Asian elephants have been added to a list of species that need migratory protection. Steve Evans / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 2.0
By Karin Jäger
"They begin on a fall night, preferring the light of a full moon … Driven by the currents, they're pulled to the mouth of the river and out into the ocean," writes the WWF, rather poetically, of the European eel's long journey from the rivers of Central Europe to the far reaches of the Atlantic Ocean.
<p>Slithering eels don't usually conjure up such lyrical language. But the creature's life journey does have something of an epic quality.</p><p>Some 8000 kilometers (4971 miles) from its start point, the European eel meets up with its American counterpart in the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic, just east of Florida.</p><p>There they lay eggs and die. Their offspring then begin journeys that can take years back to the rivers from which their parents came. </p><p>But like any story, the eel's tale has its share of tragedy.</p><p>Many don't survive the strenuous journey. Hydropower turbines finish off many, while others fall victim to overfishing, perish in polluted rivers or waste away from parasitic infections. In the last 40 years, Europe's eel population has decreased by 98%.</p>
Think Beyond Borders to Protect Species
<p>When an animal crosses so many territories, how can it be protected? That's where the Convention of Migratory Species (CMS), sometimes known as the Bonn Convention, comes in. Every three years, the European Union and an additional 129 countries signed up to the CMS meet to discuss cross-border measures to protect eels and other animals on the move.</p><p>In February 2020, the convention met in Gandhinagar, India, where 10 migratory species, including the Asian elephant, jaguar and the oceanic whitetip shark, were added to the international wildlife treaty for the first time.</p><p>Nature's travelers face specific challenges, particularly as humans encroach more on animal habitat and carve up the landscape with roads and settlements, say experts. Wildlife needs to be taken into consideration at the planning stages of such infrastructure projects.</p><p>"Improving connections between habitats is important if we want to stop or even reverse extinctions," said Arnulf Köhncke, an ecologist with conservation group WWF. "You need to look at where an area cuts through as few migration routes and habitats as possible and plan and implement corresponding, cross-border (wildlife migration) corridors."</p><p>Such planning also requires cooperation between states.</p><p>Several bilateral agreements to protect migratory species already exist within the framework of the Bonn Convention. For instance, Chile and Argentina have committed to saving the endangered south Andean deer, which moves up and down the South American Andes, crossing through both countries as it does.</p>Unprecedented Global Biodiversity Loss
<p>Not all animals move across borders of their own accord. International trade in animals also requires international protection efforts. In the case of the eel, considered a delicacy from Europe to Asia, criminals smuggle young European "glass eels" in and out of countries, although international trade is strictly regulated under CITES, an international treaty governing trade in wildlife.</p><p>The trade is in animals caught in the wild. Breeding eels in captivity has so far proved impossible because of their complicated life cycle, which until recently, scientists still knew little about.</p><p>It's a lucrative gig and one that is driving down eel numbers. Although, the trade is regulated, enforcement is often lacking. People should avoid eating the animals, according to WWF. And we should avoid consuming too much fish and meat in general to halt species loss, says the conservation group.</p><p>Veronika Lenarz, who works with the secretariat of the Bonn Convention, agrees. But several major countries, like the USA, Russia and China, aren't party to the convention, while Japan refuses to sign up because of its whaling industry.</p><p>"We are in a crisis that threatens global biodiversity," said Lenarz.</p><p>In a major assessment of the world's wildlife published in September 2020, the UN warned of "unprecedented biodiversity loss" and said the global community had failed to fully achieve any of the 20 biodiversity targets set by the international organization 10 years ago.</p><p>While migratory animals are also impacted, not enough is known about many of the species to gauge to what extent. Researchers estimate there could be anywhere between 5,000 to 10,000 migratory species, ranging from storks and butterflies, to dolphins and wolves.</p>Climate Change: An Ever-Present Threat
<p>Regions in which the climate is changing most rapidly and on a large scale present a particular danger for migratory species. The animals, following a deeply embedded evolutionary instinct, will search for seasonal habitats in search of food and shelter. However, food is increasingly scarce in these places due to climate change.</p><p>Some animals are adapting. Compared to 20 years ago, fewer migratory birds are flying to their wintering grounds. But because these nomads are dependent on the many different habitats they use as resting points on their journeys, they are more vulnerable than their settled counterparts. By staying put, they're also in increased competition for scarce winter food supplies.</p><p>And while animals can adapt, not many can keep up with the pace of climate change.</p><p>"Reports from the UN climate group IPCC show that only a few species can move with the speed of climate change. And often alternative habitats are already occupied by humans," said Köhncke from the WWF.</p><p>The climate crisis and species loss shouldn't be viewed as unrelated issues, because both are damaging to the planet, added Köhncke.</p><p>"Migratory species help to maintain life on Earth. They contribute to the structure and functions of ecosystems as pollinators and seed dispersers, deliver food to other animals and regulate the number of species," said Köhncke. </p>Creating Conditions to Thrive
<p>Ensuring the conditions for the survival of these species should be considered when planning measures for dealing with the consequences of climate change, he added, referring to the WWF study "Wildlife in a Warming World."</p><p>Published in 2018, the study found that around 50% of species in some of the world's key natural regions, such as the Amazon, could disappear if climate change continues unabated.</p><p>Reindeer for instance, some of which migrate in the northern hemisphere, are no longer able to find enough food. Usually in winter, the animals clear snow with their hooves to uncover the lichens and moss they feed on. But temperatures now vary wildly, causing snow to melt or fall as rain instead. When the ground cools again, ice forms and the reindeer cannot get to their grub. </p>Simple Solutions to Protect Endangered Species
<p>Looking to the example of Mexico, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has shown protecting endangered migratory species doesn't have to be complicated.</p><p>Industrial farming has contributed to the jaguar's habitat shrinking by 50% in South and Central America in the last century. As a result, they began roaming near villages looking for food and attacking villagers' dogs. People retaliated by killing them. The IFAW hired community members to build dog houses, meaning the canines are no longer out roaming at night when they could run into big cat predators.</p><p>However, with the global conservation failures of the past decade looming, all eyes will be on the UN Biodiversity Conference scheduled to take place in China in 2021 and whether it can pull off a plan for protecting migratory and non-migratory animals like.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Vampire bats avoid other bats when they're feeling unwell. Uwe Schmidt / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 4.0
Scientists found that vampire bats in the wild will socially distance when they feel sick, according to a new study published in the journal Behavioral Ecology.
<p>Researchers had noticed that sick bats will practice social distancing in a lab setting, but wanted to know if the same thing happened in the wild. To figure out how sick bats in the wild behaved, researchers captured bats from a hollow tree in Belize and injected them with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). This made the bats feel sick without actually infecting them with a pathogen.</p><p>The researchers then affixed sensors to the sick bats and a placebo group to see how they interacted.</p><p>"The proximity sensors gave us an amazing new window into how the social behavior of these bats changed from hour to hour and even minute to minute during the course of the day and night, even while they are hidden in the darkness of a hollow tree," Simon Ripperger, co-lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at The Ohio State University, said in a <a href="https://news.osu.edu/for-vampire-bats-social-distancing-while-sick-comes-naturally/" target="_blank">statement</a>.</p><p>The scientists found that the sick bats spent less time with other bats, including those that were more social with others. This distancing effect declined after the sick bats felt better.</p>
<p>Researchers also noticed that the limited interactions were not just because the sick bats were together. The sick bats avoided other sick bats more than they avoided healthy bats in the control group, <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/even-vampire-bats-practice-social-distancing-when-they-get-sick-study-2020-10-27" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">MarketWatch</a> reported. In general, bats that did not feel well tended to self-isolate. "Sickness behavior can therefore slow the spread of a pathogen that is transmitted at higher probability with higher rates of physical contact (e.g., grooming) or closer proximity," the study found.</p><p>The results confirmed what previous studies had revealed in lab situations where bats injected with LPS "slept more, moved less, engaged in social grooming with fewer partners in a flight cage, spent less time grooming neighboring bats when forced into close association, and produced fewer contact calls that attract affiliated groupmates," according to the study.</p><p>MarketWatch reported how social distancing in the animal world is commonly practiced to control infectious diseases. For example, bees will remove sick colony members and chimpanzees will ostracize other chimps who appear contagious.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for humans, COVID-19 social distancing protocols require avoiding others even when we feel healthy.</p><p>"Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, when we feel fine, doesn't feel particularly normal," Ripperger said in a statement. "But when we're sick, it's common to withdraw a bit and stay in bed longer because we're exhausted. And that means we're likely to have fewer social encounters," he said.</p><p>Just like the bats in the study. "And it can be expected that they reduce the spread of disease as a result," Ripperger added.</p>
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Do you feel embarrassed due to the foul odor coming from your mouth? Or your oral hygiene isn't as good as before, and you are suffering from gingivitis (inflammation of gums)?
Well, these oral problems are skyrocketing, and even young people are suffering from oral issues that result in a lack of confidence.
It's common to change your toothpaste by seeing the TV commercials that claim to free you from bad breath or sensitive teeth, but these products don't always work.
Fighting oral issues isn't that easy, even if you religiously follow what your primary school teacher has taught, to "Brush two times a day!"
Well, there is a much-hyped supplement in the market that claims to help you fight all of these oral issues: The Steel Bite Pro.
Steel Bite Pro is an oral supplement that claims to cure bad breath and other such oral issues like sensitivity and gum problems.
But does the supplement really work, or is it just like the useless toothpaste that you tried before? Let's find out in this review.
Who Should Use Steel Bite Pro?
The best part about Steel Bite Pro is that anyone can use the supplement to get rid of oral issues. The supplement contains natural ingredients such as turmeric, zinc, alfalfa, jujube seeds, and much more, so there are no chemicals at all.
No matter whether you are 20 or 60, you can use this supplement to overcome oral issues and get the confidence back that you are missing due to bad odor and sensitive teeth.
Steel Bite Pro Review: Overview of the Supplement
Steel Bite Pro is an all-natural supplement that contains a mix of natural supplements to rebuild your gums and teeth.
The supplement contains 29 different foods that help you reduce the gum pain and other dental problems you have been facing for years.
