German Chancellor Angela Merkel and German ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst stand at the Orion spacecraft during a visit at the training unit of the Columbus space laboratory at the European Astronaut training centre of the European Space Agency ESA in Cologne, Germany on May 18, 2016. Ina Fassbender / Anadolu Agency / Getty Images
By Monir Ghaedi
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to keep most of Europe on pause, the EU aims for a breakthrough in its space program. The continent is seeking more than just a self-sufficient space industry competitive with China and the U.S.; the industry must also fit into the European Green Deal.
<h3>'Strategic Autonomy' in Space</h3><p>"I believe we need a more offensive and aggressive strategy," said the European Commissioner Thierry Breton as he laid out the main priorities for the EU space program over the next seven years. Breton said that the European Union must move quickly to reduce its dependence on third countries.</p>
<div id="dc9fc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e59073f4aedd26372600b247d6be1cec"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1348914516969611267" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">"Enhancing Europe's strategic autonomy in space is not an option" @ThierryBreton #BBESpaceConf https://t.co/Qm9gOeUh4v</div> — Business Bridge Europe (@Business Bridge Europe)<a href="https://twitter.com/BBE_Europe/statuses/1348914516969611267">1610441257.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"Strategic autonomy" is Brussels's latest catchphrase that echoed throughout Breton's and other EU officials' speeches during the 13th European Space Conference earlier this week. As Europe plans to address economic needs within its borders, its aerospace program is set to focus inwards as well.</p><p>Breton mentioned having independent EU-wide internet coverage as another important target. Noting that "attacks on the internet are not fiction anymore," Breton explained that the EU must construct a secure broadband network.</p><p>He also emphasized that the European Commission needs to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in space, while continuing to expand its existing projects. Otherwise, he said, Galileo and Copernicus – Europe's major satellite projects – will soon become obsolete.</p><p>After these plans receive approval from European governments and the European Parliament, €15 billion ($18.2 billion) will fund space sector projects during the 2021-2027 period, in addition to current funding from national governments and private investments.</p>
<h3>Meeting the Competition and Climate Goals</h3><p>During the past decade, the number of satellite launches and space missions has surged internationally. China's lunar rover landed on the far side of the moon. Private companies in the U.S. have made rapid advancements too. SpaceX successfully returned two of its reusable rocket cores to Earth.</p><p>As vital infrastructure like transportation and communications rely more and more on space technology, there's a greater sense of urgency for the EU to realize its own space ambitions.</p><p>The continent's other pressing objective is to become carbon neutral by 2050. Expansion of EU aerospace activities – now heavily dependent on the production of metal and fuel – must comply with the European Green Deal.</p><p>Alignment of these two goals might not be straightforward, but in the view of EU officials, the space program has a role to play in fighting climate change, fostering green technologies like clean fuels and optimized farming. Additionally, data and services from space are used to constantly monitor the Earth and measure things like CO2 levels.</p><p>EU officials and entrepreneurs mentioned clean fuel production and satellite monitoring missions as two promising areas to help achieve Europe's Green Deal and other environmental targets.</p>
<h3>Clean Energy in Space and on Earth</h3><p>One of the areas in which European space companies have a leg up is the production of liquid hydrogen as fuel. When liquid hydrogen burns, it produces enough propelling force to launch a rocket, but emits only water vapor and warm air. However, it's highly energy-intensive to produce, creating a large carbon footprint. The focus of European firms working on this energy option is to mitigate the impact of liquid hydrogen production on the environment.</p><p>"Hydrogen (as fuel) is expensive today but tomorrow it will be cheap and green," said Xavier Vigor, vice president of Air Liquide, a supplier of industrial gases.</p><p>European rockets have used liquid hydrogen as their fuel for decades. ArianeGroupe, the continent's largest launcher company, aims to launch its carbon-neutral rockets running on hydrogen produced from biomass by 2030. The company also plans to bring the clean fuel to the transport industry. If they succeed, ships and airplanes will be able to travel around the globe, producing no carbon emissions.</p><p>"I am really thankful for the decisionmakers in Europe who made the decision to use hydrogen for European launchers. This was a brilliant bet," said Jean-Christophe Henoux, ArianeGroup's vice president of Future Programmes.</p>
<h3>Satellites Monitoring Climate Change</h3><p>EU officials are confident their satellite program will also help in the fight against climate change. The EU space program will continue to design missions focused on CO2 monitoring and a polar observation by its satellites.</p><p>"Satellite programs such as Galileo and Agnus have already had an important contribution to minimizing our environmental footprint," said Rodrigo da Costa, the head of the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA), in a press briefing.</p><p>Copernicus, the EU's Earth observation system, has monitored climate change since 2017, providing historical data and climate models for the future.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ5Nzk2MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3MjI1Njk4Mn0.PSKtNrh_kWGzH6vsGlHWBFLvLHYYGbX30YsZh5jLmuc/img.jpg?width=980" id="bcf7e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9a55c41003928d33600334310f11fbf6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="700" data-height="394" />
European satellites continue to provide data on climate change.
<p>"We believe we can create synergies between navigation and Earth observation," said da Costa. Better navigation helps shorten transportation routes, which cuts fuel consumption. This is how EU satellite programs can contribute to the implementation of the Green Deal, according to da Costa.</p><p>Full details of the European space plan have yet to be worked out. The European Commission will meet to decide on them in the coming weeks. After that, a consortium of aerospace and telecom companies will start working to operationalize the plan.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/eu-aims-to-curb-carbon-footprint-through-investment-in-space/a-56241227" target="_blank">DW</a>.</em><br/></p>From Your Site Articles
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A new species of bat has been identified in West Africa. MYOTIS NIMBAENSIS / BAT CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL
In 2018, a team of researchers went to West Africa's Nimba Mountains in search of one critically endangered species of bat. Along the way, they ended up discovering another.
<p>The new bat species, <em>Myotis nimbaensis</em>, has an unusual orange and black coloring, and it was written up for the first time last Wednesday in <a href="http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/handle/2246/7249" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>American Museum Novitates</em></a>.</p><p>"In an age of extinction, a discovery like this offers a glimmer of hope," study coauthor and chief scientist at <a href="https://www.batcon.org/" target="_blank">Bat Conservation International</a> Winifred Frick told the <a href="https://www.amnh.org/about/press-center/bat-discovered-west-africa" target="_blank">American Museum of Natural History</a>. "It's a spectacular animal."</p>
<div id="78d2c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a6760c89eda21e1221babaa9939e75d3"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1349452120433553412" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">🚨 New research alert! A new species of a striking orange & black bat from the Nimba Mountains in West Africa has be… https://t.co/2dtGTa4lko</div> — American Museum of Natural History (@American Museum of Natural History)<a href="https://twitter.com/AMNH/statuses/1349452120433553412">1610569431.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Frick was part of a team of scientists from Bat Conservation International and the University of Maroua in Cameroon who were investigating natural caves and mining shafts in Guinea's Nimba Mountains. The mountains, which rise about one mile above sea level, are known as sky islands and are important <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> hotspots for species including bats.</p><p>One especially important bat species is the Lamotte's roundleaf bat, or <em>Hipposideros lamottei</em>, which lives only in the Nimba Mountains, and especially in abandoned mineshafts known as adits. But while trapping for the existing species, the scientists found something they did not expect.</p><p>"I looked in a net and there was just something interesting in there," Jon Flanders, director of endangered species intervention at Bat Conservation International, told <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/01/13/new-orange-bat/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_source=twitter" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>.</p>
<p>Flanders said he first saw the bat with his colleague Eric Moïse Bakwo Fils from the University of Maroua.</p><p>"Eric and I got back to camp and we independently started trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Finding a new species of specially colored bats is very rare. I was like, 'I'm pretty sure this is a new species'. We walked in the room in the morning and simultaneously said 'I think we've got a new species.' "</p><p>So the pair called up bat expert and American Museum of Natural History Curator Nancy Simmons for help.</p><p>"As soon as I looked at it, I agreed that it was something new," Simmons, who is also the paper's lead author, said in the museum press release.</p><p>Simmons confirmed her initial opinion with help from the Smithsonian and the British Museum of Natural History, she told The Washington Post.</p>
<div id="95b3b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bc43d84ce3edd0fa256e60e667833727"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1349785874356195330" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Newly discovered bat has already won 2021 Halloween #Bat #Nature #Science #Wildlife https://t.co/WE1Qt1TE73</div> — Cool Science Videos (@Cool Science Videos)<a href="https://twitter.com/GeoBeats/statuses/1349785874356195330">1610649004.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>There are more than 1,400 species of bats, and more than 20 new ones are added to the list every year, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/science/new-bat-species.html?auth=login-google" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>. But mostly, these discoveries are made in the lab by closely analyzing the DNA of similar-looking species previously thought to be the same.</p><p>"This sort of situation where experienced researchers went out in the field and caught an animal and held it in their hand and went, 'This is something we can't identify,' that's much more unusual," Simmons told The New York Times.</p><p>The new bat is likely already endangered, since it is only known to live in the Nimba Mountains. Researchers said the next step is to learn more about the species so that they can protect it more effectively.</p><p>Bakwo Fils also told The New York Times that he hoped the discovery would boost bat <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> in West Africa more generally. Bats are important pollinators, seed spreaders and pest eaters in the region, but superstition and their connection with Ebola has meant they are often harmed.</p><p>"This discovery is very important in terms of West Africa's bat biodiversity, because even if bats are a very important component of our ecosystems, they rarely receive attention," Bakwo Fils said.</p>
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Like many other plant-based foods and products, CBD oil is one dietary supplement where "organic" labels are very important to consumers. However, there are little to no regulations within the hemp industry when it comes to deeming a product as organic, which makes it increasingly difficult for shoppers to find the best CBD oil products available on the market.
