sites each year, with less than one per cent being recycled, according to Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS).
The government-funded body is working with the National Bed Federation (NBF) to develop a green industry scheme.

NBF said action was needed to help reach its industry target to divert 75% of mattresses from landfill by 2028.
The organisations are to work on a three-year research project, with the aim of developing an "Extended Producer Responsibility" scheme for mattresses in Scotland.
The initiative would encourage manufacturers and retailers to become responsible for the full life-span of their products.
Mountain
ZWS chief executive, Iain Gulland, said: "The scale of mattress waste in Scotland is staggering.
"Tackling the disposal of hard-to-recycle items like mattresses is a key priority for Zero Waste Scotland, and for Scotland as a nation."
The organisation has estimated that the number of mattresses disposed of in Scotland in 2017 would be 112 times taller than Ben Nevis, if stacked up on top of each other.
NBF executive director Jessica Alexander said its members were already "making great strides" towards greener products, but more needed to be done to ensure its ambitious target was met.
"We hope the outcome will provide practical, workable solutions to some of those challenges for everyone across the UK involved in ensuring our mattresses are truly anchored in a sustainable, circular future."

AMAZON BIOME:DEFORESTATION CONNECTED TO RECENT DROUGHTS IN THE 2010s

AMAZON CONSERVATION UNITS AT HIGH RISK

Reproduced from www.imazon.org.br

Download the publication below

https://k6f2r3a6.stackpathcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Dossie_eng_capa.jpg

From the micro to the macro level, the Amazon rainforest is grand. It houses the greatest biodiversity on Earth. Its plants contain substances used to fight diseases, such as Uncaria tomentosa, which is used against inflammatory processes. They are also used in the cosmetic industry, like the copaíba balm, a scent fixative. Apart from that, the Amazon offers countless other services to the environment. It acts upon rain formation, which directly supports agriculture and hydroelectric power generation.

It assists in regulating the climate of the whole South America, preventing extreme climate events like hurricane formation. It stocks carbon directly mitigating global warming. It contains cultural wealth as well; with a population of 343 thousand indigenous people, 3 it houses most of Brazilian tribes and supplies local communities with resources. All that diversity attracts tourists. Nature is the second most common reason why foreign tourists come to Brazil, according to the Ministry of Tourism.

All this grandeur must be well cared for. Brazil’s immense natural heritage can benefit the whole country, if administered sensibly. One of the strategies to organize the sustainable use of the region Includes the creation and administration of a network of Conservation Units (CUs). CUs have several objectives: some establish restrictions to their use, in order to preserve their natural resources. Others allow the sustainable extraction of wood. They have in common the objective of avoiding the plundering of the region and ensuring that it can provide its benefits to people today and in the future. However, the Conservation Units are under attack. Some cattle farmers, gold miners, lumberers and land speculators, either out of misinformation or out of greed, invade and damage these areas – which are public property – for their own profit. One of the main findings of this study is that deforestation rates are still high inside the Conservation Units. In 2017, the deforestation rate was twice that of 2012, which was the lowest in the period under study. Another worrying trend is the apparent decrease in the efficiency of their protection. In ten years, the deforestation rate inside the Conservations Units has almost doubled in participation in the total deforestation in the Amazon. It went from 7%, in 2008, to 13%, in 2017. Data released in 2018 by the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais – INPE (National Institute of Spatial Research) show that the increase in deforestation in the region has started again between 2017 and 2018, reaching its highest rate in the last 10 years. The good news is that society is vigilant. It grows increasingly aware that the fraudulent appropriation of public areas results in loss for all and, therefore, wants to know more. This report gathers some of the most recent information from the Amazon Instituto of People and the Environment on the subject. It’s a contribution so that society can monitor and better understand the health of the largest rainforest in the world, which belongs to all of us.

COP 25. BETTER RESULTS...MAYBE ON COP 26

Reproduced from THE GUARDIAN

Urgent UN talks on tackling the climate emergency are still not addressing the true scale of the crisis, one of the world’s leading climate scientists has warned, as high-ranking ministers from governments around the world began to arrive in Madrid for the final days of negotiations.

Talks are focusing on some of the rules for implementing the 2015 Paris agreement, but the overriding issue of how fast the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions has received little official attention.