More than 55,000 people have used Steel Bite Pro till now, and the results of the supplement are pretty impressive. Furthermore, the supplement is prepared in an FDA-approved facility in the USA.
It is available in the form of pills that you can consume anytime, so using the supplement is incredibly convenient. There are numerous benefits of using the Steel Bite Pro as it solves a plethora of dental problems.
Click here to Get the Best Deal on Steel Bite Pro from the Official Website.
Pros and Cons: Steel Bite Pro
To understand the supplement better, it is essential to know about its pros and cons.
Pros
Convenient to Use
The dietary supplement is convenient to use as it comes in the form of pills. You can take the pill anytime, even when you are in your office or somewhere else. Now there is no need to use multiple kinds of toothpaste and splurge money by visiting a dentist.
All-Natural Ingredients
All the ingredients present inside the supplement are natural, and there are no chemicals that can harm your teeth or gums.
Affordable
When you compare the cost of 1 bottle with the cost of a special toothpaste with the fee that your dentist charges, Steel Bite Pro will seem much more affordable. The supplement is available in multiple packages, so you will find it affordable to use.
No Side Effects at All
There are no side effects to using Steel Bite Pro, so you can rest assured that you won't face any headaches or other issues while curing the oral issues. The reason why Steel Bite Pro has no side effects is due to its natural ingredients.
Designed by Experts
The supplement is designed by experts that have been in the industry for years.
No Additional Medicines Are Required
When you are using Steel Bite Pro, you can avoid using other medicines that you have been taking to cure oral issues.
Attacks on the Pain
There are several ingredients present in Steel Bite Pro that attack tooth and gum pain so that you get some instant relief with the supplement.
Comes With a Money Back Guarantee
The supplement comes with a 60-day money back guarantee, so you can claim a full refund if you find the supplement isn't working for you, or if it isn't doing what the manufacturer has promised.
Cons
You Can Purchase It From the Official Site Only
The supplement is only available for purchase from the Official Website. Sometimes the supplement gets out of stock, so you have to wait for it to get back in stock.
A Single Bottle Costs More
If you buy a single bottle of the supplement, it'll cost you more than other packages with multiple bottles.
Ingredients in Steel Bite Pro
All the ingredients present in Steel Bite Pro are natural and have proven benefits for humans. Here is a list of supplements explained in detail and how they can benefit you if you start using Steel Bite Pro.
Turmeric
As per a study, there are innumerable benefits of using turmeric on your teeth. The natural herb has antimicrobial properties that help remove the plaque effectively from the teeth, exterminate bacteria and help cure sensitivity.
Moreover, turmeric is good for fighting oral inflammation issues. When applied on teeth, the ingredient gives instant relief from pain and is effective in curing mouth ulcers as well.
Berberine
Berberine is a natural herb with proven antioxidant power to help you get rid of microorganisms developing inside the mouth. Furthermore, the ingredient has anti-inflammatory properties and is good for curing oral issues caused due to viruses and bacteria.
Yarrow
It is another natural ingredient that is used in a range of health supplements due to its healing power. The ingredient naturally heals the gums and the damage caused to the teeth by bacteria and microorganisms.
As per a study, it helps reduce the infection, oral pain, and cures other dental issues.
Milk Thistle
Your liver has a significant impact on your oral health, and that's where milk thistle works. The natural ingredient eliminates toxins from the liver and detoxifies your mouth as well.
Here is a study that proves how milk thistle is beneficial in detoxifying the liver.
Alfalfa
The decaying of teeth is the initial phase of damage caused by bacteria thriving inside your mouth. Alfalfa works by reducing tooth sensitivity drastically and repairs the tooth decay caused by the bacteria.
It even stops the bacteria from growing further so you can expect good oral health.
Ginger
A lot of natural supplements for teeth contain ginger because of its benefits on the teeth and the stomach. This ingredient present in the Steel Bite Pro reduces nausea and inflammation.
As per this study, there are umpteen other benefits of ginger as well, such as it maintains the pH inside your mouth.
Jujube Seeds
Jujube seeds are good for boosting the immunity. Also, the ingredient has excellent antioxidant properties and is rich in Vitamin C, which is beneficial for the teeth and overall oral health.
Dandelion
Dandelion is a natural ingredient extracted from herbs. The ingredient is rich in minerals and has immense benefits such as fighting the bacteria and preventing the infections occurring inside your mouth.
Zinc
Zinc is essential for teeth, and that is why many toothpaste brands advertise that their product contains a good amount of zinc. Further, zinc is a natural immunity booster and fights against bacteria to prevent gum disease and cavities.
Moreover, zinc repairs the enamel on your teeth that's damaged due to toothpaste or any other reasons. Here is a study that shows the benefits of zinc for your teeth and mouth.
Chicory Root
Chicory root acts as a catalyst and increases the effectiveness of other ingredients. The reason why you get instant relief from pain after using Steel Bite Pro is due to the presence of chicory root in the pills.
Celery Seeds
Bacteria result in bad odor and can create cavities in the teeth. Furthermore, some bacteria result in tooth decay and harm the gums. The celery seeds fight these bacteria and prevent further growth.
Yellow Dock
To stay healthy, the teeth need to absorb the minerals present in the saliva. When your teeth are damaged for any reason, they stop absorbing the minerals, and the damage continues further.
Yellow dock helps the teeth to absorb the minerals while reducing the inflammation. Various studies have proven the efficacy of yellow dock for teeth and gums, and it is a natural and effective ingredient to keep the teeth healthy.
Raspberry, Chanca Piedra, and Artichoke
These three natural ingredients have similar properties and contribute a lot to the effectiveness of Steel Bite Pro. The ingredients have good amounts of vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin K, Vitamin C, magnesium, phosphorus, and folate.
The purifying agents will remove bacteria and other impurities from the mouth so that the other ingredients work well by repairing the teeth and gums.
Feverfew
The worst thing about oral issues is the pain that you have to go through. Steel Bite Pro claims to help with the pain as it contains feverfew, which is a natural pain reliever. The ingredient suppresses oral and dental pain so you will feel better instantly.
As per a study, there are some other benefits of feverfew, because it is a medicinal plant that suppresses other pains as well. Also, there are no side effects of feverfew at all.
Burdock Root
The root of the burdock plant comes loaded with antioxidants that improve the gum health and the overall health of your mouth.
The best thing about Steel Bite Pro is that the ingredients are present in exact quantities, so you can rest assured that there will be no side effects. Every ingredient is tested in the labs for its efficiency, and that's what makes the Steel Bite Pro a considerable option if you want to improve your oral and dental health.
Click here to See the full list of ingredients in Steel Bite Pro on the official website.
How Does Steel Bite Pro Work?
It is crucial to understand how the supplement works so that you can decide whether to invest in it or not. Below is a step by step process that will help you understand Steel Bite Pro on the go.
Step 1:
When you start consuming the supplement, the pills break down in your mouth. The ingredients then mix with saliva to perform their particular actions.
Step 2:
The ingredients fight the bacteria and heal issues such as wounds while reducing the inflammation caused in the mouth.
Step 3:
The supplement cements the root of the teeth so that there are no further oral and dental issues. Also, it heals the gums and repairs the enamel to provide you relief from sensitivity.
The minerals present in these ingredients strengthen the crown area of the teeth while repairing the cracks so that the damage can be stopped.
Step 4:
The supplement also has some impact on your overall health as the ingredients detoxify the liver by flushing away the toxins.
Step 5:
Consuming the supplement regularly will help you maintain the shield on the teeth that fights against bacteria and microorganisms. Also, it improves the condition of the teeth and curtails bad breath.
The working of Steel Bite Pro is really simple, as there are no complex ingredients present in the supplement. It is easy to use, and all you have to do is consume the pill regularly to keep your oral and dental health up to the mark.
Benefits of Steel Bite Pro
There are many benefits of using Steel Bite Pro since it is an all-natural supplement that has no side effects at all. Here are some benefits you need to consider before buying it.
Prevents Bleeding and Improves Gum Health
The reason why your teeth bleed is due to the loose gums. The space between the tooth and the gum results in bleeding, and that's where Steel Bite Pro helps. The supplement tightens the gums so that there is no bleeding at all.
Whitens the Teeth Naturally
The ingredients present in the supplement, such as zinc and milk thistle, whiten the teeth naturally. There is no need to invest in expensive teeth whitening toothpaste if you are using Steel Bite Pro.
Reduces Bad Breath
The supplement contains ingredients that improve the overall health of the teeth, and it automatically reduces bad breath.
Helps Cure Tooth Pain
Steel Bite Pro has feverfew, which is a natural pain reliever ingredient. The ingredient cures tooth and gum pain and can have instant results after you consume Steel Bite Pro.
Click here to Learn more about the Benefits of Steel Bite Pro on the official website.
Side Effects of Using Steel Bite Pro
You may find it surprising, but Steel Bite Pro has no side effects at all as the supplement contains natural ingredients and has exact quantities so that there are no ill effects on your health. If you keep using the supplement as prescribed, then it can have some excellent results.
Who Should Refrain from Steel Bite Pro?
Steel Bite Pro is an all-natural dietary supplement to improve your dental and oral health.
Anyone can use the supplement, including pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers. There are no harms of using the supplement.
However, it would be great to consult a doctor before using the supplement to find out if you are allergic to any of the ingredients.
Dosage and Tips to Start
To get the most from Steel Bite Pro, you should consume two pills with water every day. Take both capsules together anytime that's convenient for you.
To get the best results, follow a brushing regime, and massage your teeth regularly with some good-quality oil to increase the effectiveness of the pills.
Where to Buy Steel Bite Pro, and Guarantees?
You can only buy Steel Bite Pro from the Official Site, as the supplement is not available anywhere else for purchase. You can choose from three available options:
●1 bottle (60 pills) $69
●Three bottles (180 pills) $117
●Six bottles (360 pills) $294 (Best Deal)
You get a 60-day money back guarantee with all the packages, no matter if you go for one bottle or six bottles. You are eligible to claim the full refund within 60 days of the date of purchase.
