Mine Waste Dams Threaten the Environment, Even When They Don’t Fail
Aerial view of Parque da Cachoeira, which suffered the January 2019 dam collapse, in Brumadinho, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil — one of the country's worst industrial accidents that left 270 people dead. Millions of tons of toxic mining waste engulfed houses, farms and waterways, devastating the mineral-rich region. DOUGLAS MAGNO / AFP / Getty Images
By Christopher Sergeant, Julian D. Olden
Scars from large mining operations are permanently etched across the landscapes of the world. The environmental damage and human health hazards that these activities create may be both severe and irreversible.
Many mining operations store enormous quantities of waste, known as tailings, onsite. After miners excavate rock, a processing plant crushes it to recover valuable minerals such as gold or copper. The leftover pulverized rock and liquid slurry become tailings, which often are acidic and contain high concentrations of arsenic, mercury and other toxic substances.
Mining companies store tailings forever, frequently behind earth-filled embankment dams. Over the past 100 years, more than 300 mine tailing dams worldwide have failed, mainly due to foundation weakening, seepage, overtopping and earthquake damage.
We are research scientists studying how humans affect rivers. In our view, the damage caused by stored mine waste often outweighs the benefits that mining provides to local economies and the technology industry.
This issue is especially urgent now in a region of the Pacific Northwest where Alaska and British Columbia meet. This zone, known as the Golden Triangle, is studded with mineral claims and leases. We believe that rivers in this area could be severely damaged if proposed mega-projects are allowed to proceed.
Catastrophic Failures Renew Old Worries
Tailings dam failures range from the 1966 Aberfan disaster that buried a Welsh village to multiple spills over the past decade in Canada, China, Chile and the United States. The International Commission on Large Dams, a nongovernmental organization, warned in 2001 that the frequency and severity of tailings dam failures was increasing globally.
Two catastrophic and highly publicized failures at the Mt. Polley dam in Canada in 2014 and the Brumadinho dam in Brazil in 2019 finally catalyzed a response. The International Council on Mining and Metals, the United Nations Environment Programme and the independent organization Principles for Responsible Investment drafted a "global standard for the safe and secure management of mine tailings facilities." The first public review of the standard was completed in December 2019, and its authors plan to finalize their recommendations by the end of March 2020.
The standard aspires to achieve "zero harm to people and the environment and zero tolerance for human fatality." Reducing the likelihood of future dam failures and minimizing damage if one does break are appropriate goals, but our research suggests that the concept of "zero harm" is false and potentially dangerous.
Why? Because once in place, tailings dams and their toxic reservoirs require maintenance forever. Even if there is no catastrophic failure, these dams and their surrounding infrastructure can cause ecological harm in multiple ways. They require artificial water diversions and releases, which upset natural flow patterns in surrounding streams and modify water temperature and concentrations of metals. And polluted groundwater seepage from unlined reservoirs or failing liners is often hard to detect and treat.
These ecosystem modifications directly affect organisms on land and in the water downstream. Every decision to allow a mine to proceed with a tailings storage facility indelibly transforms rivers and their ecosystems for hundreds to thousands of years.
International Rivers at Risk
Today these decisions loom large in the Golden Triangle, home to the Taku, Stikine and Unuk Rivers – three of the longest undammed rivers in North America. Salmon from these rivers have supported indigenous communities for millennia, generate tens of millions of dollars in economic activity annually and provide a dependable source of food for organisms ranging from insects to brown bears.
We calculate that 19% of the total drainage area of these three rivers is staked with mineral mining claims or leases. This includes 59% of the Unuk River watershed, along with the entire Iskut River corridor, the largest tributary to the Stikine River.
We have identified dozens of mines in exploratory or production phases. Some industry representatives call these statistics irrelevant because only a small portion of the claims will convert to economically viable projects. But from our perspective, the fact that vast areas of these watersheds are included in initial explorations implies that few rivers in this region are safe from potential mining development.
Most proposed projects in the Golden Triangle will require open pit mining and tailings storage. As one indicator of their potential scale, the Red Chris Mine, which has operated since 2015 in the headwaters of the Stikine River, maintains a tailings reservoir dam that is permitted to ultimately stand 344 feet (105 meters) high and contain approximately 107 billion cubic feet (305 million cubic meters) of tailings. The heights of the failed dams at Mt. Polley and Brumadinho were 131 feet (40 meters) and 282 feet (86 meters), respectively.
Those heights pale in comparison to dams proposed for three metal mines in the Stikine and Unuk watersheds, including KSM, Galore Creek, and Schaft Creek. The tallest of four dams planned for KSM would measure 784 feet (239 meters) – one of the highest dams in North America, and the second highest in Canada.
At KSM, economically viable ore will be transported from open pits to a processing facility and tailings storage reservoir, accessed via twin tunnels built under a glacier. After what the project proponent calls the 53-year "life of mine," Seabridge Gold proposes to treat runoff water from the piled waste rock for at least 200 years.
Each component of these proposed mines is an incredible engineering feat that will cost billions of dollars to construct and more to clean up later. From the perspective of maintaining an ecologically healthy watershed, the life of the mine is just beginning when operations close.