“We are at risk of getting so bogged down in incremental technicalities at these negotiations that we forget to see the forest for the trees,” said Johan Rockström, joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “There is a risk of disappointment in the UN process because of the inability to recognise that there is an emergency.”

In the next few days, environment and finance ministers from more than 190 governments will begin the “high-level segment” of the UN talks, which began on 2 December, and will finish on Friday. Over the weekend, negotiators produced the latest draft of a key text on carbon markets, which still does not have the consensus needed to pass.

The stately pace of negotiations was in stark contrast with the scenes outside the conference in Madrid, where on Friday evening more than 500,000 people marched through the Spanish capital led by the Swedish school striker Greta Thunberg. Protests continued through the weekend, with Extinction Rebellion and groups from across the world. On Monday, Thunberg and other youth activists will hold meetings with officials inside the conference.

Rockström said the UN conference must grapple urgently with reversing emissions of greenhouse gases, which are still on the rise despite repeated scientific warnings over three decades and multiple resolutions by governments to tackle the problem.

“We must bend the curve next year,” he told the Guardian, citing stark warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Next year is the year of truth. The year when we must move decisively to an economy that really starts to reduce investments in fossil fuels.”

Even the coal-fired power plants currently planned or in construction are enough to produce double the amount of carbon that can safely be put in the atmosphere for the next century, Rockström said.

The situation was so dire that governments should be starting to consider geoengineering technology, he said. Such projects could use a combination of natural and artificial means, from seeding clouds to erecting reflectors in space.

“Geoengineering has to be assessed, maybe even piloted already in case we need to deploy it,” he said. “It makes me very nervous. That is really playing with biological processes that might kick back in very unexpected ways. But I don’t think we should rule anything out – an emergency is an emergency.”

As the UN conference enters its final stages, the role of the UK is likely to come under much greater scrutiny. Britain will play host to next year’s conference at which world leaders must pledge much greater cuts in emissions than have yet been made, if the 2015 Paris accord is to succeed.

Claire O’Neill, the former Tory climate minister designated to lead next year’s conference, is in Madrid but cannot make official announcements because of the “purdah” rules surrounding political announcements in the run-up to the general election.

However, the UK’s plans were rated as “insufficient” in a key independent analysis called the Climate Action Tracker. Despite the government’s eye-catching commitment last summer to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 – one of the first major economies to make such a pledge – few measures are in place to keep pace with the target.

The UN conference move shows global heating plus inequality is a recipe for chaos | Maisa Rojas

“There has been a dearth of new significant climate policies in recent years which, if left unaddressed, will leave the UK missing its medium and long-term targets,” concluded the analysis of global emissions-cutting plans.

That would damage the host nation’s credibility at next year’s crucial talks in Glasgow, campaigners said.

Dr Bill Hare, a climate scientist and the chief executive of Climate Analytics, which carried out the study, said it was clear which of the two biggest parties had the better plans on the issue before this week’s general election.

“While both major political parties have proposed further climate action, the Conservatives have not put sufficient proposals on the table to close this gap, whereas [our analysis shows] the Labour’s £250bn could easily close that gap and push on towards a 1.5C pathway,” Hare said.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ‘GLOBAL POLLUTION’ MEANS LESS OXYGEN IN OCEAN WATERS

As reported on BBC News
Climate change: Oceans running out of oxygen as temperatures rise https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50690995