Steel Bite Pro Reviews: Closing Thoughts
After this definitive review, it will be easier for you to find out whether you should use Steel Bite Pro or not. The supplement contains a mix of 29 natural ingredients that have proven benefits and are tested in labs.
It is essential to get rid of oral and dental issues before things get out of control and you have no option left despite visiting a dentist.
Getting a good quality supplement is essential, so Steel Bite Pro is a viable option if you need a supplement with no side effects.
Anyone can use this supplement irrespective of age, sex, and medical conditions. Lastly, buy the supplement only from the official site so that you can easily claim the refund if required.
Click here to Get the best deal on Steel Bite Pro from the official website.
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A pumpjack in North Dakota. Feifei Cui-Paoluzzo / Moment / Getty Images
North Dakota has found a controversial use for federal coronavirus relief money: using it to fund fracking.
<p>The state legislature voted Wednesday to reallocate $16 million in pandemic relief to pay $200,000 grants to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oil" target="_self">oil</a> companies to do fracking work on 80 incomplete wells, <a href="https://www.inforum.com/news/government-and-politics/6737422-North-Dakota-lawmakers-OK-16M-in-federal-pandemic-funds-for-fracking-grants" target="_blank">Inforum reported</a>.</p><p>"This is like a taxpayer bailout to the oil industry to get them to do something they would do anyway," leader of environmental group <a href="https://drcinfo.org/" target="_blank">Dakota Resource Council</a> Scott Skokos told <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28102020/north-dakota-coronavirus-stimulus-funding-fracking-oil-wells?fbclid=IwAR3_jU6Eu-1hxN-iVVsOtpeQzfO7xcl2KQ2wgWbZ7GFz5Vh1Ml3gGBxZo-M" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">InsideClimate News</a>. "It's like corporate welfare at the highest level."</p>
<p>The $16 million was part of a much larger $221 million in federal relief funds that the legislature voted to reallocate according to the budget approved by the North Dakota Emergency Commission Friday, Inforum and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-north-dakota-education-hydraulic-fracturing-2bc2a42c8f9af4a3c58aba4262ace32c" target="_blank">The Associated Press reported</a>. The money was awarded to North Dakota via the CARES Act in March, but the state had not been able to spend it for its intended purpose, Inforum explained. Because there is a year-end deadline for the use of CARES funds, the state had to reassign it or lose it.</p><p>However, the $16 million for fracking was the allocation that stirred controversy. That money had originally been intended to clean up abandoned oil and gas sites, InsideClimate News explained. But the approach of cold weather made the completion of the work by the end of the year impossible.</p>
<p>The idea to use that money for fracking grants came from North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms. Helms argued that the grants would create jobs and revitalize the oil industry, which was hit hard by the drop in prices at the beginning of the pandemic, according to The Associated Press. Officials also said the grants would boost state revenue, which relies on oil money.</p><p>But environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers criticized the decision. The <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/" target="_blank">Sierra Club</a> called it "totally inappropriate," while lawmakers said the funds should go to more urgent needs.</p><p>"We are at a point now where we are peaking every day as we try to battle this crisis, and I think any of the funds that we use need to be addressed to help us reduce the spread of this virus to help the lives and livelihoods of thousands of North Dakotans," Rep. Josh Boschee, D-Fargo, said, as Inforum reported.</p>
<p>Skokos pointed to the irony of using money intended to clean up oil and gas wells to frack new ones. And he said the logic behind the decision was backwards.</p><p>"They're giving taxpayer dollars to the oil industry to frack wells with the hope it will bring the state more taxpayer dollars," Skokos told InsideClimate News, "rather than taking the taxpayer dollars and actually using it to benefit taxpayers."</p><p>This is not the first time the oil and gas industry has been <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/marathon-petroleum-2646438449.html" target="_self">awarded coronavirus relief</a>. Oil companies have received between $9 billion and $13.8 billion from the federal government in direct aid, according to Bailout Watch.</p><p>The news out of North Dakota comes as U.S. residents continue to suffer from <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather" target="_self">extreme weather</a> events made more likely by the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>. Fires <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/california" target="_self">forced new evacuations</a> in Southern California this week, and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/hurricane-zeta-louisiana-2648544989.html" target="_self">Hurricane Zeta</a> became the fifth named storm of the year to batter Louisiana on Wednesday.</p>
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A ghost forest in Nags Head Woods, North Carolina on Oct. 16, 2017. NC Wetlands / CC BY 2.0
Along the Atlantic coast, ghost forests provide haunting signs of sea-level rise. These stands of bleached and broken tree trunks are all that remain after salty water inundates a forest.
Matt Kirwan is with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. He says ghost forests are not a new phenomenon, but they're moving inland faster as seas rise.
"Eventually they'll fall apart and become stumps surrounded by marshland," he says. "And so when you see a ghost forest now, you're seeing where the marsh will be in the future."
Marshes are valuable ecosystems, so in some ways, that's positive.
"Ghost forests are a surprising indicator of ecological resilience in coastal systems," Kirwan says. "They mark how marshes naturally migrate in response to sea-level rise."
But that migration comes at a cost.
"Places that people have lived for hundreds of years are becoming too wet and too salty to grow crops on, in some cases," Kirwan says. "And of course, the forest resources are being lost. And in some cases, people are forced to move from their homes as the land becomes too flooded."
So ghost forests have become eerie symbols of rapid change.
Reposted with permission from Yale Climate Connections.
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An aerial view of Misty Fjords National Monument, part of the Tongass National Forest, near Ketchikan, southeast Alaska. Blaine Harrington III / The Image Bank / Getty Images
The Trump administration formalized its intention to open up Alaska's pristine Tongass National Forest, an intact temperate rainforest, to logging and development, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
<p>The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) first <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-logging-tongass-national-forest-2647822178.html" target="_self">announced its intention to lift the forest's Roadless Rule last month</a>, but it had to wait 30 days before entering its final decision into the federal register. The pre-publication <a href="https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2020-23984.pdf?utm_campaign=pi%20subscription%20mailing%20list&utm_source=federalregister.gov&utm_medium=email" target="_blank">notice</a> posted Wednesday will enter the federal register Thursday and make it legal for companies to build roads and harvest timber from 9.3 million acres of the forest.</p><p>"While tropical rainforests are the lungs of the planet, the Tongass is the lungs of North America," Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist with the Earth Island Institute's Wild Heritage project, told The Washington Post. "It's America's last climate sanctuary."</p>
<p>The Tongass National Forest is home to centuries-old western hemlock, cedar, and Sitka spruce trees. The forest teems with life and is noted for its rich <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a>, including the largest-known concentration of bald eagles, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/28/trump-permit-logging-alaska-tongass-national-forest" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>.</p><p>"The decision to rollback the Roadless Rule on the Tongass was made in spite of, not in support of, Southeast Alaskans and our communities," Southeast Alaska Conservation Council Executive Director Meredith Trainor said in a <a href="https://www.seacc.org/press-release-trumps-usda-secretary-axes-roadless-rule-protections-for-the-tongass/" target="_blank">statement</a>. "In making this decision, the Trump Administration and the sham rulemaking process they undertook in our region ignored economic realities, environmental imperatives, and worst of all, the will of the people who actually live here."</p>
<p>In fact, in the public comment period, 96 percent of the comments were in favor of keeping the rule in place, according to The Guardian. The lifting of the rule also ignores the resolutions from six southeast Alaska tribes and six nearby city councils opposed to lifting protections.</p><p>Tribes involved in the planning of a compromise to open up some of Tongass withdrew from the project two weeks ago.</p><p>"We refuse to allow legitimacy upon a process that has disregarded our input at every turn," the tribal leaders wrote, according to The Washington Post.</p><p>The <a href="https://apnews.com/article/alaska-bears-salmon-forests-juneau-ad0387876475a880fe880800ddb40dc5" target="_blank">AP</a> reported that a large portion of the roadless areas are <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a> habitats, as well as ice fields and glaciers "that exist nowhere else in the National Forest system," according to the U.S. Forest Service.</p><p>And yet, the USDA insists that the move to lift the Roadless Rule from the forest "can be made without major adverse impacts to the recreation, tourism, and fishing industries, while providing benefits to the timber and mining industries, increasing opportunities for community infrastructure, and eliminating unnecessary regulations," according to the AP.</p>
<p>Critics balked at the idea of sacrificing the forest to provide benefits to the timber and mining industries</p><p>"It's ironic that this administration is trying to tout this president's environmental record when [Trump is] unwinding environmental safeguards all over the place," said Ken Rait, project director of the Pew Charitable Trust, as The Guardian reported. "And lifting protections on the Tongass, the nation's flagship forest, is about the most egregious of all of them."</p><p>Activists insists that they will take the fight to court to try to stop any development in the Tongass National Forest.</p><p>"As sure as the sun rises in the east, with our allies, we will sue to keep these magnificent giants standing for centuries to come," said Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity, who referred to the Tongass' old-growth trees as giants, according to the AP.</p>
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Some researchers are concerned about how the twice-a-year switch impacts our body's physiology. pasja1000 / Pixabay
By Michael S. Jaffee
For most of the U.S., the clock goes back one hour on Sunday morning, Nov. 1, the "fall back" for daylight saving time. Many of us appreciate the extra hour of sleep.