In contrast to more conventional water storage dams, which are licensed and built for a finite operating life, tailings dams must hold back their slurry forever. The likelihood of leaks or dam failure compounds over this multigenerational time period as facilities age and projects no longer generate revenue.
Accurately Assessing Risk
Rivers are the arteries of coastal Alaska and northwestern Canada, draining pristine snow and ice-covered mountains and pumping out cold, clean water to support fish, wildlife and people. Here and elsewhere, we believe that regulators should take a measured and cautious view of current and planned tailings facilities.
Dam failures are increasing in frequency, and often are so large that true cleanup or reclamation is not possible. Before more are built, we see a need for independent science to provide a means of honestly assessing the risk of storing mining waste.
Reposted with permission from The Conversation.
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Jane Goodall on Conservation, Climate Change and COVID-19: 'If We Carry on With Business as Usual, We're Going to Destroy Ourselves'
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Dr. Jane Goodall, the world-renowned conservationist, desperately wants the world to pay attention to what she sees as the greatest threat to humanity's existence. Craig Barritt / Getty Images for TIME
By Jeff Berardelli
While COVID-19 and protests for racial justice command the world's collective attention, ecological destruction, species extinction and climate change continue unabated. While the world's been focused on other crises, an alarming study was released warning that species extinction is now progressing so fast that the consequences of "biological annihilation" may soon be "unimaginable."
<p><a href="https://www.janegoodall.org/" target="_blank">Dr. Jane Goodall</a>, the world-renowned conservationist, desperately wants the world to pay attention to what she sees as the greatest threat to humanity's existence.</p><p>CBS News recently spoke to Goodall over a video conference call and asked her questions about the state of our planet. Her soft-spoken grace somehow helped cushion what was otherwise extremely sobering news: "I just know that if we carry on with business as usual, we're going to destroy ourselves. It would be the end of us, as well as life on Earth as we know it," warned Goodall.</p><p>What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.<br> </p>
<p><strong><em>Jeff Berardelli:</em></strong> <strong>Destruction of nature is causing some really big concerns around the world. One that comes to the forefront right now is </strong><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-environment-pandemic-infectious-diseases/" target="_blank"><strong>emergent diseases like COVID-19</strong></a><strong>. Can you describe how destruction of the environment contributes to this?</strong></p><p><strong></strong><strong><em>Dr. Jane Goodall:</em></strong> Well, the thing is, we brought this on ourselves because the scientists that have been studying these so-called zoonotic diseases that jump from an animal to a human have been predicting something like this for so long. As we chop down at stake <span style="background-color: initial;"><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-brazil-amazon-rainforest-destruction/" target="_blank">tropical rainforest</a></span>, with its rich biodiversity, we are eating away the habitats of millions of animals, and many of them are being pushed into greater contact with humans. We're driving deeper and deeper, making roads throughout the habitat, which again brings people and animals in contact with each other. People are hunting the animals and <span style="background-color: initial;"><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wuhan-china-coronavirus-bans-eating-wild-animals-breeding-wet-markets/" target="_blank">selling the meat</a></span>, or trafficking the infants, and all of this is creating environments which are perfect for a virus or a bacteria to cross that species barrier and sometimes, like COVID-19, it becomes very contagious and we're suffering from it.</p><p>But we know if we don't stop destroying the environment and disrespecting animals — we're hunting them, killing them, eating them; killing and eating chimpanzees in Central Africa led to HIV/AIDS — there will be another one. It's inevitable.</p><p><strong>Do you fear that the next [pandemic] will be a lot worse than this one?</strong></p><p>Well, we've been lucky with this one because, although it's incredibly infectious, the percentage of people who die is relatively low. Mostly they recover and hopefully then build up some immunity. But supposing the next one is just as contagious and has a percentage of deaths like <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ebola-virus-disease" target="_blank">Ebola</a>, for example, this would have an even more devastating effect on humanity than this one.</p>
<p><strong>I think people have a hard time connecting these, what may look like chance events, with our interactions and relationship with nature. Can you describe to people why the way that we treat the natural world is so important?</strong><br></p><p>Well, first of all, it's not just leading to zoonotic diseases, and there are many of them. The destruction of the environment is also contributing to the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/climate-change/" target="_blank">climate crisis</a>, which tends to be put in second place because of our panic about the pandemic. We will get through the pandemic like we got through World War II, World War I, and the horrors following the World Trade towers being destroyed. But climate change is a very real existential threat to humankind and we don't have that long to slow it down. </p><p>Intensive farming, where we're destroying the land slowly with the chemical poisons, and the monocultures — which can be wiped out by a disease because there is no variation of crops being grown — is leading to habitat destruction. It's leading to the creation of more <span style="background-color: initial;"><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-lockdowns-climate-change-carbon-dioxide-emissions/" target="_blank">CO2</a></span> through fossil fuels, methane gas and other greenhouse gas [released] by digestion from the billions of domestic animals.</p><p>It's pretty grim. We need to realize we're part of the environment, that we need the natural world. We depend on it. We can't go on destroying. We've got to somehow understand that we're not separated from it, we are all intertwined. Harm nature, harm ourselves.</p><p><strong>If we continue on with business as usual, what do you fear the outcome will be?</strong></p><p>Well, if we continue with business as usual, we're going to come to the point of no return. At a certain point the ecosystems of the world will just give up and collapse and that's the end of us eventually too.