<p>Here you can learn about the importance of organic hemp oil, why it's better for the environment, and which CBD companies actually make trustworthy products with sustainable farming processes. origins which weigh heavily on many consumers who want to buy a product that's produced in the best way possible for not only themselves to ingest, but for the environment as well through sustainable farming methods. </p><h2>What Is CBD Oil?</h2><p>First things first, CBD stands for cannabidiol, and it's a cannabinoid found within cannabis sativa plants. This plant compound is believed to have many potential benefits, and it is primarily derived from hemp plants via a CO2 extraction process. </p><p>Since CBD is extracted from industrial hemp, which contains only trace amounts of THC (the psychoactive component in cannabis plants), this means that CBD won't make you feel high like marijuana, which has much higher levels of THC that causes psychoactive effects. Instead, the effects of CBD are much more subtle and promote a general sense of calm and relaxation in most users.</p><h2>What Makes a CBD Oil Organic?</h2><p>In terms of organic labels, perhaps the most important (and prominent) certification comes from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This government organization has been labeling foods as "organic" for many years, but what exactly does this certification entail? Essentially, a label indicating that a product is "USDA Organic" or "Certified Organic" means that at least 95% of the ingredients are obtained from organic sources.</p><p>For a crop to be considered organic by the USDA, it must be grown without the use of industrial solvents, irradiation, genetic engineering (GMOs), synthetic pesticides, or chemical fertilizer. Instead, farmers rely on natural substances and <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2012/03/22/organic-101-what-usda-organic-label-means" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">mechanical, physical, or biologically based farming</a> techniques to cultivate healthy and organic crops.</p><p>Before the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, no hemp-derived products could be dubbed as "certified organic" since the hemp plant and its extracts were still categorized as a Schedule I Controlled Substance. However, it's still difficult for CBD companies to obtain a USDA certified organic label for their products due to the legal grey area that still surrounds CBD extracts. </p><p>Because of these challenges, and due to the fact that industrial hemp has only recently become an agricultural crop, very few CBD oils are USDA certified organic. Rather, many CBD products contain hemp extracts from plants that were grown in organic conditions but may not be federally certified.</p><h2>What are the Best Organic CBD Oil Brands?</h2><p><em>Each product featured here has been independently selected by the writer. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission.</em></p><em><br></em>
<h2>Why Organic Hemp Oil Matters</h2><p>Hemp is a unique plant, not only for its rich cannabinoid content, but also for its ability to absorb a wide variety of components in soil. But this trait poses great risks when it comes to the creation of CBD products derived from hemp.</p><p>Because hemp has a high capacity for compound uptake, this means that the plants can retain <a href="https://www.remedyreview.com/industry/lab-test-results/" target="_blank">harmful chemicals like pesticides</a>, heavy metals, and other residual solvents. This is especially true when it comes to synthetic chemicals that are more toxic to humans, and difficult to remove once they have been absorbed by the hemp plant.</p><p>Organic farming practices help reduce the risk of hemp crops absorbing harsh chemicals that may later end up in CBD oil after extraction. When you're taking CBD as a wellness supplement to help alleviate your symptoms or improve your overall well-being, the last thing you want is to ingest compounds that might negatively outweigh the benefits of CBD. This is an important reason to look for third party lab test results when shopping for CBD products since these certificates of analysis can show the full cannabinoid and terpene profile of a hemp extract, as well as test results that search for the presence of any residual solvents.</p><p>In addition to creating a better end product, organic farming practices are also better for the environment. Sustainable and organic farming methods may <a href="https://www.helpguide.org/articles/healthy-eating/organic-foods.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reduce pollution, conserve water, reduce soil erosion, increase soil fertility, and use less energy</a>. The use of natural pest deterrents as opposed to chemical pesticides is also better for nearby animal populations and ecosystems.</p><h3>Organic vs. Natural</h3><p>While there are only a select few companies offering certified organic ingredients in their products, almost every brand in the CBD market creates "natural" products. The term "all-natural" or "plant-based" does not mean that a product is organic, and since hemp oil is a natural derivative of hemp plants, these products are often referred to as all-natural. However, there are some synthetic CBD oils that should be avoided because they are chemically constructed and may produce unwanted side effects that are not caused by naturally derived CBD extracts.</p><h2>What are the Benefits of Organic CBD Oil?</h2><p>There's a long list of potential CBD oil health benefits, and some of the most common wellness advantages include:</p><ul class="ee-ul"><li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2503660/" target="_blank">Chronic pain relief</a></li><li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4604171/" target="_blank">Anti-anxiety effects</a></li><li>Better sleep</li><li><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inner-source/201901/cbd-oil-mental-health-should-you-take-it-too" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Improvements in mood</a></li><li>Internal balance and regulation</li></ul><p>When dealing with pain, inflammation, sleep issues, and mental health struggles, it can be hard to find sufficient treatment options. The use of certain prescriptions can cause unwanted side effects, yet they are often the only solution for patients with these medical conditions. In search of other therapies, people have started to flock towards CBD oil as an alternative remedy for a variety of conditions. However, it should be noted that CBD products are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and you should seek your doctor's advice before using CBD if you have a serious medical condition.</p><h2>Look at the Labels Before You Buy CBD Oil</h2><p>When you go online to buy CBD oil, you'll quickly realize there is an overwhelming number of brands that are saturating the market. It can be difficult to determine which products are truly as good as they make themselves out to be. Always look for up-to-date third-party lab tests so you know you are getting a great product, and don't hesitate to contact the brand if you have any additional questions. And if you're intent on purchasing 100% organic CBD oil, it's best to look for certified products or brands that are held to strict regulatory standards.</p><p><strong>Melena Gurganus </strong>is the Reviews Editor at EcoWatch. She is passionate health and wellness and her writing aims to help others find products they can trust. Her work has been featured in publications such as Health, Shape, Huffington Post, Cannabis Business Times, and Bustle.<br></p>
Spruce
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjI3OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyOTM2NzgzOX0.axY0HjeqRctJsR_KmDLctzDpUBLBN-oNIdqaXDb4caQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="774be" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8379f35b1ca8a86d0e61b7d4bfc8b46e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="spruce organic cbd oil" data-width="710" data-height="959" /><p>As one of the best brands in the business, Spruce CBD is well-known for its potent CBD oils that feature many additional beneficial phytocannabinoids. This brand works with two family-owned, sustainably focused farms in the USA (one located in Kentucky and one in North Carolina) to create its organic, small product batches. The max potency Spruce CBD oil contains 2400mg of full-spectrum CBD extract, but the brand also offers a lower strength tincture with 750mg of CBD in total.</p>
$89
CBDistillery
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDcwMjkzNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMTU4OTM4Nn0.ypRdeDSBcE87slYrFfVrRwtJ2qGIK6FD5jBB4pndTMo/img.jpg?width=980" id="b473b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9930b53c9d58cb49774640a61c3e3e75" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="cbdistillery cbd oil" data-width="1244" data-height="1244" /><p>All of the products from CBDistillery are <a href="https://ushempauthority.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">U.S. Hemp Authority Certified</a>, and for good reason. The company only uses non-GMO and pesticide-free industrial hemp that's grown organically on Colorado farms. Its hemp oils are some of the most affordable CBD products on the market, yet they still maintain a high standard of quality. CBDistillery has a wide variety of CBD potencies across its product line (ranging from 500mg to 5000mg per bottle) and offers both full-spectrum and broad-spectrum CBD oils to give customers a completely thc-free option.</p>
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FAB CBD
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjIyNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NDIwOTEyMn0.MlTjz096FJ0ev_-soK7_Z-FeQeJczWoeh9Qi9SSkHsY/img.jpg?width=980" id="04b26" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="76aa4862f44603242e318982acea6646" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="fab cbd oil" data-width="800" data-height="800" /><p>For an organic CBD oil that has it all, FAB CBD offers plenty of variety for any type of consumer. All of its products are made with zero pesticides and extracted from organically grown Colorado industrial hemp. FAB CBD oil comes in five all-natural flavors (mint, vanilla, berry, citrus, and natural) and is also available in four strengths (300, 600, 1200, and 2400mg per bottle).</p>
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NuLeaf Naturals
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjIxOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NzExNTgyMX0.D6qMGYllKTsVhEkQ-L_GzpDHVu60a-tJKcio7M1Ssmc/img.jpg?width=980" id="94e4a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3609a52479675730893a45a82a03c71d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="nuleaf naturals organic cbd oil" data-width="600" data-height="600" /><p>As an industry-leading brand, it comes as no surprise that NuLeaf Naturals sources its CBD extract from organic hemp plants grown on licensed farms in Colorado. The comany's CBD oils only contain two ingredients: USDA certified organic hemp seed oil and full spectrum hemp extract.</p><p>NuLeaf Naturals uses one proprietary CBD oil formula for all of its products, so you will get the same CBD potency in each tincture (60mg per mL), but can purchase different bottle sizes depending on how much you intend to use.</p>
$38.50
Charlotte's Web
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDcwMjk3NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzQ0NjM4N30.SaQ85SK10-MWjN3PwHo2RqpiUBdjhD0IRnHKTqKaU7Q/img.jpg?width=980" id="84700" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a2174067dcc0c4094be25b3472ce08c8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="charlottes web cbd oil" data-width="1244" data-height="1244" /><p>Perhaps one of the most well-known brands in the CBD landscape, Charlotte's Web has been growing sustainable hemp plants for several years. The company is currently in the process of achieving official USDA Organic Certification, but it already practices organic and sustainable cultivation techniques to enhance the overall health of the soil and the hemp plants themselves, which creates some of the highest quality CBD extracts. Charlotte's Web offers CBD oils in a range of different concentration options, and some even come in a few flavor options such as chocolate mint, orange blossom, and lemon twist.</p>
$60
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Lakota spiritual leader Chief Arvol Looking Horse attends a demonstration against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico in front of the White House in Washington, DC, on January 28, 2015. Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images
President-elect Joe Biden is planning to cancel the controversial Keystone XL pipeline on the first day of his administration, a document reported by CBC on Sunday suggests.
<p>The words "Rescind Keystone XL pipeline permit" were reportedly listed on a briefing note shared by the Biden transition team with U.S. stakeholders as part of a roundup of Biden's planned day one executive actions. <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/america-votes/biden-to-prioritize-blocking-of-keystone-xl-pipeline-extension-1.5270600" target="_blank">CTV News</a> also reviewed the briefing documents, and a source familiar with Biden's thinking told <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biden-keystone/biden-to-cancel-keystone-xl-pipeline-permit-on-first-day-in-office-cbc-idINKBN29N00A" target="_blank">Reuters</a> that the President-elect is planning to cancel the pipeline as one of his first acts.</p><p>"The Biden administration halting the Keystone XL pipeline is a momentous sign that he is listening, taking action and making good on his promises to people and the planet," Kendall Mackey, 350.org Keep It In the Ground campaign manager, <a href="https://350.org/press-release/biden-kxl-executiveorder/" target="_blank">said</a> in response to the news. "This decision to halt the Keystone XL pipeline on day one in office sets a precedent that all permitting decisions must pass a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate</a> test and respect <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-rights" target="_self">Indigenous rights</a>."</p><p>Mackey expressed hope that Biden would also end the equally controversial <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/dakota-access-pipeline" target="_self">Dakota Access</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/enbridge-line-3" target="_self">Line 3</a> pipelines.</p><p>The Keystone XL pipeline was first announced in 2005, CBC News reported. The pipeline is being built to carry 830,000 barrels of crude oil a day, stretching about 1,200 miles from Alberta, Canada to Nebraska. From there it would connect with the original Keystone pipeline that carries oil to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries.</p>
<p>The pipeline has long been opposed by environmental and Indigenous groups, who are concerned about its climate impacts and the potential for leaks to harm <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife" target="_self">wildlife</a> and pollute <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water" target="_self">drinking water</a>, CTV News reported. Protests prompted the Obama administration to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/breaking-president-obama-rejects-keystone-xl-pipeline-1882117930.html" target="_self">rescind the permit in 2015</a>, but President Donald Trump reversed this decision with an <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-dakota-access-pipeline-2211697835.html" target="_self">executive order</a> in early 2017.</p><p>Biden's decision to once again rescind the permit is not surprising. His advisers have said in the past that he would move to block it again, according to <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-keystone-xl-pipeline-permit_n_60051931c5b6efae62f9d263" target="_blank">HuffPost</a>. Biden's campaign has vocally opposed the pipeline since May, according to CTV News.</p><p>The news has sparked opposition in Canada.</p><p>"I am deeply concerned by reports that the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden may repeal the Presidential permit for the Keystone XL border crossing next week," Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said in a Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1350957580106006533/photo/1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">statement</a>. "Doing so would kill jobs on both sides of the border, weaken the critically important Canada-U.S. relationship and undermine U.S. national security by making the United States more dependent on OPEC oil imports in the future."</p>
<p>Kirsten Hillman, Canada's ambassador to the U.S., said the country still stood behind the pipeline and that it fit within Canada's climate plans, CBC News reported.</p><p>"The Government of Canada continues to support the Keystone XL project and the benefits that it will bring to both Canada and the United States," Hillman said.</p><p>Meanwhile, in a bid to make the project more appealing to Biden, owner TC Energy announced a plan on Sunday to reach zero emissions by 2030, hire union workers, sign Indigenous equity partners and install a $1.7 billion solar, wind and battery-powered operating system for the pipeline.</p><p>However, Canadian environmental groups and parties were pleased with the news.</p>
<p>"This is what true climate leadership looks like," Annamie Paul, leader of the federal Green Party, told CTV News.</p><p>Keith Stewart, a senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada, urged Canadians to follow suit and move away from the pipeline, which he likened to "beating [a] dead horse," CBC News reported.</p><p>"The Biden administration offers us a fresh start on addressing the climate crisis with a willing partner, so let's not blow it by pushing pipelines," Stewart said.</p>
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Seabirds often follow fishing vessels to find easy meals. Alexander Petrov / TASS via Getty Images
By Jim Palardy
As 2021 dawns, people, ecosystems, and wildlife worldwide are facing a panoply of environmental issues. In an effort to help experts and policymakers determine where they might focus research, a panel of 25 scientists and practitioners — including me — from around the globe held discussions in the fall to identify emerging issues that deserve increased attention.