<p>But for millions, that gain won't counter the inadequate sleep they get the rest of the year. About 40% of adults – 50 to 70 million Americans – <a href="https://doi.org/%2010.17226/11617" target="_blank">get less than the recommended</a> minimum seven hours per night.</p><p>Some researchers are concerned about how the twice-a-year switch impacts our body's physiology. <a href="https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.8780" target="_blank">The American Academy of Sleep Medicine</a>, the largest scientific organization that studies sleep, now wants to replace daylight saving time with a move to a year-round fixed time. That way, our internal circadian clocks would not be misaligned for half the year. And it would eliminate the safety risk from sleep loss when transitioning to daylight savings time.</p><p><a href="https://neurology.ufl.edu/profile/jaffee-michael/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">I am a neurologist</a> at the University of Florida. I've studied how a lack of sleep can impair the brain. In the 1940s, most American adults averaged 7.9 hours of sleep a night. Today, it's only 6.9 hours. To put it another way: In 1942, 84% of us got the recommended seven to nine hours; in 2013, it was 59%. To break it down further, a January <a href="https://blog.fitbit.com/sleep-study/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2018 study from Fitbit</a> reported that men got even less sleep per night than women, about 6.5 hours.</p>
The Case for Sleep
<p>Problems from sleep shortage go beyond simply being tired. Compared to those who got enough sleep, adults who are short sleepers – those getting less than seven hours per day – <a href="https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/sleep/conditioninfo/inadequate-sleep" target="_blank">were more likely to report</a> 10 chronic health conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, obesity, asthma and depression.</p><p>Children, who need more sleep than adults, face even more challenges. <a href="https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/10.5664/jcsm.5866" target="_blank">To promote optimal health</a>, six- to 12-year-olds should sleep nine to 12 hours a day; teens from 13 to 18, eight to 10 hours. But a Sleep Foundation poll of parents says children are getting at least one hour less than that. And <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/30.9.1079" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">researchers have found</a> that sleep deprivation of even a single hour can harm a child's developing brain, affecting memory encoding and attentiveness in school.</p><p>Sleep impacts <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-we-so-sleep-deprived-and-why-does-it-matter-91803" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">every one of our biological systems</a>. Serious consequences can result with poor sleep quality. Here's a short list: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.09-2954" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Blood pressure</a> may increase. <a href="https://doi.org/%2010.2174/157340310790231635" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Risk of coronary heart disease</a> could go up. Our endocrine system releases more cortisol, a stress hormone. We become more aroused by "fight or flight" syndrome. There's a reduction of growth hormone and muscle maintenance. There's a higher chance of increased appetite and weight gain. The body has less glucose tolerance and greater insulin resistance; in the long term, that means an increased risk for Type 2 diabetes.</p><p>Sleep deprivation is associated with increased inflammation and a decreased number of antibodies to fight infections. It may also cause a decrease in pain tolerance, reaction times and memory. Occupational studies show sleep loss can cause poor work performance, including more days missed and more car accidents.</p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cophys.2019.10.020" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Recent research suggests</a> the body's waste removal process relies on sleep to get rid of harmful proteins from the brain, particularly abnormal variants of amyloid. These are the same proteins that are elevated in Alzheimer's patients. <a href="https://www.alzforum.org/news/research-news/lymphatic-brain-drain-withers-aging-worsens-disease" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Studies show</a> that older adults who sleep less have greater accumulation of these proteins in their brains.</p><p>On the other hand, getting enough sleep helps the body in many ways by protecting against some of these damaging effects and by boosting the immune system.</p>The Problem With DST
<p>Most of the risk associated with daylight saving time occurs in the spring, when we turn the clock forward and lose one hour of sleep. The idea of a national permanent year-round time has support, but disagreements exist on whether the fixed time should be standard time or daylight savings time.</p><p><a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/daylight-savings-time-state-legislation.aspx" target="_blank">States advocating</a> for permanent daylight saving time are typically those that rely on tourism. Environmentalists, favoring less energy consumption from morning heating and evening air conditioning, <a href="https://savestandardtime.com/pdfs/kotchen_and_grant-2008_12.pdf" target="_blank">often support permanent standard time</a>. Religious groups, whose prayer times are linked to sundown and sunrise, <a href="https://vosizneias.com/2018/03/13/miami-floridas-proposed-change-to-permanent-daylight-savings-time-could-create-halachic-problems-for-jewish-community/" target="_blank">also tend to prefer</a> permanent standard time. <a href="https://savestandardtime.com/pdfs/mercury_news-2018.pdf" target="_blank">So do many educators</a>, opposed to transporting children to school during mornings when it's still dark.<br></p><p>As you ponder what system is best for a national year-round standard, consider this: The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has recommended we go with permanent standard time – a better way to align with our natural circadian clock and minimize health and safety risks.</p><p>And just think: If we change to permanent standard time, then for the first time in decades, you won't lose an hour of sleep every spring.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Waves crash over Lake Pontchartrain as Hurricane Zeta makes landfall on Oct. 28, 2020 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Sandy Huffaker / Getty Images
Hurricane Zeta slammed into storm-weary Louisiana as a Category 2 storm Wednesday, killing at least one person and breaking the record for the most named storms to hit the state in a single season.
<p>Zeta is the fifth named storm to clobber Louisiana this year and follows the especially devastating one-two punch of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/hurricane-laura-louisiana-gulf-of-mexico-2647106305.html" target="_self">Hurricanes Laura</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/hurricane-delta-laura-louisiana-2648175286.html" target="_self">Delta</a> in August and October. Around 3,600 people are still displaced following the two previous storms and most of them are living in six hotels in New Orleans, which took a direct hit from Zeta, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/28/us/hurricane-zeta-wednesday/index.html" target="_blank">CNN reported</a>.</p><p>"It's one (storm) after the other. We're just a target. I told my friend they're zeroing in on us. They're looking for us," 71-year-old Laura evacuee Billy Ewing, who has been staying in New Orleans hotels since August, told CNN. "And we can't control it. What's the matter right now is we can't control anything. I'm not in control of what my status is. I'm not in control of where I live."</p>
<p>Zeta made landfall near the fishing village of Cocodrie, Louisiana around 4 p.m. Wednesday, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/us/hurricane-zeta.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The New York Times reported</a>. It then tore through New Orleans and ripped along the Mississippi coast.</p><p>The storm killed at least one person, <a href="https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/dead-as-hurricane-zeta-barrels-northeast/2388048/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">NBC News Bay Area reported</a>. A 55-year-old man was electrocuted by a downed power line in New Orleans.</p><p>New Orleans had been in the projected path of six different storms this season, but they had all veered east or west. This time, the city's luck ran out and it took a direct hit.</p><p>"This is not a drill," Mayor LaToya Cantrell warned residents ahead of the storm, as The New York Times reported.</p><p>The storm cut out power to more than 500,000 people in Louisiana, and most of New Orleans was dark after it passed, according to NBC News Bay Area. More than 200 trees were downed, and one person was hospitalized with minor injuries after a structure collapsed.</p>
<div id="ebd95" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6944cdac6522e9abb00edf77aabf3d99"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1321604205208129538" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Hurricane Zeta knocks out power on Bourbon Street. @FOX8NOLA https://t.co/sgu7JCzYuO</div> — Garland Gillen (@Garland Gillen)<a href="https://twitter.com/garlandgillen/statuses/1321604205208129538">1603929971.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"Although we have made it through, we have been damaged, we have been hit," Cantrell said.</p><p>The storm was and is fast moving. This means that high winds were the biggest safety hazard, even blowing the roofs off of some houses, The New York Times reported. However, the advantage of the fast pace meant that it did not stall and pour rain in one place. The <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a> is making storms <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-hurricanes-wetter-2619851055.html" target="_self">wetter</a>, and slow, wet storms have caused major <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding" target="_self">flooding</a> in recent years.</p><p>"It's not going to sit there and pound for hour after hour," Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a briefing on Wednesday, as The New York Times reported. "It should move through the area relatively quickly."</p><p>However, this also means a wide range of the Southeast will feel its effects, CNN pointed out. Strong winds were projected to reach inland Mississippi and Alabama, while heavy rain was projected to pummel Georgia and the Carolinas Thursday.</p><p>Zeta weakened to a tropical storm over central Alabama early Thursday morning, the <a href="https://twitter.com/NHC_Atlantic/status/1321693259631001601" target="_blank">National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported</a>. However, it is still packing a punch. The NHC warned of wind gusts strong enough to down trees and cause power outages in northeastern Alabama, northern Georgia, the Carolinas and southeastern Virginia Thursday.</p>
<div id="d01e1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b31220072eb1b43fbf722e7c774396d4"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1321736884666556416" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Here are the 4 AM CDT Key Messages for Tropical Storm #Zeta, which is racing across the southeastern United States… https://t.co/Yr7UBOTKMM</div> — National Hurricane Center (@National Hurricane Center)<a href="https://twitter.com/NHC_Atlantic/statuses/1321736884666556416">1603961604.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>As of 6:55 a.m., there were already more than 920,000 people without power in Georgia, <a href="https://www.wsbtv.com/weather/live-updates-zeta-brings-risk-flooding-damaging-wind-brief-tornadoes/MPUQUP55GNDLRI2L3GL2TDNYWU/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">WSB-TV 2 Atlanta reported</a>.<br><br>Zeta is the earliest 27th named storm on record in an extremely active Atlantic hurricane season and the 11th hurricane, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/27/louisiana-hurricane-warning-mexico-yucatan" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>. An average hurricane season has six hurricanes and 12 named storms. In addition to making storms wetter, the climate crisis is also making them <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tropical-storm-intensity-climate-crisis-2646033123.html" target="_self">more intense</a>.<br></p>
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Schmidt Ocean Institute's R/V Falkor held position as the ROV SuBastian explored the new reef. Dean Miller / Schmidt Ocean Institute
Australian scientists have discovered a massive detached coral reef in the Great Barrier Reef. It is the eighth detached reef discovered in the northern Great Barrier Reef and the first to be discovered in over 120 years.