That's the conclusion of the biggest study of its kind, undertaken by conservation group IUCN.
While nutrient run-off has been known for decades, researchers say that climate change is making the lack of oxygen worse.
Around 700 ocean sites are now suffering from low oxygen, compared with 45 in the 1960s.
Researchers say the depletion is threatening species including tuna, marlin and sharks.
The threat to oceans from nutrient run-off of chemicals such as nitrogen and phosphorus from farms and industry has long been known to impact the levels of oxygen in the sea waters and still remains the primary factor, especially closer to coasts.
However, in recent years the threat from climate change has increased.
As more carbon dioxide is released enhancing the greenhouse effect, much of the heat is absorbed by the oceans. In turn, this warmer water can hold less oxygen. The scientists estimate that between 1960 and 2010, the amount of the gas dissolved in the oceans declined by 2%.
That may not seem like much as it is a global average, but in some tropical locations the loss can range up to 40%.
Even small changes can impact marine life in a significant way.  So waters with less oxygen favour species such as jellyfish, but not so good for bigger, fast-swimming species like tuna.
“We have known about de-oxygenation but we haven't known the linkages to climate change and this is really worrying," said Minna Epps from IUCN.
"Not only has the decline of oxygen quadrupled in the past 50 years but even in the best case emissions scenario, oxygen is still going to decline in the oceans."
For species like tuna, marlin and some sharks that are particularly sensitive to lack of oxygen - this is bad news.
Bigger fish like these have greater energy needs. According to the authors, these animals are starting to move to the shallow surface layers of the seas where there is more of the gas dissolved.  However, this make the species much more vulnerable to over-fishing.
If countries continue with a business-as-usual approach to emissions, the world's oceans are expected to lose 3-4% of their oxygen by the year 2100.
This is likely to be worse in the tropical regions of the world. Much of the loss is expected in the top 1,000m of the water column, which is richest in biodiversity.
Low levels of oxygen are also bad for basic processes like the cycling of elements crucial for life on Earth, including nitrogen and phosphorous.
"If we run out of oxygen it will mean habitat loss and biodiversity loss and a slippery slope down to slime and more jellyfish," said Minna Epps.
"It will also change the energy and the biochemical cycling in the oceans and we don't know what these biological and chemical shifts in the oceans can actually do."
Changing the outcomes for the oceans is down to the world's political leaders which is why the report has been launched here at COP25.
"Ocean oxygen depletion is menacing marine ecosystems already under stress from ocean warming and acidification," said Dan Laffoley, also from IUCN and the report's co-editor.
"To stop the worrying expansion of oxygen-poor areas, we need to decisively curb greenhouse gas emissions as well as nutrient pollution from agriculture and other sources."

AMAZON FOREST FIRES ARE REALLY THE MAIN CAUSE OF THE GLOBAL WARMING INCREASE?!

Australia bushfires north of Sydney 'too big to put out' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-50690633

SMOKE FROM BURNING FORESTS INTENSIFY GLACIER MELTING

Reproduced from BBC News - Environment


Amazon fires intensify Andes glacier melt https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50573623

The team found evidence that snow and ice was being "darkened", accelerating the melt rate, threatening supplies.
Melting tropical glaciers provide water for millions of people in the region.
Scientists modelled the movement and effect of smoke particles from fires on Andean glaciers, and checked their conclusions against satellite images.
And they say the impact will be felt across the continent.
Dr Newton de Magalhães Neto from Rio de Janeiro State University in Brazil, said: "Amazon deforestation and fires - events that occur mainly in Bolivia, Peru and Brazil - cannot be considered a regional issue.
...

How can fires in the rainforest affect glaciers hundreds of miles away?
The first thing the study, published in Scientific Reports, set out to do was show that smoke plumes from forest fires in the Amazon could actually reach glaciers in the Andes mountains.

...

Atmospheric data showed that smoke from those fires - particularly particles of black carbon - were carried on wind and deposited on mountain glaciers.
...

Dr de Magalhães Neto said: "Once deposited on the glacier, the [black carbon darkens] the snow/ice surface, which reduces its ability to reflect solar radiation - or sunlight."
That darkened surface then absorbs more of the sun's energy, which amplifies melting.
While the findings were significant, the researchers said they did not come as a huge surprise: the same process has been seen elsewhere in the world.
"Greenland receives large amounts of black carbon from fossil-fuel origin due to North America and European industrialisation," said Dr de Magalhães Neto. "And black carbon from the burning of fossil fuels and biomass throughout the northern hemisphere has accelerated glacier melting in the Arctic."

...

GASES OF CLIMATE-HEATING HAVE NEW HIGH

Reproduced from
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/25/climate-heating-greenhouse-gases-hit-new-high-un-reports?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The concentration of climate-heating greenhouse gases has hit a record high, according to a report from the UN’s World Meteorological Organization.

The jumps in the key gases measured in 2018 were all above the average for the last decade, showing action on the climate emergency to date is having no effect in the atmosphere. The WMO said the gap between targets and reality were both “glaring and growing”.

The rise in concentration of greenhouses gases follows inevitably from the continued surge in global emissions, which was described as “brutal news” for 2018. The world’s scientists calculate that emissions must fall by half by 2030 to give a good chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C, beyond which hundreds of millions of people will suffer more heatwaves, droughts, floods and poverty.