<p>The panel, coordinated by the UK-based Cambridge Conservation Initiative, conducted a horizon scan — an effort to spot early signs of significant phenomena — of global biological <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation">conservation</a> issues. For <a href="https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(20)30306-2?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0169534720303062%3Fshowall%3Dtrue" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the resulting study</a>, which was funded by the UK's Natural Environment Research Council and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the panel winnowed down an initial list of 97 topics, settling on the following 15 because of their novelty or their potential to move the conservation needle in either a positive or negative direction over the coming decade.</p>
<h2>1. Seabirds Could Help Spot Illegal Fishing</h2><p>Seabirds often follow fishing vessels to score easy meals. Now, scientists are hoping to exploit this behavior to help spot illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing, which accounts for up to $23.5 billion worth of seafood every year, or 1 in 5 fish sold. Researchers have had some success attaching transmitters to seabirds to locate fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean, but more study is needed to validate the use of this tactic.</p>
<h2>2. Marine Vessels and GPS Spoofing</h2><p>Vessels plying the ocean navigate and transmit their locations and identities mainly through the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and automatic identification system (AIS). The panel points out that a recent rise in GNSS spoofing and AIS cloning incidents could facilitate the trade of illegal goods and hamper authorities' efforts to identify vessels engaged in illicit resource extraction activities such as fishing and dredging.</p>
<h2>3. More Corals May Suffer From Lack of Oxygen<br></h2><p>Several factors — including climate-driven marine heat waves and nutrient runoff from land — can lower oxygen levels in the ocean. Corals in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans have died from this hypoxia, and, although those events weren't widespread, some scientists fear that the threat may grow significantly as climate change further warms the ocean. Research is needed to better understand the extent and impact of low oxygen conditions on coral reefs.</p>
<h2>4. Understanding the Impacts of Increased Dissolved Iron on Coastal Polar Ecosystems</h2><p>Coastal zones in polar latitudes are among Earth's most productive — that is, they create and support large numbers of organisms ranging from tiny marine plants to animals such as polar bears and seals — a characteristic driven by the availability of dissolved iron from glaciers and ice. Increased melting in the polar regions will result in higher iron concentrations, which in turn will probably fuel more intense phytoplankton blooms and enable organisms on the seafloor to capture more carbon and other nutrients. Such changes could have wide-ranging effects — including impacts on the structure of the region's marine ecosystems and on carbon sequestration — and warrants investigation.</p>
<h2>5. What to Do With a Growing Number of Decommissioned Offshore Energy Platforms</h2><p>It is estimated that 3,000 offshore oil and gas platforms will be decommissioned in the coming decades and that the number of offshore wind farms will continue to grow. Currently, decommissioning practices vary by country and include full removal, conversion of platforms to artificial reefs, and abandonment. As new offshore energy infrastructure is built and old platforms are phased out, nations will need to evaluate the immediate and long-term impacts of their decommissioning strategies on the marine environment.</p>
<h2>6. A Drug Problem in the Water<br></h2><p>When some chemicals used in pharmaceuticals and in garden and farm products are introduced into waterways — usually through runoff or via sewage systems directly or in human waste — they can cause changes in fish and other organisms, including altering the number of female to males in a population, lower fertility, and deformities. There is emerging evidence that the effects of exposure can be multigenerational, affecting organisms that were never directly exposed.</p>
<h2>7. Changes in Low Cloud Cover</h2><p>Low clouds shade sizable portions of the planet in subtropical regions. It is predicted that these clouds will become increasingly unstable if atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to rise at current rates. The resulting changes could have negative effects on wildlife and human communities.</p>
<h2>8. Tree Planting as a Simple Carbon Sequestration Solution</h2><p>Pledges to plant large areas of trees to help tackle climate change are often perceived as a win for conservation. However, tree planting must be planned and implemented with a clear understanding of regional ecosystems to avoid negative effects on biological diversity.</p>
<h2>9. Logging to Reduce Fire Risk</h2><p>As nations around the world contend with more extreme wildfires, some policymakers suggest that tree removal may be part of the solution. However, the effectiveness of such policies is uncertain, and any short-term gains from removing trees are often offset by the growth of non-native grasses and flowering plants, which may themselves be highly flammable.</p>
<h2>10. Large-Scale Adoption of Sustainable Farming Techniques Across India</h2><p>Driven by government policies and local innovations, sustainable farming practices are becoming more prevalent in India. The state government of Sikkim has adopted organic farming as policy, and the state of Andhra Pradesh, with 6 million farmers, plans to adopt natural farming practices by 2025. Other states across the country plan to follow suit. Early evaluations indicate that these large-scale transitions boost crop yields and incomes, improve the health of farmers, and increase women's access to microfinance. With such results, there is the potential for similar large-scale shifts in other parts of the world.</p>
<h2>11. Low Earth-Orbiting Satellites May Mislead Animals Responding to Celestial Cues</h2><p>More than 2,600 artificial satellites currently orbit the earth, a number that is rapidly increasing. Many species of mammals, insects, and birds use celestial cues to migrate long distances and to orient themselves in local habitats and could be affected by the proliferation of satellites.</p>
<h2>12. Bitcoin Mining With Stranded Energy</h2><p>An emerging use for stranded energy sources, such as low-value methane byproducts vented from oil wells and excess energy produced by wind turbines and solar panels, is to power computers used for Bitcoin mining — the process of creating new Bitcoin by solving complex algorithms. Monetizing stranded energy in this way is a mixed bag that decision-makers will probably have to evaluate. The practice could increase carbon emissions from marginal fossil fuel sources but also could incentivize the deployment of renewable energy by guaranteeing a minimum selling price.</p>
<h2>13. Open-Source Investigations of Environmental Threats</h2><p>Scientists demonstrated some success with using online videos, social media posts, and other open-source data to document the effects of the locust swarms in East Africa in 2020. As faster internet connections and access to smartphones continue to grow globally, the use of open-source data may become an effective tool for researchers.</p>
<h2>14. Self-Healing Building Materials</h2><p>The potential to engineer building materials made of chemicals, polymers, and bacteria that can fix themselves when damaged could reduce the need for repairs and shrink the environmental footprints of construction projects. Recently, scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder used a type of cyanobacteria found in the ocean, along with other materials, to <a href="https://www.cell.com/matter/pdfExtended/S2590-2385(19)30391-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">engineer a living building material</a> that can regenerate when fractured.</p>
<h2>15. A Waterway to Connect the Baltic and Black Seas</h2><p>A planned 1,200-mile inland navigable waterway connecting the Baltic and Black seas would alter the flow of cargo and trade in the region. However, the waterway, which would pass through Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine, could alter habitat in 70 wildlife areas and numerous international conservation areas, introduce non-native species, and change the region's rivers and wetlands. Additionally, dredging in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone could disrupt radioactive sediment.</p>
<p><em>Jim Palardy is a project director with The Pew Charitable Trusts' conservation science program. He served on this year's horizon scan panel and is a co-author on the resulting study.</em><br/></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2021/01/13/top-15-conservation-issues-of-2021-include-big-threats-and-potential-bright-spots" target="_blank">The Pew Charitable Trust</a>.</em></p>
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Ask a Scientist: What Should the Biden Administration and Congress Do to Address the Climate Crisis?
8h
Climate
A damaged home and flooding are seen in Creole, Louisiana, following Hurricane Laura's landfall on August 27, 2020. Joe Raedle / Getty Images
By Elliott Negin
What a difference an election makes. Thanks to the Biden-Harris victory in November, the next administration is poised to make a 180-degree turn to again address the climate crisis.
<p>President Trump famously called climate change a "hoax," appointed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/14/climate/fossil-fuel-industry-environmental-policy.html" target="_blank">fossil fuel industry lobbyists</a> to key positions in his administration, rolled back the Obama-era rule that would have curbed power plant carbon emissions, and weakened Obama-era limits on vehicle carbon emissions. Just a day after last fall's election, he pulled the United States out of the international Paris climate agreement.</p><p>By contrast, President-elect Biden has endorsed a $2 trillion climate plan, and pledged to issue at least <a href="https://s2.washingtonpost.com/2da6eed/5fdb55659d2fda0efb8b5293/596c46649bbc0f208657f096/11/67/5fdb55659d2fda0efb8b5293" target="_blank">10 executive orders</a> to protect the climate and rejoin the <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1340427943051284480" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Paris climate accord</a> on Day One of his administration. He also has appointed an impressive and diverse climate change team to take key administration positions, including New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland, who co-sponsored the Green New Deal, to run the Interior Department; North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality head Michael Regan to lead the Environmental Protection Agency; former Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy as national climate advisor; and former Secretary of State John Kerry, who helped negotiate the Paris climate agreement, to serve as his international climate envoy.</p><p>That's a welcome relief, because the world is running out of time. In 2020 alone, wildfires burned millions of acres in Australia and California to a crisp; heat waves scorched Europe, Asia and the Arctic; floods inundated the U.S. Midwest as well as nations in Africa and Asia; and a record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season battered the coasts of Central America, Caribbean islands and the United States.</p><p>But for all the promises President-elect Biden has made, some nagging questions remain: Given the constraints of a closely divided Congress, how much will the Biden administration truly be able to accomplish? And even with the United States rejoining the Paris accord, will countries live up to its promise to keep the Earth's temperature in check?</p><p>For some answers, I turned to <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/about/people/rachel-cleetus" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Climate and Energy Program Policy Director Rachel Cleetus</a>, who I last <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/elliott-negin/what-do-you-see-as-the-most-important-elements-of-a-post-pandemic-economy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">interviewed in May</a> about what a post-pandemic economy should look like. The questions I posed to her this time around are a logical extension of the conversation we had then.</p>
<p><strong>EN: Before we dig into what we can expect from the incoming Biden administration, let's talk about what Congress included in the pandemic relief package it passed just before Christmas. I don't know about you, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it included some good climate-related provisions. Does this suggest that the next Congress will take climate change seriously?</strong></p><p>RC: The omnibus pandemic relief bill Congress just passed was long overdue and desperately needed, given the fact that millions of people are in increasingly dire economic straits. It also included a provision to dramatically reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), extremely potent heat-trapping gases used in air conditioners and refrigerators; an extension of renewable electricity production and investment tax credits, which will help boost clean energy and create jobs; support for energy storage technology research and development; and increased funding for ARPA-E, the Department of Energy's technology innovation program. The bill also included a one-year extension of the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, a welcome but inadequate provision as black lung disease hits record levels in coal country.</p><p>The <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/shana-udvardy/congress-continues-to-affirm-that-climate-security-is-national-security" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Defense Authorization Act</a>, which Congress just passed with an overwhelming bipartisan override of President Trump's veto, also includes provisions recognizing the impact of climate change on the military and the need to invest in resilience measures.</p><p>These provisions demonstrate that Congress can act in a bipartisan manner on clean energy and climate change issues. But much more will be needed in the months and years ahead to make steep cuts in global warming emissions and achieve comprehensive, bold and just climate policies that benefit everyone. Congress has yet to demonstrate the will to act commensurately with the scale of the challenges we face, which is why we will need to continue to pressure policymakers to do the right thing after the new Congress and administration take office.</p>
<p><strong>EN: Notwithstanding the fact that leading Republicans supported the climate-related elements of the pandemic relief package, how much will the incoming Biden administration have to rely on executive orders to advance initiatives to combat climate change? After all, the oil and gas industry still has a great deal of influence over Congress.</strong></p><p>RC: President Biden should send a clear and strong signal, early on, that he is committed to using his full powers to advance climate action through executive authorities and regulations. Here are some of the <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/rachel-cleetus/biden-climate-priorities" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">most important actions on climate</a> that he should take, many of which could be done within the first 100 days and some which should happen via a Day One executive order on climate change:</p><ul><li>Set science-informed climate goals and commit the United States to reaching net-zero carbon emissions economywide no later than 2050, and at least 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.</li><li>Direct all federal agencies to incorporate climate science into their actions and develop updated climate action plans.</li><li>Initiate administrative and regulatory actions to sharply curtail heat-trapping emissions economywide and advance climate resilience, prioritizing investments in historically marginalized communities.</li><li>Rejoin the Paris agreement, with an ambitious commitment to cut heat-trapping emissions and provide climate funding for developing countries, in line with the US fair share contribution to global climate goals.</li><li>Reverse the Trump administration's egregious executive orders that have halted, undermined, and reversed climate action.</li><li>Create White House-level offices focused on environmental justice and economic transition to elevate and mainstream these priorities.</li></ul><p>As you note, opposition from the fossil fuel companies is not going away any time soon. They may continue to try to slow down or stop climate action, or at best support incremental policy changes that preserve their profits—even as they <a href="https://ucsusa.org/about/news/exxonmobils-five-year-emissions-reduction-plan-too-lievettle-too-late" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">claim to endorse</a> the Paris agreement's net-zero goal.</p><p>UCS and its coalition partners will continue to engage in sharp and strategic corporate campaigns to expose their disingenuous actions, <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/kathy-mulvey/bankrolling-climate-disaster-stop-the-money-pipeline-to-fossil-fuel-companies" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">curtail their Wall Street financing</a>, and prod them to align their business models with what the science demonstrates is necessary. We will continue to push for companies to <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/nicole-pinko/climate-risk-disclosure-act-is-good-for-your-investments" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">disclose their climate risks</a>, and for <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/trading-commission-report-sends-clear-signal-climate-change-risks-us-economy-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">financial regulators</a> to require this. And we support the rights of affected parties to seek legal accountability for climate damages caused by fossil fuel companies.</p>
<p><strong>EN: OK. So what can a narrowly divided Congress accomplish?</strong></p><p>RC: Congress also will have to step up to play its part. We are coming off a year of record-breaking climate related disasters—including wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and heatwaves—which intersected cruelly with the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting ongoing economic crisis. People across the country need Congress to do its job. Securing robust, comprehensive, durable climate and clean energy policy will require legislation.</p><p>President Biden should immediately begin working with the new Congress to advance a suite of policies that ramp up clean energy, drive down carbon emissions economywide, and build climate resilience, while also addressing longstanding environmental injustices that have disproportionately affected low-income communities and communities of color and ensuring a fair transition for coal communities. Breaking through the long-standing political logjam won't be easy, but the needs are urgent and the economic, health and climate benefits of a low-carbon climate-resilient economy are clear.</p><p>Many of these policy priorities were highlighted in the <a href="https://joebiden.com/joes-vision/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Biden-Harris campaign platform</a>. The incoming administration must do all it can to prod Congress to pass legislation addressing them. Here's just a partial list of what we need:</p><p><em><strong>Additional pandemic relief and economic recovery packages</strong></em>. More funding for public health priorities and economic relief is desperately needed at the national, state and local level. Congress should include a robust "green" economic recovery package to jumpstart and foster a just and equitable economic recovery, with job creation driven by investments in clean energy and climate resilient infrastructure. Forty percent of these investments should directly benefit historically marginalized communities.</p><p><em><strong>Fair transition for workers and communities</strong></em>. Congress should pass a comprehensive, well-funded transition package for displaced workers and communities hurt by the country's ongoing transition away from coal.</p><p><em><strong>Environmental justice</strong></em>. Congress should strengthen public health safeguards, tighten enforcement, and invest in cleaning up the cumulative toxic burden of pollution in fence-line and frontline communities, which are disproportionately low-income communities and communities of color.</p><p><em><strong>Recognition of climate change's financial and economic risks</strong></em>. Congress should pass legislation to ensure that financial regulators require corporations to disclose their climate risk to ensure they—and the market more broadly—are appropriately accounting for such risks and taking steps to mitigate it.</p><p><em><strong>Guaranteed community access to the courts</strong></em>. As a mounting number of cities, counties and states seek to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate damages and fraud, here's one thing Congress should not do: pass laws attempting to limit or eliminate communities' access to the courts to seek redress.</p>
<p><strong>EN: President-elect Biden recently <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1340427943051284480" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">proclaimed</a> that he will "put America back in the business of leading the world on climate change." What should that mean in concrete terms? As the country responsible for the largest share of cumulative carbon emissions to date, what does the United States have to do regain international respect and provide leadership?</strong></p><p>RC: To be perfectly frank, the Biden administration will have to do a lot more than trot out tired rhetoric about US leadership on climate action.</p><p>What the country and the rest of the world need is for the United States to take its place at the table, alongside and in cooperation with nations large and small, and do its part responsibly, fairly and consistently. The Biden administration and Congress need to enact strong national climate policies and make an ambitious, credible emissions reduction commitment ahead of the next international climate talks. They also must commit to scaled-up climate finance for developing countries. Finally, they have to work together with states, cities, tribal governments, businesses, and local stakeholders, many of whom have contributed to significant climate progress despite the absence of national leadership in the last four years. It's time—well past time, actually—for meaningful federal action.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/elliott-negin/what-should-the-new-administration-and-congress-do-to-address-the-climate-crisis" target="_blank">Union of Concerned Scientists</a>.</em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2650012800#/" target="_self"></a></p>From Your Site Articles
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The new variant, known as B.1.1.7, spread quickly through southeastern England in December, causing case numbers to spike and triggering stricter lockdown measures. Hollie Adams / Getty Images
By Suresh Dhaniyala and Byron Erath
A fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has been found in at least 10 states, and people are wondering: How do I protect myself now?