<p>According to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/28/scientists-discover-500-metre-tall-skyscraper-reef-at-australias-great-barrier-reef" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>, detached reefs are not part of the main body of the Great Barrier Reef and instead spring from the ocean floor off the continental shelf. These types of reefs act like isolated seamounts because there is a lot of deep water between them and the next coral community, explained team lead Robin Beaman to The Guardian. This opens up the possibility of unique species evolving.</p>
<p>The reef was first spotted on Oct. 20 by scientists conducting underwater mapping of the seafloor off of a Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI) research vessel, reported <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/great-barrier-reef-coral-empire-state-building-1542066" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Newsweek</a>.</p><p>"This unexpected discovery affirms that we continue to find unknown structures and new species in our Ocean," Wendy Schmidt, SOI co-founder, said in a <a href="https://schmidtocean.org/australian-scientists-discover-500-meter-tall-coral-reef-in-the-great-barrier-reef-first-to-be-discovered-in-over-120-years/" target="_blank">statement</a>.</p><p>The team 3-D mapped the reef in detail and used an underwater robot named SuBastian to explore the reef and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Ee7JV5oSI&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">live-stream video</a>.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYzMjY1MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzY0NTI5NX0.54q8qPEVj9YlvrafMy1KlPiH6HfqVMrXDkUWIFPG984/img.jpg?width=980" id="eaf53" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f355085be277671048b31af47c17a542" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A newly-discovered 1,600-foot tall detached reef in the Great Barrier Reef was discovered, 3-D mapped and filmed by Australian scientists. Schmidt Ocean Institute
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5f7514f247cc7f7ac1840546caff2459"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kwzg6VwK7NU?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p>While the newly discovered reef does not appear to have a lot of hard corals in the shallowest section, SuBastian observed "an incredible abundance" of sponges, sea fans and soft corals in addition to reef fish and grey reef sharks, reported The Guardian. This rich <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> suggests that the area is rich in nutrients that are carried from deep waters by strong currents and upwellings, the news report said.</p><p>"We are surprised and elated by what we have found," Beaman said in the SOI statement. "To not only 3D map the reef in detail, but also visually see this discovery with SuBastian is incredible."</p>
<p>Scientists estimated the reef to be 20 million years old at its deepest point, reported <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-10-27/reef-detached-discovered-cape-york/12816760" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ABC News</a>. The base of the reef is almost 5,000 feet wide, and it rises 1,600 feet tall — dwarfing iconic skyscrapers like the Empire State Building in New York City and the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/coral-reef-taller-empire-state-building-discovered-australia-s-great-n1244955" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">NBC</a> reported. At its shallowest, the peak is just 130 feet below the ocean's surface.</p><p>"To find a new half-a-kilometer tall reef in the offshore Cape York area of the well-recognized Great Barrier Reef shows how mysterious the world is just beyond our coastline," said Jyotika Virmani, SOI executive director, in the SOI statement. "This powerful combination of mapping data and underwater imagery will be used to understand this new reef and its role within the incredible Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area."</p>
<p>According to Newsweek, the Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure in the world. It comprises nearly 133,000 square miles which include 3,000 coral reefs, 600 continental islands and 150 mangrove islands.</p><p>Despite its massive size, the reef is <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/great-barrier-reef-bleaching-2645210028.html" target="_self">under severe threat</a>. The <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/australia-great-barrier-reef-poor-2640118306.html" target="_self">outlook is "very poor</a>" because the climate crisis has raised ocean temperatures, which can stress corals and cause them to "bleach" or expel symbiotic algae, leaving white coral skeletons exposed. While not deadly, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-bleaching" target="_self">coral bleaching</a> leaves the animal vulnerable, and prolonged or repeated bleaching events have been known to kill coral reefs, reported Newsweek. Recently, another team of scientists estimated that the Great Barrier Reef has already <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/great-barrier-reef-corals-climate-crisis-2648203228.html" target="_self">lost half of its corals to the climate crisis</a>.</p><p>Co-author of that study, Terry Hughes of James Cook University urged, "We still have an opportunity to save the reef if we deal with climate change. 1.1 degrees of warming so far has triggered five bleaching events since 1998 [but] we still have half a reef," reported ABC News.</p><p>The scientists will continue to map the area until mid-November. Earlier discoveries on this same research cruise included what is believed to be the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/worlds-longest-animal-ocean-2645712197.html" target="_self">longest recorded sea creature</a>, a siphonophore potentially longer than 390 feet. The new reef and the other findings will likely lead to years of study, The Guardian reported.</p><p>"This is evidence for the importance of exploring our undersea environment so that we can protect it," SOI spokesperson Carlie Wiener told ABC News.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYzMjY3Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MjkyMTg5OX0.DTuQMkPdn9QJ37dTVO2GnK5D52WEfTvhO62PAR3ZtYg/img.jpg?width=980" id="92193" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0483a91913e037d071912ed850908883" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Scientists used a robot to capture video of the enormous detached reef found off Australia's northern coast. Schmidt Ocean Institute
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A North Atlantic right whale feeds off the shores of Duxbury Beach, Massachusetts in 2015. David L. Ryan / The Boston Globe via Getty Images
The population of extremely endangered North Atlantic right whales has fallen even further in the last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said Monday.
<p>The agency said that there were only 366 of the whales as of January 2019, down from 412 in January of 2018, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/maine-f1d8dcf05131240f7203d8bec96dee3d" target="_blank">The Associated Press reported</a>. But their numbers are likely even lower than that. NOAA Fisheries has documented the deaths or likely fatal injuries of a further 15 whales since, the <a href="https://www.clf.org/newsroom/preliminary-estimate-366-endangered-right-whales-remain-on-earth/" target="_blank">Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) pointed out</a>.</p><p>"These population estimates are devastating," CLF senior attorney Erica Fuller said in response to the news. "The outlook is grim if we do not act today. We know human activities are decimating this population, what will it take for federal fishery managers to finally take action to protect these magnificent animals?"</p>
<div id="10051" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cbfd96c49775f44ea9e04797d5618651"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1320791680052826113" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">In dire news for an already critically endangered species, @NOAAFisheries just announced that they're estimating th… https://t.co/PYM2rNAlXo</div> — David Abel (@David Abel)<a href="https://twitter.com/davabel/statuses/1320791680052826113">1603736250.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Atlantic right whales have been protected by the U.S. government since 1972, according to The Associated Press. Their numbers were initially devastated by commercial whaling. Today, the leading causes of death for the whales are being struck by vessels and getting entangled in fishing gear, Boston Globe reporter David Abel <a href="https://twitter.com/davabel/status/1320791684964372480" target="_blank">wrote on Twitter</a>.</p><p>Right whales have also struggled to reproduce in recent years, according to The Associated Press. Thirteen whales were born in the last two years, but two are already thought to have died, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/10/26/metro/their-population-plummets-right-whales-verge-extinction/?event=event25" target="_blank">Abel reported in The Boston Globe</a>. One was actually found dead, and another was hit by a boat just hours after being born. Another alarming data point from NOAA Fisheries is that there are only 94 breeding females left in the species.</p><p>Further, the decline in numbers between 2018 and 2019 is partly because the whales' numbers were overestimated in 2018, NOAA marine mammal take reduction team coordinator Colleen Coogan told The Boston Globe. She said that updated photo identification data suggested there were only 383 whales in 2018, not 412. Coogan noted that the 2019 numbers were preliminary and would be reviewed before a federal assessment of the species due next year.</p>
<p>The population of right whales peaked in 2011 at 481. Since then, an average of 24 whales have died every year. But the population can only withstand less than one death a year to avoid extinction.</p><p>"Given the low population numbers … it is essential that we work together to protect every North Atlantic right whale in order to avoid extinction for this endangered species," Coogan wrote in an email to members of a federal advisory board organized to find ways to protect the whales from mortality.</p><p>CLF, the <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/" target="_blank">Center for Biological Diversity</a>, the <a href="https://www.humanesociety.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Humane Society of the United States</a> (HSUS) and other groups sued NOAA Fisheries to better protect right whales from getting entangled in lobster lines in the Gulf of Maine. A judge ruled in their favor, and the agency now has until May 2021 to issue new regulations.</p>
<p>"If we don't act quickly, right whales are headed rapidly toward extinction," HSUS marine issues field director Sharon Young told The Boston Globe. "It is appalling to think this nation would permit the extinction of a whale species in our waters. It's time to stop talking and take action."</p><p>The new NOAA figures weren't the only warning sign for North Atlantic right whales to be reported this week. For the first time in four decades, marine scientists with the New England Aquarium did not observe any right whales in the Bay of Fundy this year, the <a href="https://bangordailynews.com/2020/10/14/news/no-right-whales-found-in-the-bay-of-fundy-this-year/" target="_blank">Bangor Daily News reported</a>.</p><p>They were able to confirm that citizen scientists took pictures of two whales in or near the bay. However, in past years, as many as 50 to 150 whales would forage in the body of water between Maine, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The numbers have been falling since 2010 because of another threat: the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>.</p>"It's just a reflection of how the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">ocean</a> is changing with climate change, and their food resource, plankton, they're not blooming at the same time and in the same areas that they used to, so it's a reflection that for them and for our oceans things are changing pretty dramatically," New England Aquarium researcher Amy Knowlton told the Bangor Daily News.
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Hundreds of Canadian children took part in a massive protest march against climate change in Toronto, Canada, on May 24, 2019. Creative Touch Imaging Ltd. / NurPhoto / Getty Images
By Heather Houser
Compost. Fly less. Reduce your meat consumption. Say no to plastic. These imperatives are familiar ones in the repertoire of individual actions to reduce a person's environmental impact. Don't have kids, or maybe just one. This climate action appears less frequently in that repertoire, but it's gaining currency as climate catastrophes mount. One study has shown that the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from having one fewer child in the United States is 20 times higher—yes 2000% greater—than the impact of lifestyle changes like those listed above.
