Coal Soot From Europe's Industrial Revolution Found in the Himalayas

New research has found that soot dating back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution made its way across Europe to settle on the top of the Himalayas, according to a new study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The findings show the byproduct of coal burning dating back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution around 1780. It was found in an ice core extracted from the Dasuopu glacier, at an elevation of over 23,600 feet, on the Shishapangma mountain, according to the study. Shishapangma is the world's 14th largest mountain.
The mountain, which had deposits of toxic material from the late 18th century, is 6,400 miles from London, where the Industrial Revolution started.
"Unintended consequences were and are still part of human history," lead author Paolo Gabrielli, from the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, Ohio, told Newsweek. "I see irony in the fact that we humans did not learn this lesson and we still believe to have everything under control."
The research team from Ohio State that published the study was part of a march larger group of scientists that traveled to Dasuopu in 1997 to drill ice cores from the glacier, according to a press release from Ohio State. The ice cores are useful for providing a trove of data, including snowfall records, atmospheric circulation and other environmental changes over time. The Byrd Center has on of the world's largest collection of ice cores.
Gabrielli and his colleagues analyzed an ice core that they believe formed between 1499 and 1992, looking for 23 trace elements. They found higher-than-natural levels of a number of toxic metals, including cadmium, chromium, nickel and zinc, from around 1780. These metals are all by-products of burning coal, which were likely transported by winter winds, which travel around the globe from west to east, according to Cosmos Magazine.
"The Industrial Revolution was a revolution in the use of energy," Gabrielli said in a statement. "And so the use of coal combustion also started to cause emissions that we think were transported by winds up to the Himalayas."
However, Gabrielli did note that some of the trace materials found, notably zinc, may have come from large forest fires, especially the large ones used in the 19th century to clear land for agriculture, according to Cosmos Magazine.
"What happens is at that time, in addition to the Industrial Revolution, the human population exploded and expanded," Gabrielli said, as Cosmos Magazine reported. "And so there was a greater need for agricultural fields and, typically, the way they got new fields was to burn forests."
The most abundant contamination of toxic metals was found in layers frozen between 1810 and 1880, which researchers say was likely caused by wetter-than-normal winters, which caused more ice and snow to form, as Newsweek reported.
Gabrielli and his team also reported that samples from the 20th century showed trace amounts of another toxic material: lead.
The lead is likely from its use as a gasoline additive.
"The levels of metals we found were higher than what would exist naturally, but were not high enough to be acutely toxic or poisonous," Gabrielli said. "However, in the future, bioaccumulation may concentrate metals from meltwater at dangerous toxic levels in the tissues of organisms that live in ecosystems below the glacier."
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At first glance, you wouldn't think avocados and almonds could harm bees; but a closer look at how these popular crops are produced reveals their potentially detrimental effect on pollinators.
Migratory beekeeping involves trucking millions of bees across the U.S. to pollinate different crops, including avocados and almonds. Timothy Paule II / Pexels / CC0
<p>According to <a href="https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/israeli-kitchen/beekeeping-how-to-keep-bees" target="_blank">From the Grapevine</a>, American avocados also fully depend on bees' pollination to produce fruit, so farmers have turned to migratory beekeeping as well to fill the void left by wild populations.</p><p>U.S. farmers have become reliant upon the practice, but migratory beekeeping has been called exploitative and harmful to bees. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/10/health/avocado-almond-vegan-partner/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported that commercial beekeeping may injure or kill bees and that transporting them to pollinate crops appears to negatively affect their health and lifespan. Because the honeybees are forced to gather pollen and nectar from a single, monoculture crop — the one they've been brought in to pollinate — they are deprived of their normal diet, which is more diverse and nourishing as it's comprised of a variety of pollens and nectars, Scientific American reported.</p><p>Scientific American added how getting shuttled from crop to crop and field to field across the country boomerangs the bees between feast and famine, especially once the blooms they were brought in to fertilize end.</p><p>Plus, the artificial mass influx of bees guarantees spreading viruses, mites and fungi between the insects as they collide in midair and crawl over each other in their hives, Scientific American reported. According to CNN, some researchers argue that this explains why so many bees die each winter, and even why entire hives suddenly die off in a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder.</p>Avocado and almond crops depend on bees for proper pollination. FRANK MERIÑO / Pexels / CC0
<p>Salazar and other Columbian beekeepers described "scooping up piles of dead bees" year after year since the avocado and citrus booms began, according to Phys.org. Many have opted to salvage what partial colonies survive and move away from agricultural areas.</p><p>The future of pollinators and the crops they help create is uncertain. According to the United Nations, nearly half of insect pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, risk global extinction, Phys.org reported. Their decline already has cascading consequences for the economy and beyond. Roughly 1.4 billion jobs and three-quarters of all crops around the world depend on bees and other pollinators for free fertilization services worth billions of dollars, Phys.org noted. Losing wild and native bees could <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/wild-bees-crop-shortage-2646849232.html" target="_self">trigger food security issues</a>.</p><p>Salazar, the beekeeper, warned Phys.org, "The bee is a bioindicator. If bees are dying, what other insects beneficial to the environment... are dying?"</p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
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