<p>We saw what the new variant, known as B.1.1.7, can do as it <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/mutant-coronavirus-united-kingdom-sets-alarms-its-importance-remains-unclear" target="_blank">spread quickly through southeastern England</a> in December, causing case numbers to spike and triggering stricter lockdown measures.</p><p>The new variant has been estimated to be <a href="https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/uk-novel-variant.html" target="_blank">50% more easily transmitted than common variants</a>, though it <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7003e2.htm?s_cid=mm7003e2_e" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">appears to affect people's health in the same way</a>. The increased transmissibility is believed to arise from a <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.29.424708v1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">change in the virus's spike protein</a> that can allow the virus to more easily enter cells. These and other <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.24.20248834" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">studies on the new variant</a> were released before peer review to share their findings quickly.</p><p>Additionally, there is some evidence that patients infected with the new B.1.1.7 variant may have a <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.24.20248834v1.full" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">higher viral load</a>. That means they may expel more virus-containing particles when they breathe, talk or sneeze.</p><p>As professors who study <a href="https://www.clarkson.edu/people/byron-erath" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fluid dynamics</a> <a href="https://www.clarkson.edu/people/suresh-dhaniyala" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">and aerosols</a>, we investigate how airborne particles carrying viruses spread. There is still a lot that scientists and doctors don't know about the coronavirus and its mutations, but there are some clear strategies people can use to protect themselves.</p>
Airborne Particles Are Still the Biggest Problem
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-it-matters-that-the-coronavirus-is-changing-and-what-this-means-for-vaccine-effectiveness-152383" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SARS-CoV-2 variants</a> are believed to spread primarily through the air rather than on surfaces.</p><p>When someone with the coronavirus in their respiratory tract coughs, talks, sings or even just breathes, infectious respiratory droplets can be expelled into the air. These droplets are tiny, predominantly in the range of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021850211001200?casa_token=KtyrsEfbeqcAAAAA:vv10sSxm33tzg0EQvNMIFtV7GCu5gE9QAzuyzHKr2_4Cl0OFkUJoGwzn4d0ZnEWS19NsOTuH" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1-100 micrometers</a>. For comparison, a human hair is about 70 micrometers in diameter.</p><p>The larger droplets fall to the ground quickly, rarely traveling farther than 6 feet from the source. The bigger problem for disease transmission is the tiniest droplets – those less than 10 micrometers in diameter – which can remain suspended in the air as aerosols for <a href="https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/50/5/693/325466" target="_blank">hours at a time</a>.</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bb67b83dcafe589f350daf3df60fa29d"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UNCNM7AZPFg?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p>With people possibly having more virus in their bodies and the virus being more infectious, everyone should take extra care and precautions. Wearing face masks and social distancing are essential.</p><p>Spaces and activities that were previously deemed "safe," such as some indoor work environments, may present an elevated infection risk as the variant spreads.</p><p>The concentration of aerosol particles is usually highest right next to the individual emitting the particles and decreases with <a href="https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0025476" target="_blank">distance from the source</a>. However, in indoor environments, aerosol concentration levels can quickly build up, similar to how <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-a-smoky-bar-can-teach-us-about-the-6-foot-rule-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-145517" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cigarette smoke accumulates within enclosed spaces</a>. This is particularly problematic in spaces that have poor ventilation.</p><p>With the new variant, aerosol concentration levels that might not have previously posed a risk could now lead to infection.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ5Njc1My9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MTg5MzExM30.2KlkIn9wVomwIkIEvkEpjx9alJ61pU4Onv54-nS-Ric/img.png?width=980" id="7052f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="64f0b78347b7911d5eee1f15d7999b22" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1290" data-height="932" />
Daily case reports and 7-day rolling average as of Jan. 16, 2021.Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND Source: COVID Tracking Project Get the data
What Can You Do to Stay Safe?
<p>1) Pay attention to the type of face mask you use, and how it fits.</p><p>Most off-the-shelf face coverings are not 100% effective at preventing droplet emission. With the new variant spreading more easily and likely infectious at lower concentrations, it's important to select coverings with materials that are most effective at stopping droplet spread.</p><p>When available, N95 and surgical masks consistently perform the best. Otherwise, face coverings that use <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352431620301802?casa_token=-Dj6nGBAm24AAAAA:qq9BpbzCKaPDFcV73ohA2fCnhE_Zlkss6Bei3kUwq9QYndhHj0Vafbbd-ef_855lx6knDfUt" target="_blank">multiple layers of material</a> are preferable. Ideally, the material should be a tight weave. High thread count cotton sheets are an example. Proper fit is also crucial, as gaps around the nose and mouth can <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.0c03252" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">decrease the effectiveness by 50%</a>.</p><p>2) Follow social distancing guidelines.</p><p>While the current social distancing guidelines are not perfect – <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-a-smoky-bar-can-teach-us-about-the-6-foot-rule-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-145517" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">6 feet isn't always enough</a> – they do offer a useful starting point. Because aerosol concentrations levels and infectivity are highest in the space immediately surrounding anyone with the virus, increasing physical distancing can help reduce risk. Remember that people are infectious <a href="https://medical.mit.edu/faqs/COVID-19#faq-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">before they start showing symptoms</a>, and they many never show symptoms, so don't count on seeing signs of illness.</p><p>3) Think carefully about the environment when entering an enclosed area, both the ventilation and how people interact.</p><p>Limiting the size of gatherings helps reduce the potential for exposure. Controlling indoor environments in other ways can also be a highly effective strategy for reducing risk. This includes <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-a-smoky-bar-can-teach-us-about-the-6-foot-rule-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-145517" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">increasing ventilation rates</a> to bring in <a href="https://theconversation.com/keeping-indoor-air-clean-can-reduce-the-chance-of-spreading-coronavirus-149512" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fresh air and filtering existing air</a> to dilute aerosol concentrations.</p><p>On a personal level, it is helpful to pay attention to the types of interactions that are taking place. For example, many individuals shouting can create a higher risk than one individual speaking. In all cases, it's important to minimize the amount of time spent indoors with others.</p><p>The CDC has warned that B.1.1.7 could <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7003e2.htm?s_cid=mm7003e2_w" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">become the dominant SARS-CoV-2 variant</a> in the U.S. by March. Other fast-spreading variants have also been found in <a href="https://virological.org/t/genomic-characterisation-of-an-emergent-sars-cov-2-lineage-in-manaus-preliminary-findings/586" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Brazil</a> and <a href="https://www.who.int/csr/don/31-december-2020-sars-cov2-variants/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">South Africa</a>. Increased vigilance and complying with health guidelines should continue to be of highest priority.</p>From Your Site Articles
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A seagull flies in front of the Rampion offshore wind farm in the United Kingdom. Neil / CC BY 2.0
By Tara Lohan
A key part of the United States' clean energy transition has started to take shape, but you may need to squint to see it. About 2,000 wind turbines could be built far offshore, in federal waters off the Atlantic Coast, in the next 10 years. And more are expected.