But Petteri Taalas, the WMO secretary-general, said: “There is no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline, despite all the commitments under the Paris agreement on climate change. We need to increase the level of ambition for the sake of the future welfare of mankind.

“It is worth recalling that the last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of carbon dioxide was 3-5m years ago. Back then, the temperature was 2-3C warmer and sea level was 10-20 metres higher than now.”

Three-quarters of the emissions cuts pledged by countries under the Paris agreement of 2015 are “totally inadequate”, according to a comprehensive expert analysis published earlier in November, putting the world on a path to climate disaster. Another report has found that nations are on track to produce more than double the fossil fuels in 2030 than could be burned while keeping heating under 1.5C.

“The [CO2 concentration] number is the closest thing to a real-world Doomsday Clock, and it’s pushing us ever closer to midnight,” said John Sauven, head of Greenpeace UK. “Our ability to preserve civilisation as we know it, avert the mass extinction of species, and leave a healthy planet to our children depend on us urgently stopping the clock.”

The WMO report, published on Monday, found the global average concentration of CO2 reached 407.8 parts per million in 2018, up from 405.5ppm in 2017. It is now 50% higher than in 1750, before the industrial revolution sparked the widespread burning of coal, oil and gas.

Since 1990, the increase in greenhouse gas levels has made the heating effect of the atmosphere 43% stronger. Most of that – four-fifths – is caused by CO2. But the concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide, the two other key greenhouse gases, also surged in 2018 by a higher amount than the annual average over the past decade.

Methane, which is produced by cattle, rice paddies and fossil fuel exploitation, is responsible for 17% of the heating effect. Its concentration is now more than double pre-industrial levels.

Nitrous oxide, which comes from heavy fertiliser use and forest burning, is now 23% higher than in 1750. The observations are made by the Global Atmosphere Watch network, which includes stations in the Arctic, high mountains and tropical islands.

“The record rise in greenhouse gas concentrations is a cruel reminder that for all the real progress in clean technology, we have yet to even stop global emissions increases,” said Nick Mabey, chief executive of think tank E3G. “The climate system cannot be negotiated with. Until we stop new investment in fossil fuels and massively scale up green power the risks from catastrophic climate change will continue to rise.”

When the world’s nations agreed the Paris deal in 2015, they pledged to ramp up their promised emissions cuts by the annual UN climate summit in 2020, which will be hosted by the UK in Glasgow. This year’s summit needs to do vital preparatory work and begins on 2 December in Madrid, Spain. Chile had been due to host but cancelled because of civil unrest.

Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit in the UK, said: “This record level of greenhouse gases should act as a sobering reminder to governments that so far they are collectively reneging on the pledge they made at the Paris summit, of attempting to keep global warming to 1.5C. That window is closing, and Chile, Italy and the UK [must] use all the diplomatic tools they have to put emissions on a trajectory closer to what science recommends and the public want.”

WHY THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON CONTINUES TO BE DEFORESTED

We assessed the impact on the Brazilian Amazon of a 2017 land law that reinforces a mechanism for acquiring land rights historically linked to deforestation, since land grabbers clear the forest to signal land occupation and claim land rights. In particular, we assessed two significant potential impacts: (i) the loss of government revenue due to the sale of public land below market prices and (ii) the risk of future deforestation and associated CO2 emissions in 19.6 million hectares allocated to expand land privatization. The short-term revenue loss ranges from U$ 5 to 8 billion for 8.6 million hectares; the future revenue loss ranges from U$ 16.7 to 23.8 billion for 19.6 million hectares; and between 1.1 and 1.6 million hectares would risk being deforested until 2027, which could emit 4.5–6.5 megatonnes of CO2. The Brazilian government should review the decision about this area allocation; prioritize land allocation for conservation and, if selling part of this area, charge market prices.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1e24

BRAZILIAN ATLANTIC FOREST: NEVER TO BE FORGOTTEN

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z3thwes3u2dikq3/ATLANTIC%20%20FOREST.ppt?dl=0

CLIMATE CHANGE: IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE...WAIT FOR THE CONSEQUENCES!

Reproduced from BBC News

Climate change: ‘Clear and unequivocal’ emergency, say scientists https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50302392

The study, based on 40 years of data on a range of measures, says governments are failing to address the crisis.

Without deep and lasting changes, the world is facing "untold human suffering" the study says.