</p><p>What about our children? We're still bringing children into the world — what a grim future is theirs to look forward to. It's pretty shocking but my hope is, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/earth-day-how-the-pandemic-is-changing-air-pollution-levels/" target="_blank">during this pandemic</a>, with people trapped inside, factories closed down temporarily, and people not driving, it has <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-photos-decline-air-pollution-lockdown/" target="_blank">cleared up the atmosphere</a> amazingly. The people in the big cities can look up at the night sky and sea stars are bright, not looking through a layer of pollution. So when people emerge [from the pandemic] they're not going to want to go back to the old polluted days.</p><p>Now, in some countries there's not much they can do about it. But if enough of them, a groundswell becomes bigger and bigger and bigger [and] people say: "No I don't want to go down this road. We want to find a different, green economy. We don't want to always put economic development ahead of protecting the environment. We care about the future. We care about the health of the planet. We need nature," maybe in the end the big guys will have to listen.</p>
<p><strong>I often think our economic future, which is always put at the forefront, is actually dependent upon our ecological future. Without an ecological future, there is not going to be any economic growth. Would you agree?</strong></p><p>Absolutely. I mean, it's all been said again and again, but fossil fuels are not infinite, they will come to an end, leading to a lot more destruction of the environment for sure. Forests and natural resources are not infinite and yet we're treating them as though they are, and in some places using them up more quickly than nature can replenish them.</p>We have to have a <span style="background-color: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-action-economic-benefit-study-finds/" target="_blank">different kind of economy</a></span>, we need a different way of thinking about what is success.<strong> </strong>Is it just about having more and more money, more and more stuff, being able to show off to your friends, and the wasteful society we live in? We waste <span style="background-color: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/earth-day-2019-fashion-industrys-carbon-impact-is-bigger-than-airline-industrys/" target="_blank">clothes</a></span>, we waste <span style="background-color: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-waste-nearly-a-pound-of-food-each-per-day-study-finds/" target="_blank">food,</a></span> we waste laptops and cellphones. That pollutes the environment. So we've got to think differently, haven't we?<p><strong>So what do we do? Right now our worldview is based on GDP. You suggest that we think of it in a different way. So do you have a suggestion of how we rate our success other than GDP?</strong></p><p>I'm not an economist.<strong> </strong>I just know that if we carry on with business as usual, we're going to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-climate-change-report-human-civilization-at-risk-extinction-by-2050-new-australian-climate/" target="_blank">destroy ourselves</a>. It would be the end of us, as well as life on Earth as we know it.</p><p>So one thing we can do, those of us in affluent societies can almost all do with a bit less. We have a very unsustainable lifestyle. You can't really blame people, they grew up into it. But if you went through World War II like I did, when you took nothing for granted, one square of chocolate for a week is what we had and everything was rationed. So, you appreciate it. We never wasted even an ounce of food; not like today. </p><p>Then, we also have to alleviate poverty. Because if you're really poor you destroy the environment, you cut down the last trees to make land to grow more food for your family, or fish the last fish. Or if you're in an urban area you buy the cheapest junk food. You don't have the luxury of asking: how is this made, did it harm the environment, did it lead to the suffering of animals like in the factory farms, is it cheap because of child slave labor? You just have to buy the cheapest in order to survive. </p><p>Then the third thing, which nobody wants to talk about, but nevertheless ... there are approximately 7.8 billion of us on the planet today and already in some places we're using up natural resources faster than nature can replenish them. In 2050 it's estimated that there will be 9.7 billion of us. What will happen? We can't just go on burying it under the carpet. </p><p>Population issues are politically sensitive so I talk about voluntary population optimization. So that's OK, it's voluntary, it is your choice. You optimize it for your financial situation. People are desperate to educate their children and they can't educate eight anymore. So they love family planning, and women can space out their children so that they can have a child and look after it.</p>
<p><strong>Let's switch gears. I don't eat animals. I have a dog. I love my dog. Let's talk about the idea that animals have feelings and that pigs are as intelligent as dogs...</strong></p><p>You know, animals are so much more intelligent than people used to think, and they have feelings and emotions and personalities, like your dog, any animal you share your life with. You know, birds now are making tools and octopus are incredibly intelligent. And when we think of all this trafficking of animals, selling them in meat markets or factory farms, when you think that each one one is an individual, can feel fear and pain, can suffer mentally as well as physically, isn't it shocking? I'm glad you don't eat them. I don't either, of course. </p><p>The shock and horror because in China and South Korea they <span style="background-color: initial;"><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dog-meat-festival-china-underway-in-yulin-but-activists-hope-it-will-be-the-last-amid-coronavirus/" target="_blank">eat dogs</a></span> — well, the thought of eating a dog makes me feel particularly sick, but not more sick than eating a pig. They eat dogs and we don't like it, but we eat pigs, and they are as intelligent as dogs.</p><p>Isn't the point, if you must eat an animal shouldn't you treat it really well, like the Native Americans, respect the animal and give thanks that it's sacrificed itself for you?</p><p><strong>This is a bit more of a thought-provoking question: What has led us to this over-consumption in society? There is an idea that perhaps there is a Biblical basis, that we have dominion, that we're in charge, and because we're in charge we're able to do what we want. Can you give me an idea of why we are where we are, as a world right now, and what led us here? </strong></p><p>[Laughing]<strong> </strong>You think I'm going to be able to answer all these questions?