<p>East Coast states from Maine to North Carolina are working to procure nearly <a href="https://www.oedigital.com/news/483741-2020-has-been-a-big-year-for-us-offshore-wind" target="_blank">30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2035</a> — a huge leap from the five turbines currently generating 30 megawatts in Rhode Island waters. If a regulatory backlog of projects awaiting approval from the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is finally unstuck — <a href="https://therevelator.org/offshore-wind-growth/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">as experts hope will happen this year</a> — the buildout of offshore wind will arrive during a crucial decade for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.</p><p>Spinning turbine blades on the watery horizon may be a welcome sight in the fight against climate change, but they still come with potential threats to marine wildlife. Many environmental groups believe the challenges aren't insurmountable if scientific study can help inform regulatory action and if we can learn — and adapt our practices — as we go.</p><p>"We believe that offshore wind can absolutely be developed in an environmentally responsible manner," says Francine Kershaw, a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "But that has to be incorporated throughout the whole process — from site assessment through development, construction and operations."</p>
Threats to Birds
<p>One of the gravest threats facing birds is climate change, according to Audubon, which found that rising temperatures threaten <a href="https://www.audubon.org/2019climateissue" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">nearly two-thirds of North America's bird species</a>. That's why the impending development of offshore wind is a good thing, says Shilo Felton, a field manager in the organization's Clean Energy Initiative, but it also comes with dangers to birds that need to be better studied and mitigated.</p><p>The most obvious risk comes from birds colliding with spinning turbine blades. But offshore wind developments can also displace birds from foraging or roost sites, as well as migratory pathways.</p><p>Along the Atlantic Coast four imperiled species are of top concern to conservationists: the endangered piping plover, red knot, roseate tern and black-capped petrel, which is being considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act.</p><p>"Those four species are of utmost importance to make sure that we understand the impacts," says Felton. "But beyond that there are many species that are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act that could potentially see more impacts from offshore wind."</p><p>Northern gannets, for example, are at risk not just for collision but <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308703197_Possible_impacts_of_offshore_wind_farms_on_seabirds_a_pilot_study_in_Northern_Gannets_in_the_southern_North_Sea" target="_blank">habitat displacement</a>.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ3NDc0My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MzA3NTkwM30.L3sUMX9PbRxFqSnNPKWfQSB33NNak0zZ6x9gdLCZPJM/img.jpg?width=980" id="31fc5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e1429caf713cfa9e6b78cc218d884453" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="799" data-height="533" />
A northern gannet flying along Cape May, N.J. Ann Marie Morrison / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
<p>"There's <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320716303196" target="_blank">some evidence</a> that they just won't use areas where turbines are, but that also excludes them from key foraging areas," says Felton. Researchers are still studying what this may mean for the birds. But a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0141113620305304" target="_blank">study</a> published in December 2020 conducted at Bass Rock, Scotland — home to the world's largest northern gannet colony — found that wind developments could reduce their growth rate, though not enough to cause a population decline.</p><p>Other birds, such as great cormorants and European shags, are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320716303196" target="_blank">attracted to wind developments</a> and use the infrastructure to rest while opening up new foraging areas farther from shore.</p><p>"There's plenty of potential for a bird to use a wind farm and still to avoid the turbines themselves," says Felton.</p><p>Birds like pelicans, however, are less versatile in their movements and are at particular risk of collision because of their flight pattern, she says.</p><p>But how disruptive or dangerous offshore turbines will be along the East Coast isn't yet known.</p><p>Federal and state agencies, along with nongovernmental organizations, says Felton, have done good research to try to better understand those potential impacts. "But these are all theoretical, because we don't have a lot of offshore wind yet in the United States."</p>Threats to Ocean Life
<p>Birds aren't the only wildlife of concern. More development in ocean waters could affect a litany of marine species, some of which are already facing other pressures from overfishing, pollution, habitat destruction and climate change.</p><p>Scientists have found that marine mammals like whales and dolphins could be disturbed by the jarring sounds of construction, especially if pile driving is used to hammer the steel turbine platform into the seafloor.</p><p>The noises, though short-lived, could impede communication between animals, divert them from migration routes or cause them to seek less suitable areas for feeding or breeding. Research from Europe found that harbor porpoises, seals and dolphins may avoid development areas during construction. In most, but <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/7/4/045101" target="_blank">not all cases</a>, the animals were believed to have returned to the area following construction.</p><p>The biggest concern for conservation groups in the United States is the critically endangered North American right whale. There are fewer than 400 remaining, and the species' habitat overlaps with a number of planned wind development areas along the East Coast.</p><p>"Offshore wind is in no way the cause of the challenges the whales face, but it's going to be another pressure point," says John Rogers, senior energy analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists.</p><p>Researchers aren't sure how right whales will respond to the noise from pile driving.</p><p>"But we are concerned, based on what we know about how whales react to other noise sources, that they may avoid [wind development] areas," says Kershaw.</p><p>And if that displacement causes them to miss out on important food resources, it could be dangerous for a species already on the brink.</p><p>There are a few other potential threats, too.</p><p>Ships associated with the development — more plentiful during construction — also pose a danger. In the past few years cargo ships, fishing boats and other vessels have caused half of all deaths of North Atlantic right whales.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ3NDg5MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1ODIyNzI3MX0.PzGzo5LJmV9E00augQhHgO5eMTxkVqRBYGZrzkrxP78/img.jpg?width=980" id="f44b2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5fcb375b72d14dd0cf745ecc7fb4494a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="799" data-height="533" />
A juvenile right whale breaches against the backdrop of a ship near the St. Johns River entrance. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission / NOAA Research Permit #775-1600-10
<p>And after construction, the noise from the spinning turbines will be present in the water at low decibels. "We don't quite know how the great whales will react to those sounds," says Jeremy Firestone, the director of the Center for Research in Wind at the University of Delaware.</p><p>Other marine mammals may also perceive the noise, but at low decibels it's unlikely to be an impediment, <a href="http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v309/p279-295/" target="_blank">research has found</a>.</p><p>And it's possible that wind development could help some ocean life. Turbine foundations can attract fish and invertebrates for whom hard substrates create habitat complexity — known as the "reef effect," according to researchers from the University of Rhode Island's <a href="https://dosits.org/animals/effects-of-sound/anthropogenic-sources/wind-turbine/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Discovery of Sound in the Sea</a> program. Exclusion of commercial fishing nearby may also help shelter fish and protect marine mammals from entanglements in fishing gear.</p>Ensuring Safe Development
<p>Despite the potential dangers, researchers have gathered a few best practices to help diminish and possibly eliminate some risks.</p><p>When it comes to ship strikes, the easiest thing is to slow boats down, mandating a speed of <a href="https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/vessel-speed-limits-sought-protect-endangered-north-atlantic-right-whales-2020-08-06/" target="_blank">10 knots</a> in wind development areas, and using visual and acoustic monitoring for whales.</p><p>Adjusting operations to reduce boat trips between the shore and the wind development will also help. A new series of service operating vessels can allow maintenance staff to spent multiple days onsite, says Kershaw, cutting down on boat traffic.</p><p>For construction noise concerns, developers can avoid pile driving during times of the year when whales are present. And, depending on the marine environment, developers could use "quiet foundations" that don't require pile driving. These include gravity-based or suction caisson platforms.</p><p>Floating turbines are also used in deep water, where they're effectively anchored in place — although that poses its own potential danger. "We have concerns that marine debris could potentially become entangled around the mooring cables of the floating arrays and pose a secondarily entanglement risk to some species," says Felton, who thinks more research should be conducted before those become operational in U.S. waters — a process that's already underway in Maine, where a <a href="https://composites.umaine.edu/2020/08/05/diamond-offshore-wind-rwe-renewables-join-the-university-of-maine-to-lead-development-of-maine-floating-offshore-wind-demonstration-project/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">demonstration project is being built</a>.</p><p>If loud noises are unavoidable during construction, noise-reducing technologies such as bubble curtains can help dampen the sound. And scheduling adjacent projects to conduct similar work at the same time could limit the duration of disturbances.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ3NDkwMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMTEyOTMwNX0.330fhUXaalGUddjtO6PGMeiuadmzTPPuyvrnsN2rrsE/img.jpg?width=980" id="d7393" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5f32770cc89291d00aed7de6d0204760" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="755" data-height="552" />
The foundation installation of the off shore wind farm Sandbank using a bubble curtain. Vattenfall / Ulrich Wirrwa / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
<p>Once turbines become operational, reducing the amount of light on wind platforms or using flashing lights could help deter some seabirds, NRDC <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/harnessing-wind-advance-wind-power-offshore-ib.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">researchers reported</a>. And scientists are exploring using ultrasonic noises and ultraviolet lighting to keep bats away. "Feathering," or shutting down the turbine blades during key migration times, could also help prevent fatalities.</p><p>"We need to make sure that offshore wind is the best steward it can be of the marine ecosystem, because we want and expect it to be a significant part of the clean energy picture in some parts of the country," says Rogers. "We also have to recognize that we're going to learn by doing, and that some of these things we're going to figure out best once we have more turbines in the water."</p><p>That's why environmental groups say it's important to establish baseline information on species before projects begin, and then require developers to conduct monitoring during construction and for years after projects are operational.</p><p>Employing an "adaptive management framework" will ensure that developers can adjust their management practices as they go when new information becomes available, and that those best practices are incorporated into the requirements for future projects.</p>Putting Research Into Action
<p>Advancing these conversations at the federal level during the Trump administration, though, has been slow going.</p><p>"We didn't really have any productive discussions with the administration in the last four years," says Kershaw.</p><p>And when it comes to birds, Felton says the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's recently completed "draft cumulative environmental impact statement" covering offshore wind developments had a lot of good environmental research, but little focus on birds.</p><p>"Part of that comes from the current administration's interpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act," she says.</p><p>President Trump has been hostile to both wind energy <em>and</em> birds, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/climate/trump-migratory-bird-protections.html" target="_blank">and finished gutting the Migratory Bird Treaty Act</a> in his administration's the final days, removing penalties for companies whose operations kill migratory birds.</p><p>There's hope that the Biden administration will take a different approach. But where the federal government has been lacking lately, Kershaw says, they've seen states step up.</p><p>New York, for example, has established an <a href="https://www.nyetwg.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Environmental Technical Working Group</a> composed of stakeholders to advise on environmentally responsible development of offshore wind.</p><p>The group is led by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, but it isn't limited to the Empire State. It's regional in focus and includes representatives from wind developers with leases between Massachusetts and North Carolina; state agencies from Massachusetts to Virginia; federal agencies; and science-based environmental NGOs.</p><p>New York's latest solicitation for clean energy projects includes up to 2,500 megawatts of offshore wind and <a href="https://www.nyetwg.com/announcements" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">requires developers</a> to contribute at least $10,000 per megawatt for regional monitoring of fisheries and other wildlife.</p><p>Environmental groups have also worked directly with developers, including an agreement with Vineyard Wind — an 800-megawatt project off the Massachusetts coast that could be the first utility-scale wind development in federal waters — to help protect North Atlantic right whales.</p><p>The agreement includes no pile driving from Jan. 1 to April 30, ceasing activities at other times when whales are visually or acoustically identified in the area, speed restrictions on vessels, and the use of noise reduction technology, such as a bubble curtain during pile driving.</p><p>"The developers signed the agreement with us, and then they incorporated, most, if not all of those measures into the federal permitting documents," says Kershaw. "The developers really did a lot of bottom up work to make sure that they were being very protective of right whales."</p><p>Environmental groups are in talks with other developers on agreements too, but Felton wants to see best practices being mandated at the federal level.</p><p>"It's the sort of a role that should be being played by the federal government, and without that it makes the permitting and regulation process less stable and less transparent," she says." And that in turn slows down the build out of projects, which is also bad for birds because it doesn't help us address and mitigate for climate change."</p><p>Kershaw agrees there's a lot more work to be done, especially at the federal level, but thinks we're moving in the right direction.</p><p>"I think the work that's been done so far in the United States has really laid the groundwork for advancing this in the right way and in a way that's protective of species and the environment," she says. "At the same time, it's important that offshore wind does advance quickly. We really need it to help us combat the worst effects of climate change."</p><p><em><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/taralohan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tara Lohan</a> is deputy editor of The Revelator and has worked for more than a decade as a digital editor and environmental journalist focused on the intersections of energy, water and climate. Her work has been published by The Nation, American Prospect, High Country News, Grist, Pacific Standard and others. She is the editor of two books on the global water crisis.</em></p><p><em style="">Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/offshore-wind-wildlife" target="_blank" style="">The Revelator</a>. </em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Trending
Cities Can Help Migrating Birds on Their Way By Planting More Trees and Turning Lights Off at Night
16 January
Animals
By Frank La Sorte and Kyle Horton
Millions of birds travel between their breeding and wintering grounds during spring and autumn migration, creating one of the greatest spectacles of the natural world. These journeys often span incredible distances. For example, the Blackpoll warbler, which weighs less than half an ounce, may travel up to 1,500 miles between its nesting grounds in Canada and its wintering grounds in the Caribbean and South America.