<p>Yet opponents are quick to accuse child-free for climate advocates of racism and nativism because their aims can resemble those of forced population control. In early 2019, U.S. Rep. <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/431440-ocasio-cortez-in-face-of-climate-change-its-legitimate-to-ask-if-ok" target="_blank">Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a> set off a news avalanche for deeming it "legitimate" to ask whether it's "OK to still have children" given the dire predictions for planetary climate change. As a lightning rod for conservatives, AOC got outsized attention for an idea that's been circulating for decades, even centuries: making an ecologically minded choice to forgo reproduction.</p><p>Choice. That word introduces two knotty issues surrounding proposals to go child-free—or child-fewer—for climate. First, choice smuggles in the keyword in anti-abortion versus abortion-rights battles over reproductive liberties in the U.S. Second, it suggests that large-scale social and environmental changes rest on individuals or families acting alone. Limiting one's sights to individual choice passes over the structures within which those choices occur and the histories of gender and racial injustice that shape them—structures and histories that effectively prevent actual choice. The solution, then, lies in viewing reproductive justice through a framework that prioritizes bodily self-determination. </p>
The Stickiness of Population
<p>Only five years ago, there was minimal coverage of the child-free for climate movement. AOC is just one of many reasons it's lighting up now. New scientific analyses, scholarly debates, and social media conversations have shined a light on reproduction and climate. The influential <a href="https://www.drawdown.org/" target="_blank">Project Drawdown</a> framework for climate mitigation includes a list of solutions ranked by their potential impact, two of which—educating girls and providing access to family planning—they project will have <a href="https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions" target="_blank">a greater combined impact</a> on reducing greenhouse gas emissions than almost all other climate solutions because of their effect on fertility rates.</p><p>In January 2020, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/1/8/5610806" target="_blank">11,000 scientists signed onto a study that warned</a> about the unfolding climate emergency. The authors prescribe steps in six sectors that can prevent irreversible planetary collapse, including that "the world population must be stabilized—and, ideally, gradually reduced—within a framework that ensures social integrity." The framework they propose includes universal access to family planning as well as education and equity for young women. (Other <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1410465111" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">scientific takes</a> on population-based climate actions are more skeptical about their immediate impact given the scale of fertility reductions needed to balance out longer lifespans.)</p><p>Even before 2020, a new movement was afoot to address climate by forgoing reproduction. Blythe Pepino, a British musician in her 30s, formed BirthStrike in 2018 to build a community of people—typically women-identified—who have opted not to reproduce in response to the ecological and social crises that climate change is creating. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests this summer, the group recognized the need to acknowledge the oppression that colors conversations about reproduction as it relates to climate and so reformed itself into a support group for those grieving parenthood. Their new stated goal is to channel that loss into action on climate justice.</p><p>Organizations such as <a href="https://conceivablefuture.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Conceivable Future</a>, however, continue to keep reproduction at the fore. Led by climate activists Meghan Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli, Conceivable Future is raising awareness about how the climate crisis affects "<a href="https://conceivablefuture.org/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">intimate choices</a>" like reproduction. The Conceivable Future and now-defunct BirthStrike campaigns share ideological terrain with "<a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/08/18/479349760/should-we-be-having-kids-in-the-age-of-climate-change" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">population engineers</a>," a group of bioethicists who <a href="https://doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract201642430" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">forward policies for</a> limiting the size of the global population through positive incentives like family planning classes and negative ones such as taxes on wealthy procreators. </p><p>In proposing specific policies rather than individual action, population engineers acknowledge the structures within which reproductive choices occur, everything from media influence to the tax code. Even with this shift to the structural, however, the racist, sexist, colonialist, and nativist legacies of the population question within environmentalism still plague child-free for climate. As do the historical and social injustices that constrain so-called choices.</p>Racism and Xenophobia in Environmentalism
<p>This summer and fall, the climate crisis and its correlated catastrophes—<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/heat-wave-western-united-states/" target="_blank">extreme heat</a>, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/14/a-third-of-bangladesh-underwater-after-heavy-rains-floods/" target="_blank">flooding</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/wildfires" target="_blank">wildfires</a>—are intensifying alongside Black Lives Matter uprisings and the <a href="http://www.yesmagazine.org/health-happiness/2020/06/09/coronavirus-public-health-social-justice/" target="_blank">coronavirus health disparities</a> among Black, Indigenous, and Latinx populations. This confluence has brought overdue attention to racism in environmentalism, as evidenced by the Audubon Society's recent <a href="http://audubon.org/magazine/fall-2020/revealing-past-create-future" target="_blank">reckoning</a> with racial injustices in its past and present, including <a href="https://www.audubon.org/news/the-myth-john-james-audubon" target="_blank">publicizing</a> that its famed founder was a White supremacist and a slaveholder. The intersections of <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2020/09/23/election-black-voters-climate/" target="_blank">climate justice and racial justice</a> have also come to the fore through <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/climate/heat-minority-school-performance.html" target="_blank">studies of how Black communities are greatly harmed by hotter temperatures</a> and through the popular <a href="https://www.intersectionalenvironmentalist.com/" target="_blank">intersectional environmentalist</a> platform created by Leah Thomas, a young Black activist and "<a href="https://www.greengirlleah.com/about-1" target="_blank">eco-communicator</a>." To these reckonings we need to add the racism and xenophobia that have long characterized environmentally motivated population controls.</p><p>The New York Times recently exposed these sins in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/anti-immigration-cordelia-scaife-may.html/" target="_blank">a profile of Cordelia Scaife May</a>, showing how this heir to the Mellon fortune converted a love of birding into a network of anti-immigration, pro-population-control organizations that still influence politics today. In the 1960s May linked threatened birdlife to the rapidly expanding human population. May wasn't wrong to see and worry over this link: A host of human activities—from <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/popular-pesticides-linked-drops-bird-population-180951971/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">toxic agriculture and industry</a> to <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0050157" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sprawling settlements</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555949789/light-pollution-can-impact-noctural-bird-migration" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">light</a> and <a href="https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/birds-live-near-human-noise-sing-louder-shorter-songs" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">noise pollution</a>—decimate avian habitats and habits. May's anti-immigration approach, however, indicates how readily environmentalism can mutate into racist and xenophobic actions.</p><p>The Times investigators show that "protecting natural habitats and helping women prevent unplanned pregnancies merged over time into a single goal of preserving the environment by discouraging offspring altogether." Taken on its own, this goal resonates with Conceivable Future's and population engineers' aims. To be clear, this does not mean that today's child-free climate advocates are racist nativists. However, it does indicate how readily the affiliation arises because of the ugly history of forced population control.</p>Contemporary Examples
<p>And this history is hardly past. For example, race and class conflicts erupted around a population platform within the Sierra Club only 15 years ago. In 2004, a faction of club members took a page from May and argued that more people living in the U.S. meant more encroachment on less developed land and water. As with May's effort, this anti-immigration push amounted to "the greening of hate," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League, who entered the dispute when they found White supremacists lobbying for anti-immigration Sierra Club board candidates. A 2010 <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20100630/greenwash-nativists-environmentalism-and-hypocrisy-hate" target="_blank">SPLC report</a> firms up the connection between environmentalist intentions and racist agendas by explaining why White nationalist John Tanton infiltrated the club: "Using an organization perceived by the public as part of the liberal left would insulate nativists from charges of racism—charges that … would likely otherwise stick."</p><p>Charges of racism ultimately did stick to Tanton and his anti-immigration, pro-population-control allies. And they continue to stick in analyses of the child-free for climate movement today. Earlier this year, climate journalist Meehan Crist <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n05/meehan-crist/is-it-ok-to-have-a-child" target="_blank">took up</a> AOC's question of whether it's OK to have a child. In arriving at an answer (for her, yes), she affiliates child-free positions with "anti-feminist, racist and anti-human" values and with bad science. "Darker visions" proceed from this analysis, she writes, visions of those who believe "racial purity will save the planet. Closed borders. . . . Ecofascist death squads." The dark visions Crist spins from the child-free for climate question underscore how readily calls for reproductive limits touch the third rails of modern environmentalism: racism, eugenics, xenophobia, even death-dealing.</p><p>We get even closer to these third rails when we consider that the question of whether to reproduce is, for some people, no choice at all. Modern efforts to limit fertility, which ramped up after World War II, have targeted poor women in the Global South, and Black, Indigenous, and people of color in the U.S. using coercion and force. BIPOC reproductive justice advocates such as Loretta Ross have condemned dichotomous pro-abortion-rights versus anti-abortion politics for producing "<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Radical_Reproductive_Justice/hN-4DgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=loretta%20ross%20radical%20reproductive&pg=PT8&printsec=frontcover&bsq=anemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">anemic political analyses</a>" that ignore the reality of forced sterilizations in prisons and the appallingly high maternal mortality rate for Black women in the U.S. These are all forms of what medical historian and ethicist Harriet Washington calls "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8WCS1Rs8K8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">medical apartheid</a>."</p><p>This oppression <a href="https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/unwanted-sterilization-and-eugenics-programs-in-the-united-states/" target="_blank">has been used</a> "as a means of controlling 'undesirable' populations—immigrants, people of color, poor people, unmarried mothers, the disabled, the mentally ill." Recent events confirm this isn't a historical anomaly. In September, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexico-asks-us-to-clarify-alleged-hysterectomies-on-migrant-women-in-ice-custody/" target="_blank">accusations</a> of nonconsensual hysterectomies and other procedures in an ICE detention center reestablished that, when it comes to women's health, "choice" comes with the privileges of race, class, and citizenship status.</p><p>Reproductive justice advocates offer a way through the rocky shoals of weighing whether to have children amid a climate crisis. The reproductive justice framework prioritizes bodily self-determination for people of all races, genders, classes, and sexualities, and it recognizes that, just as poverty and racism can impinge on that self-determination, so too can environmental degradation. As <a href="https://www.sistersong.net/" target="_blank">SisterSong</a>, a "women of color reproductive justice collective" based in Atlanta, puts it, reproductive justice is "the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities." Because the climate crisis threatens the safety and sustainability of communities, it also threatens the right to bodily autonomy. Within this framework, reproduction is not about choice but about the systems that can make reproductive outcomes no choice at all.</p><p>When we debate climate actions, we often focus on feasibility, economics, and political and popular support. But grim histories also travel with climate proposals: histories of environmentalist racism and of reproductive violence against poor, BIPOC, and other marginalized people in the U.S. and abroad. This shouldn't squelch conversations about child-free for climate. We should take it seriously, but if it is to go from being an expression of individualist privilege to part of a wider debate, we must wrestle with the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Economization_of_Life/MX3WDgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=murphy%20economization%20life&pg=PT125&printsec=frontcover&bsq=grammar" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">observation</a> by science studies scholar Michelle Murphy that "race is the grammar and ghost of population." Only through nuanced attention to the histories, values, and associations attaching to climate actions can we hope to sustain dialogue about which ones—whether they be child-free or the Green New Deal—are just and efficacious in these critical times, while keeping reproduction and family part of the climate conversation.</p>
<p><em>Heather Houser writes on the environment, contemporary culture, and science and technology. She's an associate professor of English at The University of Texas at Austin, and her most recent book is Infowhelm: Environmental Art and Literature in an Age of Data (Columbia University Press, 2020).</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2020/10/26/have-kids-climate-change/" target="_blank">Yes! Magazine</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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For the first time on record, the main nursery of Arctic sea ice in Siberia has yet to start freezing by late October. Euronews / YouTube
By Sharon Guynup
At this time of year, in Russia's far north Laptev Sea, the sun hovers near the horizon during the day, generating little warmth, as the region heads towards months of polar night. By late September or early October, the sea's shallow waters should be a vast, frozen expanse.