</p><p><strong>I know it's a lot, but I know that you must have some thoughts on this.</strong></p><p><strong></strong>Well, first of all, I do think that religion has played a role. I was told by a Hebrew scholar the original translation of that word that you just mentioned, "dominion," is wrong. It's actually something more like "stewardship." That's very different. If God gave us stewardship that's different from saying we have dominion. So I think religion started this thinking that we're so different from all the other animals and I was taught there was a difference in kind, not degree. Thank goodness the chimpanzees are so like us biologically, as well as behaviorally, that science had to start thinking differently.</p><p>So how did we get there? It's sort of been like this all throughout human history. There were so many fewer of us back then that we could have these unsustainable lifestyles and it didn't really matter; they were sustainable. Think of how people have always exploited the natural world just because we can. And so there's been a lag between developing new technologies [which enable us to] destroy whole forests. Whereas the indigenous people might take a week to cut down the big tree, we can do it in an hour. And the moral evolution and the sense of a spiritual awareness and connection to the natural world on which we depend, that's lagged behind as well.</p>
<p><strong>So how do we repair that? How do we rediscover our connection to the rest of the natural world?</strong></p><p>As I think you know, I began a program for young people back in 1991 called <a href="https://www.rootsandshoots.org/" target="_blank">Roots and Shoots</a> because young people had lost hope in the future. I've met them all over the world. They were mostly apathetic and didn't seem to care. Or they were angry or deeply depressed and they told me they felt like that because we compromised their future and there was nothing they could do about it. And we have compromised their future. We've been stealing it for years and years. And yes, we still are still stealing it today. But when they said there was nothing they could do I thought, no, that's not right. We got this window of time. If we all get together, take action, we can start healing some of the harm, we can start slowing down climate change and we can work on educating people. </p><p>Kids are really good at educating their parents and grandparents, some of whom may be in positions to make a huge difference, like CEOs of big companies or people in government. That program is now kindergarten to university and everything in between. It's in 68 countries and growing. Every group has the message: Each one of us — and that means you as well as me — we make some impact every single day and we have the luxury of choosing the impact that we make.</p>
<p class=""><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/" target="_blank">CBS News</a>,</em> <em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A Starbucks employee in a mask and face shield at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, on May 12, 2020. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP via Getty Images
Anyone entering a U.S. Starbucks from July 15 will have to wear a face mask, the company announced Thursday.
<p>The policy comes as U.S. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" target="_self">coronavirus</a> cases continue to surge, with the country breaking its record for new cases Thursday for the sixth time in 10 days, with more than 59,880 new cases reported, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/world/coronavirus-updates.html?action=click&campaign_id=51&context=storylines_menu&emc=edit_MBE_p_20200710&instance_id=20192&module=styln-coronavirus-national&nl=morning-briefing&pgtype=Article&regi_id=88631294&region=TOP_BANNER&section=topNews&segment_id=33060&state=default&te=1&user_id=d8eb7cee9d3c5ab39515239b6ec54d19&variant=show#link-18813319" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.</p><p>"The company is committed to playing a constructive role in supporting health and government officials as they work to mitigate the spread of COVID-19," Starbucks said in its statement.</p>
<div id="f82a0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f287b23a56ac56afd28e138cb3e56855"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1281260862250967040" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Our priority is the health and well-being of our partners (employees) and customers. Starting July 15, U.S. company… https://t.co/IhGagY6f2z</div> — Starbucks News (@Starbucks News)<a href="https://twitter.com/StarbucksNews/statuses/1281260862250967040">1594311368.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Other companies that require customers to wear masks include Costco and Uber, according to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/07/09/starbucks-require-face-masks-customers-starting-july-15/5406037002/" target="_blank">USA TODAY</a>. Around 20 states and Washington, DC already require masks in public places, but other states, including hotspots like Arizona and Florida, do not, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/business/starbucks-face-coverings-masks/index.html" target="_blank">CNN reported</a>.</p><p>In those states, Starbucks customers who chose not to wear masks can order their coffee at the drive-thru, use curbside pickup through the Starbucks app or have orders delivered by Starbucks Delivers, the company said.</p>
<p>Starbucks has required employees to wear masks since April, according to CNN. But masks are most effective at preventing wearers from spreading the virus to others, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover-guidance.html" target="_blank">according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)</a>, meaning the more people who wear one, the more everyone is protected.</p><p>"Cloth face coverings are most likely to reduce the spread of COVID-19 when they are widely used by people in public settings," the CDC wrote.</p><p>One study of households in Beijing where one person was infected with the virus found that if everyone in the home wore a mask before they knew anyone was sick, it reduced the risk of transmission by 79 percent, according to <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/21/880832213/yes-wearing-masks-helps-heres-why" target="_blank">NPR</a>. And a model found that if 80 percent of people wore masks, it would be more effective at combating COVID-19 than a lockdown, <a href="https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-about-masks-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent" target="_blank">University of California San Francisco explained</a>.</p>