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ1OTYwNy9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMzM0MTg3OH0.nNQfbJ7kSW-dhYN2fzUsXifK_9BZ0m-DgJ_O48NaMzk/img.png?width=980" id="17556" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="62e2bb2642ac5ed6921afa9f11210d6c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1000" data-height="697" />
Blackpoll warbler abundance in breeding, non-breeding and migration seasons. Cornell Lab of Ornithology / CC BY-ND
<p>For many species, these journeys take place at night, when skies typically are calmer and predators are less active. Scientists do not have a good understanding yet of how birds navigate effectively at night over long distances.</p><p><span></span>We study bird migration and how it is being affected by factors ranging from <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=S04C3UMAAAAJ&hl=en" target="_blank">climate change</a> to <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pPk38-8AAAAJ&hl=en" target="_blank">artificial light at night</a>. In a recent study, we used millions of bird observations by citizen scientists to document the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2020.116085" target="_blank">occurrence of migratory bird species in 333 U.S. cities</a> during the winter, spring, summer and autumn.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ1OTYxMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzk5NjQ2OX0.wgZKuxg3PNrZY0fvQEfZwX6kKXWapi0OEegDeQOL0ZI/img.jpg?width=980" id="d5433" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0c08ac2b38d68da1788b356a5841f0f9" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1000" data-height="604" />
Blackpoll warbler. PJTurgeon / Wikipedia
<p>We used this information to determine how the number of migratory bird species varies based on each city's level of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/light-pollution" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">light pollution</a> – brightening of the night sky caused by artificial light sources, such as buildings and streetlights. We also explored how species numbers vary based on the quantity of tree canopy cover and impervious surface, such as concrete and asphalt, within each city. Our findings show that cities can help migrating birds by planting more trees and reducing light pollution, especially during spring and autumn migration.</p>Declining Bird Populations
<p>Urban areas contain numerous dangers for migratory birds. The biggest threat is the risk of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1650/CONDOR-13-090.1" target="_blank">colliding with buildings or communication towers</a>. Many migratory bird populations have <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw1313" target="_blank">declined over the past 50 years</a>, and it is possible that light pollution from cities is contributing to these losses.</p><p>Scientists widely agree that light pollution can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1708574114" target="_blank">severely disorient migratory birds</a> and make it hard for them to navigate. Studies have shown that birds will cluster around brightly lit structures, much like insects flying around a porch light at night. Cities are the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2029" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">primary source of light pollution for migratory birds</a>, and these species tend to be more abundant within cities <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.13792" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">during migration</a>, especially in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2020.103892" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">city parks</a>.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ1OTYyNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0Nzk5NTUwOH0.h8aA9ZJUJvLbHP82CVZAOkYcY54eljqMy4rrMaunO9M/img.jpg?width=980" id="608a8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3da85b14a1c03abfd4f95c00439fb36e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1000" data-height="640" />
Composite image of the continental U.S. at night from satellite photos. NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data from Miguel Román, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
The Power of Citizen Science
<p>It's not easy to observe and document bird migration, especially for species that migrate at night. The main challenge is that many of these species are very small, which limits scientists' ability to use electronic tracking devices.</p><p>With the growth of the internet and other information technologies, new data resources are becoming available that are making it possible to overcome some of these challenges. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07106-5" target="_blank">Citizen science initiatives</a> in which volunteers use online portals to enter their observations of the natural world have become an important resource for researchers.</p><p>One such initiative, <a href="https://ebird.org/home" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">eBird</a>, allows bird-watchers around the globe to share their observations from any location and time. This has produced one of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.04632" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">largest ecological citizen-science databases in the world</a>. To date, eBird contains over 922 million bird observations compiled by over 617,000 participants.</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="59e33da8efe0bf60f7bda00b06e1f4e2"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/StF19Qdgqn0?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p><em>Large clusters of birds (blue and green splotches) captured by weather radar during spring migration, April-May 2019.</em></p>
Light Pollution Both Attracts and Repels Migratory Birds
<p>Migratory bird species have evolved to use certain migration routes and types of habitat, such as forests, grasslands or marshes. While humans may enjoy seeing migratory birds appear in urban areas, it's generally not good for bird populations. In addition to the many hazards that exist in urban areas, cities typically lack the food resources and cover that birds need during migration or when raising their young. As scientists, we're concerned when we see evidence that migratory birds are being drawn away from their traditional migration routes and natural habitats.</p><p>Through our analysis of eBird data, we found that cities contained the greatest numbers of migratory bird species during spring and autumn migration. Higher levels of light pollution were associated with more species during migration – evidence that light pollution attracts migratory birds to cities across the U.S. This is cause for concern, as it shows that the influence of light pollution on migratory behavior is strong enough to increase the number of species that would normally be found in urban areas.</p><p>In contrast, we found that higher levels of light pollution were associated with fewer migratory bird species during the summer and winter. This is likely due to the scarcity of suitable habitat in cities, such as large forest patches, in combination with the adverse affects of light pollution on bird behavior and health. In addition, during these seasons, migratory birds are active only during the day and their populations are largely stationary, creating few opportunities for light pollution to attract them to urban areas.</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="19d2d2bc77cd31e4374fd12cdadbe4bf"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/08ET47-b13o?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p><em><strong></strong>Darkening skies at night during migration season makes it easier for birds to navigate.</em></p>
Trees and Pavement
<p>We found that tree canopy cover was associated with more migratory bird species during spring migration and the summer. Trees provide important habitat for migratory birds during migration and the breeding season, so the presence of trees can have a strong effect on the number of migratory bird species that occur in cities.</p><p>Finally, we found that higher levels of impervious surface were associated with more migratory bird species during the winter. This result is somewhat surprising. It could be a product of the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/heatislands" target="_blank">urban heat island effect</a> – the fact that structures and paved surfaces in cities absorb and reemit more of the sun's heat than natural surfaces. Replacing vegetation with buildings, roads and parking lots can therefore make cities significantly warmer than surrounding lands. This effect could reduce cold stress on birds and increase food resources, such as insect populations, during the winter.</p><p>Our research adds to our understanding of how conditions in cities can both help and hurt migratory bird populations. We hope that our findings will inform urban planning initiatives and strategies to reduce the harmful effects of cities on migratory birds through such measures as <a href="https://www.arborday.org/programs/treecityusa/index.cfm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">planting more trees</a> and initiating <a href="https://aeroecolab.com/uslights" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lights-out programs</a>. Efforts to make it easier for migratory birds to complete their incredible journeys will help maintain their populations into the future.</p><p><em><span style="background-color: initial;"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/frank-la-sorte-1191494" target="_blank">Frank La Sorte</a> is a r</span>esearch associate at the </em><em>Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University. <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kyle-horton-1191498" target="_blank">Kyle Horton</a> is an assistant professor of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology at the Colorado State University.</em></p><p><em></em><em>Disclosure statement: Frank La Sorte receives funding from The Wolf Creek Charitable Foundation and the National Science Foundation (DBI-1939187). K</em><em>yle Horton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/cities-can-help-migrating-birds-on-their-way-by-planting-more-trees-and-turning-lights-off-at-night-152573" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>
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Kevin Maillefer / Unsplash
By Lynne Peeples
Editor's note: This story is part of a nine-month investigation of drinking water contamination across the U.S. The series is supported by funding from the Park Foundation and Water Foundation. Read the launch story, "Thirsting for Solutions," here.
In late September 2020, officials in Wrangell, Alaska, warned residents who were elderly, pregnant or had health problems to avoid drinking the city's tap water — unless they could filter it on their own.
<p style="">More than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) away, the people of <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7208933-Scituate-Water-Notification-9-10-2020.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Scituate, Massachusetts</a>, received a letter that same month cautioning about the same group of contaminants in their <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water">drinking water</a>.</p>
<p>At issue wasn't any of the well-known and widely feared water infiltrators such as <em>E. coli </em>or <a href="https://ensia.com/features/drinking-water-contamination-pfas-health/" target="_blank">per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)</a>. The culprit chemicals tainting taps from <a href="https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/local/environment/2016/05/31/elevated-disinfection-byproducts-taint-cocoa-water/85184636/" target="_blank">Cocoa, Florida</a>, to the <a href="https://auburnpub.com/news/local/several-cayuga-county-water-systems-violate-standard-for-chlorination-byproduct/article_d5568ecc-edd0-55b1-a858-37aaf2b1c82f.html" target="_blank">Finger Lakes of New York</a> to a correctional facility in <a href="https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/drinking-water-enforcement-tennessee-98500/" target="_blank">Only, Tennessee</a>, are, in fact, less recognized yet more ubiquitous: disinfection by-products.</p><p>"Take a glass of water. You may or may not have pesticides, pharmaceuticals, PFAS and lead in it. Usually not," says Susan Richardson, a professor of biochemistry at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. "But there's always something that is in your drinking water, and that's disinfection by-products."</p><p>Aptly named, the chemicals form in water when disinfectants that are widely used to kill pathogens in municipal drinking water facilities react with organic compounds. These compounds may be present in the water as a result of natural processes such as the decay of leaves and animal matter, as well as human activities that may release solvents, pharmaceuticals, pesticides and industrial chemicals. Exposure to disinfection by-products through drinking, bathing or <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b00808" target="_blank">swimming</a> has been linked to potential <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2213343720302876" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">increased risks</a> of <a href="https://www.ewg.org/childrenshealth/23264/study-disinfection-byproducts-drinking-water-may-increase-risk-low-birth" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">low birthweight babies</a>, birth defects, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29676755/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">miscarriages</a> and <a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/EHP4495" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cancer</a>.</p><p>"Disinfection is hugely important. We've got to kill those pathogens," says Richardson. "We had millions of people dying from waterborne illnesses before we started disinfecting water in the 1800s."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ1OTg0Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MjIyNTA3OH0.DKXIFu4fZ0XqVAZV7df25Oy2M3D8In7XWlMAwuQZJbA/img.jpg?width=980" id="a78a8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="83c6c4c4dcac6fa45d912d7316b69bdb" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1440" data-height="426" /><p>Cholera and typhoid fever were once deadly and pervasive threats. Still today, when concentrations of disinfectants fall too low, drinking water can become a breeding ground for dangerous pathogens such as <a href="https://ensia.com/features/legionella-pathogens-drinking-water/" target="_blank">Legionella</a>, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12638998/" target="_blank"><em>E. coli</em></a><em>, </em>even <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/19/world/cholera-kills-1100-in-peru-and-marches-on-reaching-the-brazilian-border.html" target="_blank">cholera</a>.</p><p>"It's a trade-off between inactivating pathogens that are going to make people sick today versus the long-term, low-level risk of chemicals in the water," says Christy Remucal, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.</p><p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2213343720302876" target="_blank">Striking a balance</a> may be even more challenging today as waters become increasingly compromised due to population growth, wastewater intrusion, energy exploration, climate change — and now the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Richardson.</p><p>During the pandemic, many places have increased use of chlorine for disinfection in indoor and outdoor settings and during wastewater treatment, resulting in the potential for higher levels of disinfection by-products. Authors of a <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.0c04394" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">study</a> published in October warn that this "upsurge and overuse of chlorine-based disinfectants" may pose a threat to human health "by impacting water quality."</p><p>Concentrations of harmful chemicals have also likely increased in buildings left vacant during Covid-19 shutdowns. The longer that water sits in pipes, explains Richardson, the longer it has to react with disinfectants and form more by-products.</p><p>Still, Gregory Korshin, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle, encourages perspective on the issue of disinfection by-products. The answer, he and others say, is not to stop disinfecting water, nor is it for everyone to buy bottled water.</p><p>"There is a dark side of disinfection," adds Korshin. "But this doesn't compromise the notion that drinking water in the U.S. is safe."</p>
Unintended Consequences
<p>Chemists first discovered disinfection by-products in treated drinking water in the 1970s. The trihalomethanes they found, they determined, had resulted from the reaction of chlorine with natural organic matter. Since then, scientists have identified more than 700 additional disinfection by-products. "And those only represent a portion. We still don't know half of them," says Richardson, whose lab has identified hundreds of disinfection by-products. </p><p>Identification of disinfection by-products is incredibly difficult, she explains, because these chemicals are not simply flowing down a river from an industrial site or running off a farm. "They didn't exist before," she adds. "It's a complete unknown — there's no preconceived idea of what these chemicals look like."</p><p>Another research team recently discovered more previously unidentified disinfection by-products. As they described in a January 2020 <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.9b04926" target="_blank">study</a>, potentially carcinogenic chemicals are formed through the interaction of chlorine and not only organic matter in the environment but also manmade materials that include phenols such as <a href="https://ensia.com/features/what-will-it-take-to-rid-our-store-shelves-of-bpa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">bisphenol A (BPA)</a> and other plasticizers, as well as sunscreen agents and antimicrobials.</p><p>"These phenol compounds are incredibly widespread because of their properties," says Carsten Prasse, a coauthor on the study and an assistant professor of environmental health and environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He highlights their use in both plastic pipes and plastic bottles, which frequently carry drinking water.</p>
What’s Regulated and What’s Not?
<p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently regulates 11 disinfection by-products — including a handful of trihalomethanes (THM) and haloacetic acids (HAA). While these represent only a small fraction of all disinfection by-products, EPA aims to use their presence to indicate the presence of other disinfection by-products. "The general idea is if you control THMs and HAAs, you implicitly or by default control everything else as well," says Korshin.</p><p>EPA also requires drinking water facilities to use techniques to reduce the concentration of organic materials before applying disinfectants, and regulates the quantity of disinfectants that systems use. These rules ultimately can help control levels of disinfection by-products in drinking water.</p><a href="https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/reviewed-disinfection-byproducts.php" target="_blank"><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ1OTg1OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzYyNTAwNX0.1IaCMF-b4X9jtCSFsZuQfRvQCO54EqgfRcGulUoMP10/img.jpg?width=980" id="36d2f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e8502b4c0de9cbd99651d4978548af81" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1144" data-height="1036" /></a>
Click the image for an interactive version of this chart on the Environmental Working Group website.