<p><br/></p>
<p>But not this year. For the first time since records have been kept, open water still laps this coastline in late October though <a href="https://weawow.com/c9189393/tomorrow" target="_blank">snow</a> is already falling there.</p><p>"In one sense, it's shocking, but on the other hand, it's not surprising," said <a href="https://nsidc.org/research/bios/meier.html" target="_blank">Walt Meier</a>, a research scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder's <a href="https://nsidc.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Snow and Ice Data Center</a> (NSIDC). Over the past 40 years, unprecedented climate change-driven events such as this have become the new normal in the Arctic — which is heating up <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/why-the-arctic-is-warming-so-fast/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">far faster</a> than the rest of the planet.</p>
<p>While weather patterns at the top of the world vary, the overall changes are dramatic and occurring so rapidly that the region may be entering a "new Arctic" climate regime, <a href="https://www.ecoshock.org/2020/09/the-arctic-has-entered-a-new-climate-state.html" target="_blank">says Laura Landrum</a>, an oceanographer with Colorado's <a href="https://ncar.ucar.edu/" target="_blank">National Center for Atmospheric Research</a> (NCAR). The Arctic <a href="https://www.nature.com/nclimate/" target="_blank">is transitioning</a> from a mostly frozen state into an entirely new climate — and impacting the entire planet, she said.</p><p>Meier calls the Arctic the "bellweather of climate change" because it's a place where a small bump in temperature has real impact: a change from -.5°C to .5°C (31°F to 33°F) is the difference between ice skating and swimming, he said, while a couple of degrees warmer in Florida may not even be noticed.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYwNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MDcyMzIzMH0.EaEzABAC2Xq96dXQJ91WnuuPQfSE1o8ig7Vo-HZHCek/img.jpg?width=980" id="87d48" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c0f95377ec752e87a80832136af0f46a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Comparison of autumn sea ice formation for the first half of October 2012 (the record year for Arctic sea ice extent loss) and in 2020 (second place for sea ice extent loss). The satellite record goes back to 1979. @Icy_Samuel, data provided by NSIDC
<h3><strong>An Extreme Year in a Region Known for Extremes</strong></h3><p>It's been quite a year in Siberia — on land, and off the Arctic coast. The first six months were extraordinarily warm and the sea ice began melting early. By May, fires burned in permafrost zones that are usually frozen year-round. In June, temperatures hit a record-breaking 38°C (100°F), and by September, blazes <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02568-y" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">incinerated</a> about 14 million hectares (54,000 square miles) of tundra — an area the size of Greece.</p><p>A combination of changing climate and quirky weather are now preventing this fall's freeze-up. Siberian sea temperatures are higher than usual because of this year's extreme climate events. The heat wave warmed the many rivers that feed into the Arctic Ocean and also triggered an early melt-out. Without ice and snow that acts like a mirror — reflecting the sun's heat back into the atmosphere — the dark ocean absorbed extra warmth over the summer. Much of the remaining ice disintegrated. Then in September, unusually strong, warm winds blew in from the south, pushing any newly formed ice out to sea.</p><p>In the past, a shift in the winds wouldn't have mattered much. Back in the 1980s, <a href="https://news.uaf.edu/expertsguide/igor-polyakov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Igor Polyakov</a>, a climate scientist at the University of Alaska, remembers being part of expeditions that landed small seaplanes on sea ice to study the Siberian Arctic. He described the Laptev Sea as a solid, glaring white landscape punctuated by pastel-tinged ice: rose-colored, light blue and green. Since the regions' deeply cut gulfs and bays are located in shallow continental shelf waters, they mostly stayed frozen.</p><p>But by summer 2002, sea ice was less stable, and today, ice breakers can travel the region through open water. "The changes are dramatic," he said. "It happened in front of our eyes. Now, in the summer, there's no ice at all for thousands of kilometers, sometimes as far north as the 85th parallel." That's five degrees from the North Pole.</p><p>In the 1980s, about 80% of the Arctic Ocean and its surrounding seas were frozen in thick, "old ice" that mostly survived the summer melt, said <a href="https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/scientist/dr-james-e-overland" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">James Overland</a>, an oceanographer with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who has studied the Arctic for decades. "Now much of that has to refreeze each winter. We did not expect to see this so soon."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYxMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0OTI4NTQ3Nn0.h7gfBVBOiWHjc1F6veGxzZh7NIP2Aec0YsVgoyuF26Y/img.jpg?width=980" id="f9eed" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="76639f8f14b9d48d7496132d68b324ce" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Arctic sea ice extent on Oct. 25, 2020 was at a record low 5.613 million square kilometers for this date, surpassing the record set in 2019 of 6.174 million square kilometers. ChArctic NSIDC
<h3><strong>A Dangerous Cycle</strong></h3><p>Across the Arctic, ice is now thawing earlier, freezing later, thinning and — in many places — disappearing altogether.</p><p>Thinner ice is less resilient. Picture ice cubes in a glass. Thick chunks last longer and melt slower than ice chips and slivers. All disintegrate faster in warmer liquid. This is a huge problem in the Arctic, where vast stretches of open blue water absorb the sun's heat during summer, when the sun never really sets. Those warm waters flow beneath the ice to melt it from below.</p><p>This year, the overall health of the sea ice was bleak: the end-of-summer minimum was tracking at the second-lowest amount of sea ice in 42 years, Landrum said. Measurements by NASA and the NSIDC found it was about 2.6 million square kilometers (1 million square miles) lower than the average from 1981 to 2000. NASA satellite data shows an overall downward trend in Arctic ice is averaging 12.9% a year.</p><p>This year's average global temperature will be among the warmest on record, researchers say. Current models predict the Arctic will be ice-free in summertime by 2040 – 2050. Overland thinks this so-called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U82e8XF-5Lo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Blue Ocean Event</a> (BOE) might come even sooner.</p><p>Many factors are colliding that could speed massive melt. New feedback loops continue to emerge, compounding and accelerating changes. For example, early climate models didn't factor in methane — a potent greenhouse gas — that's pouring into the atmosphere from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/arctic-permafrost-moving-toward-crisis-abrupt-thaw-a-growing-risk-studies/" target="_blank">melting permafrost</a>. The tundra is now thought to be emitting 300-600 million tons of carbon yearly, the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator" target="_blank">equivalent of driving</a> between 65 and 129 million cars for a year.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYyMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMjc2MjQyMX0.aAfm5qED_d_pgl29XwQcKL8lVcGi_yuDTmpsdxSlTFY/img.jpg?width=980" id="ce7d7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="35b889b0841d11eb150720ea638a0a90" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The Arctic appears to be changing into an entirely new climate state due to rapid warming. The extent of sea ice in the late summer, when it reaches its minimum each year, has already entered a statistically different climate, with surface air temperatures and the number of days with rain instead of snow also beginning to transition. Simmi Sinha, ©UCAR
<p>Likewise, thick ice that withstood high winds and storms decades ago, now is thin and can be severely damaged by such storms — amplifying one-off extreme weather events. Then there's "<a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-atlantification-is-making-the-arctic-ocean-saltier-and-warmer" target="_blank">Atlantification</a>," the increasing intrusion of salty, temperate Atlantic Ocean waters into chillier Arctic seas.</p><p>The changes in the Laptev Sea, long known as an Arctic "ice factory," add another concerning factor. In the past, sea ice created there typically moved with wind and ocean currents, traveling over the North Pole towards Greenland. Depending on changing conditions, that ice then spent years trapped in a slowly spinning gyre in the <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/arctic-archipelago" target="_blank">Beaufort Sea</a>; ended up off the Greenland coast; or piled up on the north shore of <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/arctic-archipelago" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Canadian Archipelago</a>, building ice ridges that towered 3 to 9 meters (12 to 30 feet) high — multi-year ice that resisted melting.</p><p>That system no longer works as before, with the Laptev Sea now turning to blue water every summer, the "ice factory" largely shut down, and <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/characteristics/multiyear.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">multi-year Arctic sea ice</a> at a record low — and still dropping.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYzMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNzY3NTYxNX0.Zuh1spCYvxt252oBj4dLJE7nbQR4xz1yCB5sJlWoK1k/img.jpg?width=980" id="4a421" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d0b74b890c99f5a70fc03f874e627e58" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A polar bear prowls the Arctic shoreline. VisualHunt.com
<h3><strong>An Interconnected Planet</strong></h3><p>The <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/polar-bear-population-decline-a-wake-up-call-for-climate-change-action" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">polar bear</a> has become the poster child for climate change impacts on wildlife. But Ursus maritimus isn't the only victim; <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/03/beyond-polar-bears-arctic-animals-share-in-vulnerable-climate-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cascading affects</a> throughout the Arctic food chain are impacting everything from <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0905-y" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">plankton</a> to <a href="https://climate.org/archive/topics/ecosystems/seals-battle-climatechange.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">seals</a>, globally <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00179/full" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">important fisheries</a> species like <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-arctic/climate-change-hitting-top-u-s-fishery-in-the-arctic-noaa-idUSKBN1YE2F2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pollock</a>, on up to <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/endangered_species/cetaceans/threats/climate_change/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">whales</a>, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/dress-like-a-polar-bear-learning-to-love-muskoxen-at-15-below-zero/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">musk ox</a> and other cold climate mammals.</p><p>In Siberia, <a href="http://climate.org/archive/topics/climate-change/reindeer-climate-change.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reindeer</a> are starving in wintertime. "<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/weather-whiplash-record-heat-snow-colorado-wyoming-typhoons/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Weather whiplash</a>" is bringing rain, in what should be the frigid dead of polar night. The falling rain freezes atop the snowpack, forming a layer of thick ice that makes it impossible for reindeer to dig down to grass and plants below; many now die of hunger. These once-rare Arctic warm spells are now commonplace.</p><p><a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/arctic-thaws-indigenous-alaskans-demand-voice-climate-change-research" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Indigenous people</a> are <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/environment/indigenous_impacts.