<p>But mask requirements have led to conflicts in retail settings. One confrontation at a Starbucks went the other kind of viral, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/starbucks-face-masks-required-customers-july-15/" target="_blank">CBS News reported</a>. When San Diego yoga instructor Amber Lynn Gilles was asked to wear a mask at a local Starbucks in accordance with county rules, she took to Facebook to complain. The act backfired. She was widely criticized, and a GoFundMe for the barista who asked her to mask up, Lenin Gutierrez, raised more than $100,000.</p><p>Reactions by angry customers at other retail establishments have prompted the Retail Industry Leaders Association to write a letter to the the National Governors Association urging states to require masks across the board, as <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/07/07/mask-mandates-retailers-ask-governors-require-masks-immediately/5391045002/" target="_blank">USA TODAY reported Wednesday</a>.</p><p>The retail body, which represents large chains including Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Walgreens and Home Depot, said that the current patchwork of state and local mask rules had led to confusion, which increased employee-customer confrontations.</p><p>"Retailers are alarmed with the instances of hostility and violence front-line employees are experiencing by a vocal minority of customers who are under the misguided impression that wearing a mask is a violation of their civil liberties," retail association President Brian Dodge wrote in the letter.</p>
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Supporters cheer before Trump arrives for a rally at the BOK Center on June 20, 2020 in Tulsa, OK. Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post via Getty Images
On Monday and Tuesday of the week that President Donald Trump held his first rally since March in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the county reported 76 and 96 new coronavirus cases respectively, according to POLITICO. This week, the county broke its new case record Monday with 261 cases and reported a further 206 cases on Tuesday. Now, Tulsa's top public health official thinks the rally and counterprotest "likely contributed" to the surge.
<p>"The past two days we've had almost 500 cases, and we know we had several large events a little over two weeks ago, which is about right," Tulsa Health Department Dr. Bruce Dart said in a press conference Wednesday, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/us/politics/coronavirus-tulsa-trump-rally.html#referrer=https://www.google.com" target="_blank">The New York Times reported</a>. "So I guess we just connect the dots."</p>
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dce63f86a91daa2c577e22980bb7c3ad"><div class="fb-video" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1931137487193380" data-allowfullscreen="true"></div></div>
<p>Trump held his rally June 20, and it can take about two weeks for an increased infection rate to show up in new case tallies because of the disease's incubation period.</p><p>Trump's rally made headlines in mid-June when it was revealed that, in order to attend, rally goers had to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-rally-coronavirus-risk-2646170476.html" target="_self">agree not to sue</a> the campaign if they contracted COVID-19. Dart had urged the campaign to cancel the rally before it took place.</p><p>"It's the perfect storm of potential over-the-top disease transmission," Dart said, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-rally.html" target="_blank">The New York Times reported at the time</a>. "It's a perfect storm that we can't afford to have."</p>
<p>Administration and campaign officials pushed back on the idea that the rally had led to a surge in cases. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said she had "no data to indicate" this was the case, as <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/trump-rally-contributed-surge-covd-19-cases-tulsa/story?id=71680180" target="_blank">ABC News reported</a>.</p><p>And campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh defended the rally's safety precautions.</p><p>"There were literally no health precautions to speak of as thousands looted, rioted, and protested in the streets and the media reported that it did not lead to a rise in coronavirus cases. Meanwhile, the President's rally was 18 days ago, all attendees had their temperature checked, everyone was provided a mask, and there was plenty of hand sanitizer available for all. It's obvious that the media's concern about large gatherings begins and ends with Trump rallies," he said in a widely reported statement.</p><p>While the campaign did conduct temperature checks and distribute masks and hand sanitizer, it did not enforce social distancing inside the arena and most participants did not wear masks, ABC News pointed out.</p>
<p>The rally was much smaller than anticipated, however. Around 6,200 people from across the country attended, but the venue, the BOK Center arena, can seat 19,000, POLITICO reported.</p><p>Tulsa county contract tracers could not confirm whether they had linked any specific cases to the rally because the Tulsa Health Department "will not publicly identify any individual or facility at risk of exposure, or where transmission occurred," spokesperson Leanne Stephens said, according to The New York Times.</p><p>One sign that does point to the rally as an infection source is the fact that cases have increased in rural parts of Oklahoma, Tulsa county commissioner Karen Keith told The New York Times.</p><p>Some high-profile people have tested positive for COVID-19 after attending the rally, ABC reported, including former 2012 presidential candidate Herman Cain and national chair of the Trump Victory Finance Committee Kimberly Guilfoyle. At least eight Trump campaign staffers in Tulsa have also tested positive, and two of them attended the event.</p>
<p>Tulsa is not the only part of Oklahoma seeing a surge in cases. The entire state reported 858 new cases Tuesday and 673 Wednesday.</p><p>"We continue to go up and are at a new peak," lead COVID-19 officer at the University of Oklahoma Dr. Dale Bratzler told ABC News Monday.</p><p>The next Trump rally is scheduled to take place in Portsmouth, New Hampshire Saturday. Once again, attendees will have to promise not to sue if they fall ill. They will have their temperatures checked and be offered masks and hand sanitizer, but mask wearing and social distancing will not be required.</p>
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In the tropics, farmers often slash and burn forests to clear fertile land for crops, but a new method avoids that technique. Inga Foundation video
Rainforests are an important defense against climate change because they absorb carbon. But many are being destroyed on a massive scale.