<p>Still, some scientists and advocates argue that current regulations do not go far enough to protect the public. Many question whether the government is regulating the right disinfection by-products, and if water systems are doing enough to reduce disinfection by-products. EPA is now seeking public input as it considers potential revisions to regulations, including the possibility of regulating additional by-products. The agency held a <a href="https://www.epa.gov/dwsixyearreview/potential-revisions-microbial-and-disinfection-byproducts-rules" target="_blank">two-day public meeting</a> in October 2020 and plans to hold additional public meetings throughout 2021.</p><p>When EPA set regulations on disinfection by-products between the 1970s and early 2000s, the agency, as well as the scientific community, was primarily focused on by-products of reactions between organics and chlorine — historically the most common drinking water disinfectant. But the science has become increasingly clear that these chlorinated chemicals represent a fraction of the by-product problem.</p><p>For example, bromide or iodide can get caught up in the reaction, too. This is common where seawater penetrates a drinking water source. By itself, bromide is innocuous, says Korshin. "But it is extremely [reactive] with organics," he says. "As bromide levels increase with normal treatment, then concentrations of brominated disinfection by-products will increase quite rapidly."</p><p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15487777/" target="_blank">Emerging</a> <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b05440" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">data</a> indicate that brominated and iodinated by-products are potentially more harmful than the regulated by-products.</p><p>Almost half of the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of either the Atlantic or Pacific coasts, where saltwater intrusion can be a problem for drinking water supplies. "In the U.S., the rule of thumb is the closer to the sea, the more bromide you have," says Korshin, noting there are also places where bromide naturally leaches out from the soil. Still, some coastal areas tend to be spared. For example, the city of Seattle's water comes from the mountains, never making contact with seawater and tending to pick up minimal organic matter.</p><p>Hazardous disinfection by-products can also be an issue with desalination for drinking water. "As <a href="https://ensia.com/features/can-saltwater-quench-our-growing-thirst/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">desalination</a> practices become more economical, then the issue of controlling bromide becomes quite important," adds Korshin.</p>Other Hot Spots
<p>Coastal areas represent just one type of hot spot for disinfection by-products. Agricultural regions tend to send organic matter — such as fertilizer and animal waste — into waterways. Areas with warmer climates generally have higher levels of natural organic matter. And nearly any urban area can be prone to stormwater runoff or combined sewer overflows, which can contain rainwater as well as untreated human waste, industrial wastewater, hazardous materials and organic debris. These events are especially common along the East Coast, notes Sydney Evans, a science analyst with the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG, a collaborator on <a href="https://ensia.com/ensia-collections/troubled-waters/" target="_blank">this reporting project</a>).</p><p>The only drinking water sources that might be altogether free of disinfection by-products, suggests Richardson, are private wells that are not treated with disinfectants. She used to drink water from her own well. "It was always cold, coming from great depth through clay and granite," she says. "It was fabulous."</p><p>Today, Richardson gets her water from a city system that uses chloramine.</p>Toxic Treadmill
<p>Most community water systems in the U.S. use chlorine for disinfection in their treatment plant. Because disinfectants are needed to prevent bacteria growth as the water travels to the homes at the ends of the distribution lines, sometimes a second round of disinfection is also added in the pipes.</p><p>Here, systems usually opt for either chlorine or chloramine. "Chloramination is more long-lasting and does not form as many disinfection by-products through the system," says Steve Via, director of federal relations at the American Water Works Association. "Some studies show that chloramination may be more protective against organisms that inhabit biofilms such as Legionella."</p><p>If a drinking water facility fails to meet EPA regulations for disinfection by-products, one relatively easy and cheap modification is to add ammonia to the existing treatment, turning chlorine to chloramine. Many large community water systems in the U.S. now use chloramine. By doing so, according to Richardson, they have dropped levels of regulated disinfection by-products by up to as much as 90%.</p><p>However, there is one major drawback to this shift: the creation of potentially more harmful by-products. "It might push down on regulated disinfection by-products, but then other things pop up that are even more toxic," says Richardson, whose research team discovered previously unknown disinfection by-products in chloraminated drinking water. One of those finds, <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es304786b" target="_blank">iodoacetic acid</a>, is the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30919613/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">most DNA-damaging disinfection by-product</a> known to date.</p><p>Prasse underscored the concern: "From a regulatory perspective, we could say we're fine. But it's a false sense of security."</p><p>Rather than continuing on the toxic treadmill of replacing one potentially toxic chemical for another, a more effective solution may be to focus upstream in the treatment process — such as keeping organics out of the system in the first place. "That requires engineers, chemists, toxicologists and regulators to come together and figure something out," says Prasse.</p>
Alternative Approaches
<p>When he moved to the U.S. from Germany, Prasse says he immediately noticed the bad taste of the water. "You can taste the chlorine here. That's not the case in Germany," he says.</p><p>In his home country, water systems use chlorine — if at all — at lower concentrations and at the very end of treatment. In the Netherlands, <a href="https://dwes.copernicus.org/articles/2/1/2009/dwes-2-1-2009.pdf" target="_blank">chlorine isn't used at all</a> as the risks are considered to outweigh the benefits, says Prasse. He notes the challenge in making a convincing connection between exposure to low concentrations of disinfection by-products and health effects, such as cancer, that can occur decades later. In contrast, exposure to a pathogen can make someone sick very quickly.</p><p>But many countries in Europe have not waited for proof and have taken a precautionary approach to reduce potential risk. The emphasis there is on alternative approaches for primary disinfection such as ozone or <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/eco-friendly-way-disinfect-water-using-light/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ultraviolet light</a>. Reverse osmosis is among the "high-end" options, used to remove organic and inorganics from the water. While expensive, says Prasse, the method of forcing water through a semipermeable membrane is growing in popularity for systems that want to reuse wastewater for drinking water purposes.</p><p>Remucal notes that some treatment technologies may be good at removing a particular type of contaminant while being ineffective at removing another. "We need to think about the whole soup when we think about treatment," she says. What's more, Remucal explains, the mixture of contaminants may impact the body differently than any one chemical on its own. </p><p>Richardson's preferred treatment method is filtering the water with granulated activated carbon, followed by a low dose of chlorine.</p><p>Granulated activated carbon is essentially the same stuff that's in a household filter. (EWG recommends that consumers use a <a href="https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/reviewed-disinfection-byproducts.php#:~:text=EWG%20recommends%20using%20a%20home,as%20trihalomethanes%20and%20haloacetic%20acids." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">countertop carbon filter</a> to reduce levels of disinfection by-products.) While such a filter "would remove disinfection by-products after they're formed, in the plant they remove precursors before they form by-products," explains Richardson. She coauthored a <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b00023" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2019 paper</a> that concluded the treatment method is effective in reducing a wide range of regulated and unregulated disinfection by-products.</p><br><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ1OTg2MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MjI3OTk2NX0.XuxufjUTyOygRCpgnG2jXqOIy4isl7Vz1QlnMmKSyHM/img.jpg?width=980" id="003a3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0da178217c0a9dd4c3c880e1c05a86f9" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1144" data-height="312" />
Greater Cincinnati Water Works installed a granulated activated carbon system in 1992, and is still one of relatively few full-scale plants that uses the technology. Courtesy of Greater Cincinnati Water Works.
<p>Despite the technology and its benefits being known for decades, relatively few full-scale plants use granulated active carbon. They often cite its high cost, Richardson says. "They say that, but the city of Cincinnati [Ohio] has not gone bankrupt using it," she says. "So, I'm not buying that argument anymore."</p><p>Greater Cincinnati Water Works installed a granulated activated carbon system in 1992. On a video call in December, Jeff Swertfeger, the superintendent of Greater Cincinnati Water Works, poured grains of what looks like black sand out of a glass tube and into his hand. It was actually crushed coal that has been baked in a furnace. Under a microscope, each grain looks like a sponge, said Swertfeger. When water passes over the carbon grains, he explained, open tunnels and pores provide extensive surface area to absorb contaminants.</p><p>While the granulated activated carbon initially was installed to address chemical spills and other industrial contamination concerns in the Ohio River, Cincinnati's main drinking water source, Swertfeger notes that the substance has turned out to "remove a lot of other stuff, too," including <a href="https://ensia.com/features/drinking-water-contamination-pfas-health/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">PFAS</a> and disinfection by-product precursors.</p><p>"We use about one-third the amount of chlorine as we did before. It smells and tastes a lot better," he says. "The use of granulated activated carbon has resulted in lower disinfection by-products across the board."</p><p>Richardson is optimistic about being able to reduce risks from disinfection by-products in the future. "If we're smart, we can still kill those pathogens and lower our chemical disinfection by-product exposure at the same time," she says.</p><p><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://ensia.com/features/drinking-water-disinfection-byproducts-pathogens/" target="_blank">Ensia</a>. </em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2649953730#/" target="_self"></a></p>
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Eat Just's cell-based chicken nugget is now served at Singapore restaurant 1880. Eat Just, Inc.
At a time of impending global food scarcity, cell-based meats and seafood have been heralded as the future of food.
<p>This cell-based industry is where scientists, environmentalists and food technology companies intersect to offer more sustainable ways to feed the world's growing population. The high-tech food innovations take "the animal out of the meat" and create "seafood without the sea," respectively coined by <a href="https://newatlas.com/lab-grown-meat-public-attitudes/48921/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body" target="_blank">New Atlas</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/05/05/720041152/seafood-without-the-sea-will-lab-grown-fish-hook-consumers" target="_blank">NPR</a>. These products — real meat and seafood — are originally cultured from animal cells but made without the actual animal. Because of this, many of the personal and global concerns about safety, ethics and the environment can be avoided without sacrificing food preferences.</p><p>Two leading industry examples are Eat Just and BlueNalu. Last month, Singapore issued San Francisco-based Eat Just the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/lab-grown-chicken-approved-singapore-2649108790.html" target="_self">world's first regulatory approval for cell-based meat</a>. The "chicken nuggets" are now available at downtown Singapore restaurant 1880. Meanwhile, San Diego's BlueNalu has pioneered "cellular aquaculture" to create cell-based seafood fillets from fish, including yellowtail, mahi-mahi, red snapper and tuna. In mid-2020, the company increased its research and development facilities six-fold after completing a $20 million funding round, <a href="https://thefishsite.com/articles/blue-nalu-set-for-6-fold-expansion" target="_blank">The Fish Site</a> reported. These two companies are pushing the industry to the next level with key regulatory developments and new innovations.</p><h3>The Science Behind Cell-Based</h3><p>In a nutshell, this is how cell-based food works: muscle stem cells are obtained from an actual animal, like chicken or fish, and cultivated in steel tanks with the same nutrients that living animals consume. The goal is not to grow a full animal, so the end result doesn't include the head, tail or heart, for example, while the original cell donor isn't sacrificed. The harvested cells multiply and are shaped to form meat or fish that cooks, looks and tastes just like its real counterpart.</p><p>"The process is somewhat like culturing a beer. At the end of the process, you have chicken meat," Eat Just CEO Josh Tetrick told <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-01-11/would-you-eat-lab-grown-meat-video" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a>.</p><p>BlueNalu's President and CEO Lou Cooperhouse agreed, telling EcoWatch, "We aren't making a living being, it's just a fish fillet. It's live tissue until we freeze it. Then it's no longer live; it's the product you might have and consume every day."</p>
<h3>The Taste</h3><p>But how does it really taste? Identical to what consumers are used to, both companies told EcoWatch.</p><p>Cooperhouse described how his company mimics the "mouth feel" of conventional fish by recreating the same proportions of muscle, fat and connective tissue in their cell-based fillets. The company uses starter cells to grow all three types of tissue and then combines them to create the same exact product that consumers are used to eating.</p><p>"We're creating identical mahi-mahi to conventional mahi-mahi, from a sensory perspective and a functional perspective," Cooperhouse told EcoWatch. "When you cook it, it smells like fish. You can fry it, bake it, saute it. It caramelizes. It has all the same characteristics as fish, because it is fish. We just made it out of the body. We made it in steel tanks."</p><p>Andrew Noyes, head of global communications for Eat Just, similarly said that their chicken product "cooks, looks and tastes like chicken," including the flavor profile and texture, "because it is chicken."</p>
<h3>The Many Advantages of Cultured Foods</h3><p>Both companies emphasized how cell-based foods don't require killing animals or adding growth hormones or antibiotics. Cell-based food also removes the environmental impact of industrial farming and commercial fishing. This "critical overlay of benefits at every level" creates a new solution for global supply chains that supports biodiversity and the planet's health, Cooperhouse said.</p><p>"We want consumers to know our fillets are different in these ways," Cooperhouse added. "They're not wild, not farmed." On a <a href="https://medium.com/eat-blue/not-wild-not-farmed-but-what-should-we-call-our-seafood-made-from-fish-cells-136fa0343b4d" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">company blog</a>, Cooperhouse said that BlueNalu's products are a third alternative way to enjoy fish that is "as delicious and nutritious as their wild-caught or farm-raised counterparts... but without the mercury, microplastics or other pollutants that might be associated with conventional seafood."</p><p>Tetrick also emphasized the safety advantage of cultured meat over conventional. "This way of making meat radically decreases the probability of zoonotic diseases through our food system," he told Bloomberg, because it avoided pathogens like E. coli and salmonella, as well as sanitization concerns.</p><p>The environmental benefits of cell-cultured meat also mean less environmental destruction. Conventional <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/meat-consumption" target="_self">meat production</a> requires massive amounts of land for grazing and food production. Just growing feed for livestock <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/meat-consumption-2021-2649770271.html">uses 71 percent of global arable land</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-rainforest-collapse-2649776959.html#:~:text=The%20future%20of%20the%20world's,dry%2C%20shrubby%20plain%20by%202064." target="_self">drives Amazonian deforestation</a>.</p>