The researchers say they have a moral obligation to warn of the scale of the threat. 

■   'Regret' as US begins exit from UN climate accord

■   Quit 'coal addiction', UN boss warns Asia

■   Climate change 'making mountaineering riskier'

Released on the day that satellite data shows that last month was the warmest October on record, the new study says that that simply measuring global surface temperatures is an inadequate way of capturing the real dangers of an overheating world. 

So the authors include a range of data which they believe represents a "suite of graphical vital signs of climate change over the past 40 years".

These indicators include the growth of human and animal populations, per capita meat production, global tree cover loss, as well as fossil fuel consumption.

Some progress has been seen in some areas. For example, renewable energy has grown significantly, with consumption of wind and solar increasing 373% per decade - but it was still 28 times smaller than fossil fuel use in 2018.

Taken together, the researchers say most of their vital signs indicators are going in the wrong direction and add up to a climate emergency.

"An emergency means that if we do not act or respond to the impacts of climate change by reducing our carbon emissions, reducing our livestock production, reducing our land clearing and fossil fuel consumption, the impacts will likely be more severe than we've experienced to date," said lead author Dr Thomas Newsome, from the University of Sydney.

"That could mean there are areas on Earth that are not inhabitable by people." 

How does this differ from other reports on climate change?

The study echoes many of the warnings that have been reported by scientists including the IPCC. The authors set out to present a clear and simple graphical picture of a broader ranger of indicators that can drive home to the public and to governments that the threat is serious while the response has been poor.

...

CRIMINAL ACTS USING NATURE AS “CANNON FODDER” AGAINST GOVERNMENT?!

https://youtu.be/7FcBsWuP_mE

Nobody knows where the oil is from or why it keeps washing up on Brazilian beaches. Yet while social media has been bombarded by videos of volunteers rolling up thick globs of oil in sand and putting them into plastic sacks, Bolsonaro sought to blame first Venezuela, then a “criminal action” to scupper a major oil tender. He has repeatedly attacked environmental protection agencies as a “fines industry” and has yet to visit affected areas.

Oil contaminating Brazil's beaches 'very likely from Venezuela', minister says

“There is clear revulsion over the government’s inaction,” said Marcus Melo, a professor of political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco in the north-east. “The government has a certain myopia in understanding how serious this is.”

AIR POLLUTION AFFECTING BABIES

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/pregnant-moms-air-pollution-exposure-may-affect-babies-health-66467

A number of epidemiological studies support a link between air quality and poor health outcomes, and researchers are searching for explanations in the lab.

Air pollution contributes to 4.2 million deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization, with 91 percent of the world population living in areas where it is greater than the limits set by the organization’s guidelines. Studies have linked inhalation of pollutants to health conditions such as asthma, which is the leading chronic illness in children in the United States. Early research into the health effects of air pollution in the 1960s focused on adults, and by the 1970s, the link between breathing in particulate matter and respiratory disease became well established.

Around the same time, researchers began to consider the pervasiveness of polluted air as affecting not just those who breathe it, but also fetuses developing in utero. In 1973, the first study of the effects of air pollution on birth outcomes in the Los Angeles areafound a link between in utero exposure to air pollution and low birth weight. Since then, researchers have uncovered myriad health effects in children tied to the quality of the air their mothers breathed while pregnant.

When she first moved to the Los Angeles area in 1989, says Beate Ritz, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Health, she found it hard to breathe because of the smog. By the early 1990s, she’d had two pregnancies and became concerned about how the air pollution may have affected her children, which led her to study pregnant women. In one of her first studies, she found that babies born in Los Angeles between 1994 and 1996 and whose mothers were exposed to high levels of pollutants during pregnancy had lower birth weightsand were more likely to be born preterm than babies whose moms breathed cleaner air.

ON AMAZONIA DEFORESTATION AND FIRE

https://www.citylab.com/environment/2019/08/amazon-rainforest-fire-map-burning-bolsonaro-deforestation-map/596605/

Perhaps the most important isotope’: how carbon-14 revolutionised science

Reproduced from:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/aug/10/most-important-isotope-how-carbon-14-revolutionised-science?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

350 MILLIONS TREES PLANTED IN A SINGLE DAY IN ETHIOPIA (!?)

Something to be replicated:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/29/ethiopia-plants-250m-trees-in-a-day-to-help-tackle-climate-crisis?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

HUGE AMOUNTS OF SARGASSUM IN MEXICO BEACHES:GLOBAL WARMING CONSEQUENCES!?