<iframe style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/14740994/height/45/theme/standard/thumbnail/yes/direction/backward/" height="45" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>In the tropics, farmers often slash and burn forests to clear fertile land for crops. The practice involves cutting down vegetation and burning it. But the soil's fertility does not last long, so the farmers must clear a new patch of forest every few years.</p><p>"People believe it's the only possible way of growing crops," says ecologist Michael Hands.</p><p>But he says there's an alternative. Hands directs the Inga Foundation, which teaches farmers in Honduras and Costa Rica a method called <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ingafoundation.org/alley-cropping/">inga alley cropping</a>.</p><p>The inga is a fast-growing tree with roots that fix nitrogen, so it replenishes the soil.</p>
<p>In alley cropping, farmers plant inga trees in rows. Their shade kills weeds and creates space for planting maize or beans. Then the trees are pruned back so sunlight can reach the crops until harvest.</p><p>"And you can repeat the process the following year," Hands says.</p><p>The ingas' roots keep the soil rich, so the farmer does not need to slash and burn more land. That means less carbon pollution and less labor.</p><p>"It's definitely transforming people's lives," Hands says.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/07/farmers-learn-alternative-to-slashing-and-burning-rainforests/" target="_blank">Yale Climate Connections</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A truck spreads lime on a meadow to increase the soil's fertility in Yorkshire Dales, UK. Farm Images / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
As we look for advanced technology to replace our dependence on fossil fuels and to rid the oceans of plastic, one solution to the climate crisis might simply be found in rocks. New research found that dispersing rock dust over farmland could suck billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air every year, according to the first detailed large scale analysis of the technique, as The Guardian reported.
<p>The <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2448-9" target="_blank">study</a>, published Wednesday in the journal <em>Nature,</em> found the technique could pull enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to remove about half of the amount of that greenhouse gas currently produced by Europe. To put it another way, that would mean pulling more CO2 from the atmosphere than the current total emissions from global aviation and shipping combined, according to a <a href="https://www.newswise.com/articles/applying-rock-dust-to-croplands-could-absorb-up-to-2-billion-tonnes-of-co2-from-the-atmosphere-research-shows" target="_blank">press release</a> from the University of Sheffield where the study was conducted.</p><p>"Spreading rock dust on agricultural land is a straightforward, practical CO2 drawdown approach with the potential to boost soil health and food production, said David Beerling, director of the Leverhulme Center for Climate Change Mitigation at the University of Sheffield and lead author of the study. "Our analyses reveal the big emitting nations – China, the US, India – have the greatest potential to do this, emphasizing their need to step up to the challenge."</p>
<p>The research showed that if the world's three largest emitters of CO2 — China, the U.S. and India — adopted the practice on a large scale, they could collectively clear about 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/07/08/spreading-rock-dust-ground-could-pull-carbon-air-researchers-say/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported.</p><p>The technique of spreading rock on the ground is known as enhanced rock weathering. The researchers took a realistic approach to perform a global analysis of the technique. The researchers say their modeling of enhanced rock weathering is the most realistic yet because it factors in how much rock is available and the energy countries would be willing to use for grinding it up, as <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2248222-a-sprinkle-of-rock-dust-could-help-avoid-catastrophic-climate-change/" target="_blank">The New Scientist</a> reported.</p>
<p>Looking at each country's climate, farmland and energy infrastructure, they found that rock dust could remove between 0.5 and 2 gigatons of CO2 annually by 2050. Right now, global dependence on fossil fuels emits around 35 gigatons of CO2 each year, according to The New Scientist.</p><p>Enhanced rock weathering is a system where crushed rock is layered into the soil. As The Washington Post explained, when silicate or carbonate minerals in the dust dissolve in rain, carbon dioxide is drawn from the atmosphere into the solution to form bicarbonate ions. The bicarbonate ions then run off into the ocean, where they form carbonate minerals and store their carbon indefinitely.</p><p>The Guardian noted that while researchers are clear that the most important step to fighting the climate crisis is drastically reducing emissions, a reduction in emissions won't be enough to keep the world from breaking the targets of the Paris agreement keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius. In order to achieve lasting success, the excess carbon in the atmosphere also needs to be removed.</p>
<p>"We have passed the safe level of greenhouse gases. Cutting fossil fuel emissions is crucial, but we must also extract atmospheric CO2 with safe, secure and scalable carbon dioxide removal strategies to bend the global CO2 curve and limit future climate change," said James Hansen, a partner in the study and director of the Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions Program at Columbia University's Earth Institute, in a press release. "The advantage of CO2 removal with crushed silicate rocks is that it could restore deteriorating top-soils, which underpin food security for billions of people, thereby incentivizing deployment."</p><p>The researchers say that enhanced rock weathering has several advantages, according to The Guardian. First, many farmers already add limestone dust to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/soil">soils</a> to reduce acidification, and adding other rock dust improves fertility and crop yields, meaning the application could be both routine and desirable.</p><p>"CO2 drawdown strategies that can scale up and are compatible with existing land uses are urgently required to combat climate change, alongside deep emissions cuts," said Beerling. "Enhanced rock weathering is a straightforward, practical approach."</p>
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Global heating imposes a harsh cost at the most critical time of all: the moment of spawning. Pxfuel
By Tim Radford
German scientists now know why so many fish are so vulnerable to ever-warming oceans. Global heating imposes a harsh cost at the most critical time of all: the moment of spawning.