<p>"Chicken is the world's most consumed (and fastest growing) meat," Noyes told EcoWatch. "Chickens also consume more feed collectively than other farmed animals. Today, more than one-third of the ice-free land on Earth and tens of millions of acres of rainforest teeming with our planet's most diverse life forms have been replaced with fields of chicken feed."</p><p>According to the <a href="http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/I9540EN" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations</a>, 60 percent of the world's fisheries are fully fished, or at maximum output capacity, and 33 percent are overfished. Additionally, in the last half-century, oceanic <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/dead-zones" target="_self">dead zones</a> have quadrupled due to fishing and the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>, reported <a href="https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/lab-grown-fish?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Big Think</a>. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fish-farms" target="_self">Fish farming</a>, once thought to be a solution to declining wild fish populations, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/industrial-agriculture-problems-boycott-2554509022.html" target="_self">brings its own issues</a>, including the loss of critical mangrove habitat and the proliferation of sea lice and other diseases from farms, which escape and kill wild fish, <a href="https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-basics/sustainable-solutions/preserve-habitats#:~:text=The%20exponential%20growth%20of%20aquaculture,the%20local%20people%20and%20ecosystems." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Seafood Watch</a> reported.</p><p>Cell-based seafood won't put pressure on these depleted stocks and fragile habitats and will also avoid bycatch, a serious threat to biodiversity when unintentionally fished creatures are injured or killed.</p><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/beef-and-climate-change-2634244134.html" target="_blank">Meat production</a> is also energy-intensive and generates vast amounts of methane and other greenhouse gases. Cell-based foods are more carbon efficient and climate-friendly than conventional meat and seafood because of production efficiency and a localized distribution plan.</p><p>"If you look at climate change, this way of making meat is 90 percent more carbon-efficient than the typical approach," Tetrick told Bloomberg.</p><p>BlueNalu is preparing to scale for global cities to house 150,000-square-foot facilities, each capable of producing enough cell-based seafood to feed more than 10 million local residents, NPR reported. This way, cell-based seafood will avoid greenhouse gas emissions caused by shipping.</p>
<p>Finally, waste is reduced because these companies are only growing the animal parts to be consumed. Traditionally, cattle are inefficient, requiring five to 20 pounds of plant-based feed to create one pound of conventional beef, <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/beyond-the-impossible-meat-grown-from-cells-better-for-planet-if-you-will-eat-it/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">CNet</a> reported. <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lab-grown-meat/" target="_blank">Scientific American</a> estimated that one tissue sample from a cow could yield enough muscle tissue to make 80,000 quarter-pounders.<br></p><p>Cooperhouse estimated that a typical fish would produce a 60 percent yield after cutting off the head and tail and removing the skin and bones, whereas his fillets yield 100 percent.</p><p>"It's a total paradigm shift from an environmental and sustainability perspective," he told EcoWatch. "All that freight, oil, labor, dry ice, foam coolers — all goes away."</p><p>The consistency of quality, readily available products has also garnered interest from foodservice operators, Cooperhouse said. Having a stable supply available year-round will help restaurants combat the variability they currently experience.</p>
<h3>Challenges</h3><p>The big question is whether or not the general public will eat the products, once available.</p><p>"If there's an ick factor to cell-based fish, remember that most processed foods are already created in laboratories," argued Big Think. "There are no Oreo trees or ketchup plants to harvest."</p><p>A University of Queensland survey found that a majority of respondents would try the products, but less would eat them regularly or see them as conventional meat replacements, <a href="https://newatlas.com/lab-grown-meat-public-attitudes/48921/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">New Atlas</a> reported. Respondents reported that taste would be a driving factor in favor of cell-based foods.</p><p>Cost is the other issue. For Eat Just, their products are competitively priced with premium chicken, although they foresee a pathway for a cheaper price within the next five years, Tetrick told Bloomberg. BlueNalu doesn't yet have a price point for their inaugural mahi-mahi fillet, but are aggressively partnering with known brands and distributors to lower costs.</p><h3>What's Next</h3><p>Singapore's approval of Eat Just's nugget is paving the way for other companies and nations to follow suit, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/02/no-kill-lab-grown-meat-to-go-on-sale-for-first-time" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>. Both Eat Just and BlueNalu are actively engaging regulators in the U.S. and other countries to bring their products online as quickly and safely as possible. Since the products are not genetically modified, "the approval will be about whether this is safe, clean, and are the manufacturing processes reliable and accountable," Cooperhouse told NPR.</p><p>While not a substitute for all conventional food, if cell-based meats and seafood are scaled up and accepted, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/meat-consumption-predictions-vegan-lab-2638801931.html" target="_self">many hope to feed the world's anticipated 9.5 billion people</a> without stripping the planet bare and ruining the climate.</p><p>"The simplest way to think about it is it allows all of us to consume meat, the good part, the nutritional composition, the taste, and do away with the bad part, which is the killing, the environmental deforestation, the acceleration of zoonotic disease, and we can still have a fried chicken," Tetrick told Bloomberg.</p>
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New Zealand sea lions are an endangered species and one of the rarest species of sea lions in the world. Art Wolfe / Photodisc / Getty Images
One city in New Zealand knows what its priorities are.
Dunedin, the second largest city on New Zealand's South Island, has closed a popular road to protect a mother sea lion and her pup, The Guardian reported.
<p>"We've closed John Wilson Ocean Drive to vehicles for the next month to allow some special residents to use the road safely - a New Zealand sea lion and her pup have taken up residence at the golf course next door and are regularly crossing the road to get to the beach," the Dunedin City Council wrote in a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DunedinCityCouncil/posts/3687384977973820" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Facebook Post Monday</a>.</p>
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<p>The council said that residents could still walk or ride bikes in the area, but should stay at least 20 meters (approximately 66 feet) away from the sea lions at all times and keep any dogs on a leash.</p><p>The mother sea lion, named Hiriwa, was first spotted on the Chisholm Links golf course about a week ago and is now nesting with her pup in a bush near the 13th hole, <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/434504/sea-lion-makes-itself-at-home-on-dunedin-golf-course" target="_blank">Radio New Zealand reported</a>.</p>
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<p>This is her fifth pup, Department of Conservation (DOC) coastal Otago <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> ranger Jim Fyfe said.<br></p><p>"She has come up John Wilson Drive and into the golf course to have her pup in some bushes there," he told Radio New Zealand.</p><p>Fyfe also told the <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/dunedin-road-temporarily-closed-for-sea-lion-and-pup/XMOZAJTUISN7OCIRS6H7OSGPHY/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">New Zealand Herald</a> that the pup was born Thursday, Jan. 7 and immediately made its presence known by making lots of noise.</p><p>The mother and pup will now spend about a month nesting before heading out to sea, Fyfe explained. During that time, the mother will need to walk 500 meters (approximately 1,640 feet) to the beach each day to feed. On these journeys, she will think to avoid male sea lions, but she won't be thinking about cars, people or dogs. That is why the road closure is so important, Fyfe explained.</p>
<p>Local residents have responded favorably to the council's decision, The Guardian reported.</p><p>"Awesome! Love our little country in this way," one commenter wrote on Facebook.</p><p>The golf course has also welcomed its new residents.</p><p>"We're lucky to have marine mammals on our coastline and we need to share the space with them, as this is what makes our coastal Links and Dunedin's coastline so unique!" it wrote in a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ChisholmLinks/posts/3417932631666520" target="_blank">Jan. 5 Facebook post</a>.</p>
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<p>New Zealand sea lions are an <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species" target="_self">endangered species</a> and one of the rarest species of sea lions in the world, the city council noted. There are around 12,000 left in the world, according to DOC figures reported by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/new-zealand-sea-lions-road-closure-scli-intl/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>. Killing one can bring a penalty of up to two years in prison or a fine of up to $178,000.</p><p>Dunedin's 120,000 residents are used to road closures to protect <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife" target="_self">wildlife</a>, but usually these closures last for a day rather than a month, The Guardian explained. The city is also used to welcoming breeding sea lions since 1993, and their numbers in the city have increased since <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> efforts intensified.</p><p>Despite this, the overall breeding population of New Zealand sea lions is still falling. The main threats to the species are fishing, disease, human activity and lack of food.</p><p>Still, this is shaping up to be a good year for sea lions in Dunedin.</p><p>"This year we expect 20 sea lions around Dunedin to give birth. This is going to be a record number for us," Fyfe told Radio New Zealand. "New Zealand sea lions are a threatened species that is just recovering on the mainland coastline, so it's really good news."</p>
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piyaset / iStock / Getty Images Plus
In an alarming new study, scientists found that climate change is already harming children's diets.
<p>It has long been understood that climate change will impact diet and food security globally. But up until now, little research proved how diet diversity is impacted by climate change outcomes, like warmer temperatures and increased precipitation, over a span of geographical areas.</p><p>Led by researchers at the University of Vermont, the study surveyed the diets of more than 107,00 children under the age of five, across 19 countries in Asia, Africa, and South America, with 30 years of precipitation and temperature data, according to the <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abd0ab" target="_blank">study</a>.</p>
<p>Higher, long-term temperatures were associated with decreased diet diversity among children. "It surprised us that higher temperatures are already showing an impact," Meredith Niles, the study's lead author and an assistant professor of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of Vermont, said in an <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/gund/news/climate-change-hurting-childrens-diets-global-study-finds-0" target="_blank">article</a>.</p><p>In 2019, over 144 million children under the age of five were malnourished, <a href="https://data.unicef.org/topic/nutrition/malnutrition/#:~:text=In%202019%2C%2021.3%20per%20cent,5%20worldwide%20had%20stunted%20growth.&text=Between%202000%20and%202019%2C%20stunting,199.5%20million%20to%20144.0%20million." target="_blank">according to data by the UNICEF</a>. This number could have grown by an additional 6.7 million in 2020 alone, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a <a href="https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unicef-additional-67-million-children-under-5-could-suffer-wasting-year-due-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">report published in July</a>.</p>
<p>In the study, researchers used a scale developed by the United Nations to understand intakes of micronutrients like iron, folic acid, zinc and vitamins A and D.</p><p>On average children ate 3.2 out of 10 food groups. But in "emerging economies" like in China, children ate 6.8 out of 10 food groups, more than doubling the overall average, according to the <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/gund/news/climate-change-hurting-childrens-diets-global-study-finds-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">University of Vermont</a>. Household wealth, consequently, was the biggest factor in children's diet diversity, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/global-climate-food/scientists-warn-climate-change-is-harming-childrens-diets-idUSL8N2JO4P4" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Reuters reported</a>.</p><p>"These results suggest that, if we don't adapt, climate change could further erode a diet that already isn't meeting adequate child micronutrient levels," Brendan Fisher from UVM's Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/gund/news/climate-change-hurting-childrens-diets-global-study-finds-0" target="_blank">said</a> about children's diets in developing countries.</p>
<p>Although the study proved what researchers had long expected regarding warming temperatures, they did find surprising results on how precipitation alters diet diversity.</p><p>Higher precipitation, linked to countries in West and Southeast Africa and Central America, was associated with higher diversity in children's diet, the University of Vermont <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/gund/news/climate-change-hurting-childrens-diets-global-study-finds-0" target="_blank">reported</a>.</p><p>"Higher rainfall in the future may provide important diet quality benefits in multiple ways, but it also depends on how that rain comes," Molly Brown, a co-author of the study <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/gund/news/climate-change-hurting-childrens-diets-global-study-finds-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">said</a>. "If it's more erratic and intense, as is predicted with climate change, this may not hold true."</p><p>Changes in the agriculture and the food industry can also be linked to worsening diets, Paolo Vineis of Imperial College London, who studies the effects of climate change on the disease, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/global-climate-food/scientists-warn-climate-change-is-harming-childrens-diets-idUSL8N2JO4P4" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">told Reuters</a>.</p><p>By 2050, global demand for food may increase by 59 to 98 percent from a larger population. Although this will require major agricultural and food industries to rapidly expand their production, droughts and higher temperatures will threaten their ability to do so, <a href="https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2018/07/25/climate-change-food-agriculture/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Columbia University's Earth Institute reported</a>.</p>
<p>In the United States alone, for example, the production of corn, which is used to feed livestock, could decrease by 50 percent if the planet warms by four degrees Celsius, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6644" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a study found</a>, a likely temperature increase predicted for 2100.</p><p>So what kind of solutions can help?</p><p>Educating investors on the financial risks and potential opportunities of the climate crisis could help the food industry adapt to the climate impacts already being felt, Columbia University's Earth Institute <a href="https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2018/07/25/climate-change-food-agriculture/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported</a></p><p>"Food security is going to be one of the most pressing climate-related issues, mainly because most of the world is relatively poor and food is going to become increasingly scarce and expensive," Peter De Menocal, founding director of Columbia's Center for Climate and Life, <a href="https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2018/07/25/climate-change-food-agriculture/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">told Columbia's Earth Institute</a>.</p><p>As for improving diets globally, researchers at the University of Vermont <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abd0ab" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">stress</a> the need for more research aimed at protecting children's nutrition especially for "vulnerable populations in low and middle-income countries across the tropics where the most profound climate changes are expected."</p>
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