Reproduced from:
Mexico's top Caribbean beaches hit by seaweed infestation https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-48756500

In a long-running issue attributed by many researchers to climate change, sargassum has covered the popular white sandbanks, turning the pristine waters brown and leaving a strong odour as it decomposes, alarming residents, businesses and, obviously, tourists.
In recent years, hotels have placed nets to try to keep the sargassum in the water, away from the beaches, while workers and volunteers clean up the shore with shovels and barrows, collecting up to one tonne every day, according to the local government.
But removal is time-consuming and expensive and, for many, ineffective.
Some 1,000km (621 miles) of Mexican beaches have been impacted this year, including Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum in Quintana Roo state, local officials say.

STIMULUS FOR LAND GRABBING AND DEFORESTATION IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1e24/pdf

IMPORTANT REVELATION FOR STUDIES IN ETHOLOGY

Reproduced from:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/worm-parents-pass-on-behaviors-epigenetically-to-offspring-65988?utm_campaign=TS_DAILY%20NEWSLETTER_2019&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=73557852&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8Ih-FBO1pFwxQu356mvegxoy2npJZz5kRE4W-N2XraYw9_5FWgrjhUzR0VKnjOielqHglG93qqG6fGG3aYQ3lmVj6-pg&_hsmi=73557852

WWW.WOOD WIBE WEB

Wood wide web: Trees' social networks are mapped https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48257315

CHLORPYRIFOS AND NEUROLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN CHILDREN

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/california-seeks-to-ban-chlorpyrifos-containing-pesticides-65850?utm_campaign=TS_DAILY%20NEWSLETTER_2019&utm_source=hs_email

Following the 2017 decision by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to prohibit the use of pesticides containing an organophosphate known as chlorpyrifos, California’s own EPA has initiated steps toward a statewide ban.

“This pesticide is a neurotoxin,” California Environmental Secretary Jared Blumenfeld tells the Associated Press. Because the federal government has allowed its continued use, California is joining Hawaii, New York, Oregon, Connecticut, and New Jersey, which have all approved bans or have bills under consideration to remove chlorpyrifos from the market, in taking matters into its own hands. The California ban, or cancellation, could take up to two years to go into full effect.

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) “has done what the Trump administration has refused to do: protect children, farmworkers and millions of others from being exposed to this neurotoxic pesticide,” Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, says in a statement, according to The Washington Post. Newsom also proposed some $5.7 million in funding to help the agricultural industry make the switch to safer alternatives.

“This is a historic victory for California’s agricultural communities and for children nationwide,” Miriam Rotkin-Ellman of the Natural Resources Defense Council tells the AP. “The science clearly shows that chlorpyrifos is too dangerous to use in our fields.”

HUMAN SOCIETY IN TROUBLE, BY INCREASED EARTH’S NATURAL LIFE LOSS

Human society under urgent threat from loss of Earth's natural life

Reproduced from The Guardian 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/06/human-society-under-urgent-threat-loss-earth-natural-life-un-report?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Human society is in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems, the world’s leading scientists have warned, as they announced the results of the most thorough planetary health check ever undertaken.

From coral reefs flickering out beneath the oceans to rainforests desiccating into savannahs, nature is being destroyed at a rate tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10m years, according to the UN global assessment report.

The biomass of wild mammals has fallen by 82%, natural ecosystems have lost about half their area and a million species are at risk of extinction – all largely as a result of human actions, said the study, compiled over three years by more than 450 scientists and diplomats.

Two in five amphibian species are at risk of extinction, as are one-third of reef-forming corals, and close to one-third of other marine species. The picture for insects – which are crucial to plant pollination – is less clear, but conservative estimates suggest at least one in 10 are threatened with extinction and, in some regions, populations have crashed. In economic terms, the losses are jaw-dropping. Pollinator loss has put up to $577bn (£440bn) of crop output at risk, while land degradation has reduced the productivity of 23% of global land.

The knock-on impacts on humankind, including freshwater shortages and climate instability, are already “ominous” and will worsen without drastic remedial action, the authors said.

“The health of the ecosystems on which we and other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide,” said Robert Watson, the chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Ibpes). “We have lost time. We must act now.”