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">also suffering</a>. Without proper ice platforms, it's growing harder for them to hunt for the walrus and whales that sustain them. Coastlines are eroding as sediments held together by permafrost become unglued. And rising seas are inundating coastal villages.</p><p>Worse, rapidly escalating climate change in the Far North is being exported to the rest of the world: The Earth's biomes are interconnected. "You can't alter one system without affecting others," explained <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/geography/mark-serreze-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mark Serreze</a>, a research scientist for the NSIDC. "What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic, and the changes are unfolding faster than our ability to keep up with them." Serreze, in his 2018 book framing the problem, dubbed the north polar region as, "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-Arctic-Melting-Essentials/dp/0691173990" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Brave New Arctic</a>."</p><p>Serreze notes that the Arctic covers a massive area; it's the size of the lower 48 U.S. states combined. <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/melting-arctic-sea-ice-may-be-altering-winds-weather-at-equator-study/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amplified Arctic warming alters global weather</a>, and impacts the rest of the planet, changing weather, ocean patterns and the jet stream.</p><p>Intense storms, droughts and heat waves — once every 100- or 500-year extreme weather events — are now occurring regularly around the globe, with devastating impacts on people, economies, and ecosystems. This year alone, for example, saw massive record wildfires in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/10/25/california-wildfires-winds-power-cuts/" target="_blank">California</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/3-largest-wildfires-colorado-history-have-occurred-2020-n1244525" target="_blank">Colorado</a>, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/photos-show-scale-of-massive-fires-tearing-through-siberian-forests/" target="_blank">Siberia</a>, and <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/list/amazon-fire-beat/" target="_blank">Brazil</a>, and no one yet knows how this autumn's delayed Arctic re-freeze might impact the planet's upcoming weather.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYzNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1ODQ2Njg5Nn0.4Wo1cYXxGqf_k1sKhmmP0BR7L2vz25xSw7oV40K8QX8/img.jpg?width=980" id="f964c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4ccb27ee442373429ccf6f0ec973031e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A fire burning through northern forest in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, in July 2020. Greenpeace International
<p><a href="https://nsidc.org/research/bios/stroeve.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Julienne Stroeve</a>, who specializes in sea ice research at NSIDC, adds another potential serious impact to the list: threats to our food supply. "What's predicted to happen in <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rstb.2005.1744" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">agricultural sectors</a> is not good news ... We're going to be living on a very different planet if we keep adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere," she said. "We're conducting this blind experiment, and we don't yet know the real implications.</p><p>Stroeve is desperate to inform people of the urgency: "How do you sell climate change to be as much of an emergency as COVID-19? Except that it will kill a lot more people."</p><p>She believes we can rally. If we can produce a COVID-19 vaccine in record time, and heal the ozone layer through the <a href="https://www.state.gov/key-topics-office-of-environmental-quality-and-transboundary-issues/the-montreal-protocol-on-substances-that-deplete-the-ozone-layer/" target="_blank">Montreal Protocol,</a> Stroeve thinks "we have the ability to change the course of this train."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/brave-new-arctic-sea-ice-has-yet-to-form-off-of-siberia-worrying-scientists/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Fossil remains indicate these birds had a wingspan of over 20 feet. Brian Choo, CC BY-NC-SA
By Peter A. Kloess
Picture Antarctica today and what comes to mind? Large ice floes bobbing in the Southern Ocean? Maybe a remote outpost populated with scientists from around the world? Or perhaps colonies of penguins puttering amid vast open tracts of snow?
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<p>Fossils from Seymour Island, just off the Antarctic Peninsula, are painting a very different picture of what Antarctica looked like 40 to 50 million years ago – a time when the ecosystem was lusher and more diverse. Fossils of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61973-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">frogs</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03115518.2011.565214" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">plants</a> such as ferns and conifers indicate Seymour Island was much warmer and less icy, while fossil remains from <a href="https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8268" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">marsupials and distant relatives of armadillos and anteaters</a> hint at the previous connections between Antarctica and other continents in the Southern Hemisphere.</p><p>There were also birds. Penguins were present then, as they are now, but fossil relatives of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.13679/j.advps.2019.0014" target="_blank">ducks, falcons and albatrosses</a> have also been found in Antarctica. My <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5CGShQUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao" target="_blank">colleagues</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XlyfD9QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao" target="_blank">I</a> have recently published an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75248-6" target="_blank">article</a> revealing new information about the fossil group that would have dwarfed all the other birds on Seymour Island: the pelagornithids, or "bony-toothed" birds.</p>
Giants of the Sky
<p>As their name suggests, these ancient birds had sharp, bony spikes protruding from sawlike jaws. Resembling teeth, these spikes would have helped them catch squid or fish. We also studied another remarkable feature of the pelagornithids – their imposing size.</p><p>The largest flying bird alive today is the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/group/albatrosses/" target="_blank">wandering albatross</a>, which has a wingspan that reaches 11 ½ feet. The Antarctic pelagornithids fossils we studied have a wingspan nearly double that – about 21 feet across. If you tipped a two-story building on its side, that's about 20 feet.</p><p>Across Earth's history, very few groups of vertebrates have achieved powered flight – and only two reached truly giant sizes: birds and a group of <a href="https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/pterosaurs-flight-in-the-age-of-dinosaurs/what-is-a-pterosaur" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reptiles called pterosaurs</a>.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNTM1MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MzU3NzQ4MX0.YS7_KnVR9sjypuvU4e42zccxgYW-_WgV6iVafkDsOMM/img.jpg?width=980" id="78970" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="95d21d5a82c7b1826385df45bc05cc65" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Full-size model of a Quetzalcoatlus on display at JuraPark in Baltow, Poland. Aneta Leszkiewicz / Wikimedia
<p>Pterosaurs ruled the skies during the Mesozoic Era (252 million to 66 million years ago), the same period that dinosaurs roamed the planet, and they reached hard-to-believe dimensions. <a href="https://www.wired.com/2013/11/absurd-creature-of-the-week-quetz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Quetzalcoatlus</a> stood 16 feet tall and had a colossal 33-foot wingspan.</p>Birds Get Their Opportunity
<p>Birds originated while dinosaurs and pterosaurs were still roaming the planet. But when an <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur-killing-asteroid-impact-chicxulub-crater-timeline-destruction-180973075/" target="_blank">asteroid struck the Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago</a>, dinosaurs and pterosaurs both perished. Some <a href="https://www.audubon.org/news/how-birds-survived-asteroid-impact-wiped-out-dinosaurs" target="_blank">select birds survived</a>, though. These survivors diversified into the thousands of bird species alive today. Pelagornithids evolved in the period right after dinosaur and pterosaur extinction, when competition for food was lessened.</p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1284" target="_blank">The earliest pelagornithid remains</a>, recovered from 62-million-year-old sediments in New Zealand, were about the size of modern gulls. The first giant pelagornithids, the ones in our study, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75248-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">took flight over Antarctica about 10 million years later</a>, in a period called the Eocene Epoch (56 million to 33.9 million years ago). In addition to these specimens, fossilized remains from other pelagornithids have been found on every continent.</p><p>Pelagornithids lasted for about 60 million years before going extinct just before the Pleistocene Epoch (2.5 million to 11,700 years ago). No one knows exactly why, though, because few fossil records have been recovered from the period at the end of their reign. Some paleontologists cite <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2011.562268" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">climate change as a possible factor</a>.</p>Piecing it Together
<p>The fossils we studied are fragments of whole bones collected by paleontologists from the University of California at Riverside in the 1980s. In 2003, the specimens were transferred to Berkeley, where they now reside in the <a href="https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">University of California Museum of Paleontology</a>.</p><p>There isn't enough material from Antarctica to rebuild an entire skeleton, but by comparing the fossil fragments with similar elements from more complete individuals, we were able to assess their size.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNTM2MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NDg2NTgzMn0.nouTygP-aON3I5a1RKEG9q1vB7_yJ30rTTd_Brc0CrA/img.jpg?width=980" id="cc47d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8ac77d6b9034f166e00fabac14d36f98" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
In life, the pelagornithid would have had numerous 'teeth,' making it a formidable predator. Peter Kloess, CC BY-NC-SA
<p>We estimate the pelagornithid's skull would have been about 2 feet long. A fragment of one bird's lower jaw preserves some of the "pseudoteeth" that would have each measured up to an inch tall. The spacing of those "teeth" and other measurements of the jaw show this fragment came from an individual as big as, if not bigger than, the largest known pelagornithids.</p><p>Further evidence of the size of these Antarctic birds comes from a second pelagornithid fossil, from a different location on Seymour Island. A section of a foot bone, called a tarsometatarsus, is the largest specimen known for the entire extinct group.<br></p><p>These pelagornithid fossil findings emphasize the importance of natural history collections. Successful field expeditions result in a wealth of material brought back to a museum or repository – but the time required to prepare, study and publish on fossils means these institutions typically <a href="https://theconversation.com/digitizing-the-vast-dark-data-in-museum-fossil-collections-102833" target="_blank">hold many more specimens than they can display</a>. Important discoveries can be made by collecting specimens on expeditions in remote locations, no doubt. But equally important discoveries can be made by simply processing the backlog of specimens already on hand.</p>
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<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/peter-a-kloess-1164526" target="_blank">Peter A. Kloess</a> is a </em><em>Doctoral Candidate, Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley.</em>
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<em>Disclosure statement: </em><em><em>Peter A. Kloess 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></em>
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<em><em></em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/giant-toothed-birds-flew-over-antarctica-40-million-to-50-million-years-ago-148772" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em>
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