<p>"Our findings show that, both as embryos in eggs and as adults ready to mate, fish are far more sensitive to heat than in their larval stage or as sexually mature adults outside the mating season," said <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Flemming_Dahlke" target="_blank">Flemming Dahlke, a marine biologist</a> with the <a href="https://www.awi.de/" target="_blank">Alfred Wegener Institute at Bremerhaven</a>.</p><p>"On the global average, for example, adults outside the mating season can survive in water that's up to 10°C warmer than adults ready to mate, or fish eggs, can."</p><p>The finding – if it is confirmed by other research – should clear up some of the puzzles associated with fish numbers. There is clear evidence, established repeatedly over the decades, that <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/ocean-heatwaves-drive-more-fish-north/" target="_blank">fish are responding to climate change</a>.</p><p>But almost three fourths of the planet is blue ocean, and <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/hunger-threat-as-tropical-fish-seek-cooler-waters/" target="_blank">at depth is responding far more slowly</a> than the land surface to global heating fueled by fossil fuel exploitation that releases greenhouse gases.</p>
Nearing the Brink
<p>Since <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/abundant-fish-need-cool-seas-and-protection/" target="_blank">fish in the temperate zones already experience a wide variation</a> in seasonal water temperatures, it hasn't been obvious why species such as <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/sardines-swim-into-northern-waters-to-keep-cool/" target="_blank">cod have shifted nearer the Arctic, and sardines have migrated to the North Sea</a>.</p><p>But <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/ocean-warming-spurs-marine-life-to-rapid-migration/" target="_blank">marine creatures are on the move</a>, and although there are other factors at work, including overfishing and <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/fish-cant-smell-well-in-more-acidic-seas/" target="_blank">the increasingly alarming changes in ocean chemistry</a>, thanks to ever-higher levels of dissolved carbon dioxide, temperature change is part of the problem.</p><p>The latest answer, Dr Dahlke and his colleagues report in the journal <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aaz3658" target="_blank">Science</a>, is that many fish may already be living near the limits of their thermal tolerance.</p><p>The temperature safety margins during the moments of spawning and embryo might be very precise, and over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, marine and freshwater species have worked out just what is best for the next generation. Rapid global warming upsets this equilibrium.</p><p>The Bremerhaven scientists looked at experiments, observations and recorded data for the life cycles of 694 marine and freshwater species, to decide that oxygen supply is the key decider of reproductive success. Warmer waters carry less dissolved oxygen. Embryo fish have no gills: they cannot simply take in deeper breaths.</p><p>Fish about to mate are busy producing extra mass in the form of sperm and egg cells: this additional body mass also needs oxygen. Even at lower temperatures, piscine cardiovascular systems are under stress.</p><p>So the reasoning follows that, if global heating continues, climate change and rising water temperatures are likely to affect the reproduction of perhaps 60% of all fish species.</p><p>"Some species might successfully manage this change," Dr Dahlke said. "But if you consider the fact that fish have adapted their mating patterns to specific habitats over extremely long timeframes, and have tailored their mating cycles of specific ocean currents and food sources, it has to be assumed that being forced to abandon their normal spawning areas will mean major problems for them."</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/warming-oceans-deter-more-fish-from-spawning/" target="_blank">Climate News Network</a>.</em></p>
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Guillain-Barre syndrome occurs when the body's own immune system attacks and injures the nerves outside of the spinal cord or brain – the peripheral nervous system. Niq Steele / Getty Images
By Sherry H-Y. Chou, Aarti Sarwal and Neha S. Dangayach
The patient in the case report (let's call him Tom) was 54 and in good health. For two days in May, he felt unwell and was too weak to get out of bed. When his family finally brought him to the hospital, doctors found that he had a fever and signs of a severe infection, or sepsis. He tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 infection. In addition to symptoms of COVID-19, he was also too weak to move his legs.
When a neurologist examined him, Tom was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, an autoimmune disease that causes abnormal sensation and weakness due to delays in sending signals through the nerves. Usually reversible, in severe cases it can cause prolonged paralysis involving breathing muscles, require ventilator support and sometimes leave permanent neurological deficits. Early recognition by expert neurologists is key to proper treatment.
We are neurologists specializing in intensive care and leading studies related to neurological complications from COVID-19. Given the occurrence of Guillain-Barre Syndrome in prior pandemics with other corona viruses like SARS and MERS, we are investigating a possible link between Guillain-Barre Syndrome and COVID-19 and tracking published reports to see if there is any link between Guillain-Barre Syndrome and COVID-19.
Some patients may not seek timely medical care for neurological symptoms like prolonged headache, vision loss and new muscle weakness due to fear of getting exposed to virus in the emergency setting. People need to know that medical facilities have taken full precautions to protect patients. Seeking timely medical evaluation for neurological symptoms can help treat many of these diseases.
What Is Guillain-Barre Syndrome?
Guillain-Barre syndrome occurs when the body's own immune system attacks and injures the nerves outside of the spinal cord or brain – the peripheral nervous system. Most commonly, the injury involves the protective sheath, or myelin, that wraps nerves and is essential to nerve function.
Without the myelin sheath, signals that go through a nerve are slowed or lost, which causes the nerve to malfunction.
To diagnose Guillain-Barre Syndrome, neurologists perform a detailed neurological exam. Due to the nerve injury, patients often may have loss of reflexes on examination. Doctors often need to perform a lumbar puncture, otherwise known as spinal tap, to sample spinal fluid and look for signs of inflammation and abnormal antibodies.
Studies have shown that giving patients an infusion of antibodies derived from donated blood or plasma exchange – a process that cleans patients' blood of harmful antibodies - can speed up recovery. A very small subset of patients may need these therapies long-term.
The majority of Guillain-Barre Syndrome patients improve within a few weeks and eventually can make a full recovery. However, some patients with Guillain-Barre Syndrome have lingering symptoms including weakness and abnormal sensations in arms and/or legs; rarely patients may be bedridden or disabled long-term.
Guillain-Barre Syndrome and Pandemics
As the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps across the globe, many neurologic specialists have been on the lookout for potentially serious nervous system complications such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome.
Though Guillain-Barre Syndrome is rare, it is well known to emerge following bacterial infections, such as Campylobacter jejuni, a common cause of food poisoning, and a multitude of viral infections including the flu virus, Zika virus and other coronaviruses.
Studies showed an increase in Guillain-Barre Syndrome cases following the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, suggesting a possible connection. The presumed cause for this link is that the body's own immune response to fight the infection turns on itself and attacks the peripheral nerves. This is called an "autoimmune" condition. When a pandemic affects as many people as our current COVID-19 crisis, even a rare complication can become a significant public health problem. That is especially true for one that causes neurological dysfunction where the recovery takes a long time and may be incomplete.
The first reports of Guillain-Barre Syndrome in COVID-19 pandemic originated from Italy, Spain and China, where the pandemic surged before the U.S. crisis.
Though there is clear clinical suspicion that COVID-19 can lead to Guillain-Barre Syndrome, many important questions remain. What are the chances that someone gets Guillain-Barre Syndrome during or following a COVID-19 infection? Does Guillain-Barre Syndrome happen more often in those who have been infected with COVID-19 compared to other types of infections, such as the flu?
The only way to get answers is through a prospective study where doctors perform systematic surveillance and collect data on a large group of patients. There are ongoing large research consortia hard at work to figure out answers to these questions.
Understanding the Association Between COVID-19 and Guillain-Barre Syndrome
While large research studies are underway, overall it appears that Guillain-Barre Syndrome is a rare but serious phenomenon possibly linked to COVID-19. Given that more than 10.7 million cases have been reported for COVID-19, there have been 10 reported cases of COVID-19 patients with Guillain-Barre Syndrome so far – only two reported cases in the U.S., five in Italy, two cases in Iran and one from Wuhan, China.
It is certainly possible that there are other cases that have not been reported. The Global Consortium Study of Neurological Dysfunctions in COVID-19 is actively underway to find out how often neurological problems like Guillain-Barre Syndrome is seen in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Also, just because Guillain-Barre Syndrome occurs in a patient diagnosed with COVID-19, that does not imply that it was caused by the virus; this still may be a coincident occurrence. More research is needed to understand how the two events are related.
Due to the pandemic and infection-containment considerations, diagnostic tests, such as a nerve conduction study that used to be routine for patients with suspected Guillain-Barre Syndrome, are more difficult to do. In both U.S. cases, the initial diagnosis and treatment were all based on clinical examination by a neurological experts rather than any tests. Both patients survived but with significant residual weakness at the time these case reports came out, but that is not uncommon for Guillain-Barre Syndrome patients. The road to recovery may sometimes be long, but many patients can make a full recovery with time.
Though the reported cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome so far all have severe symptoms, this is not uncommon in a pandemic situation where the less sick patients may stay home and not present for medical care for fear of being exposed to the virus. This, plus the limited COVID-19 testing capability across the U.S., may skew our current detection of Guillain-Barre Syndrome cases toward the sicker patients who have to go to a hospital. In general, the majority of Guillain-Barre Syndrome patients do recover, given enough time. We do not yet know whether this is true for COVID-19-related cases at this stage of the pandemic. We and colleagues around the world are working around the clock to find answers to these critical questions.
Sherry H-Y. Chou is an Associate Professor of Critical Care Medicine, Neurology, and Neurosurgery, University of Pittsburgh.
Aarti Sarwal is an Associate Professor, Neurology, Wake Forest University.
Neha S. Dangayach is an Assistant Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Disclosure statement: Sherry H-Y. Chou receives funding from The University of Pittsburgh Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSI), the National Institute of Health, and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Dean's Faculty Advancement Award. Sherry H-Y. Chou is a member of Board of Directors for the Neurocritical Care Society. Neha S. Dangayach receives funding from the Bee Foundation, the Friedman Brain Institute, the Neurocritical Care Society, InCHIP-UConn Center for mHealth and Social Media Seed Grant. She is faculty for emcrit.org and for AiSinai. Aarti Sarwal 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.
Reposted with permission from The Conversation.
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