According to a study done by UC Santa Barbara, the only surefire way to save endangered marine species is not linked to climate change or pollution - it's overfishing. The main reason that endangered marine species are endangered is because they are victims of bycatch - being caught up in the indiscriminate nets of large-scale fisheries. They are not being targeted, but they are being swept up at the same scale but they can't reproduce fast enough to keep up. The indiscriminate nature of fishing with a giant net means that these species can't possibly be protected, so the only way to stop is to stop overfishing in the first place.
I feel like fishing with a giant net is overrated. I mean, now we have fish farms and aquaculture and all those other things where you can basically just have a giant sea ranch. Why do you need to spend all the time, risk, and money to sail out into open ocean with a giant net? Just stay home and breed your own fish right outside that you don't even have to find and catch. It would be like if instead of breeding cattle and keeping them penned up, ranchers let all the cattle be wild and just run around on open wilderness, and then occasionally hunted them down and caught as many as possible with a giant net. There's a reason they don't do that, and it's not about saving the environment, it's about cost efficiency. Why can't we apply that to fishing?
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Now I know what you're thinking. Ghost gear! Sounds cool, right? Like the weird guns the Ghostbusters use to zap all those ghosts. Well, I hate to break it to you, but "ghost gear" is a term for abandoned diving or fishing equipment left behind in the ocean that can ensnare or kill marine life. London-based group World Animal Protection estimates that more than 705,000 tons of ghost gear gets abandoned in the ocean a year. 71% of ghost gear animal deaths have to do with fishing nets, which get wrapped around animals and prevent them from being able to swim to get air (marine mammals) or find food (marine non-mammals). One of the worst things about ghost gear is the chain effect it has. "For instance, fish could get intertwined with a net. Then a bird chasing the fish gets caught. Then a pursuing seal gets stuck and even a shark can get ensnared."
Fisherman are great. Fish are delicious. Mark Wahlberg in The Perfect Storm was awesome. But there has to be a better way of going about fishing than saying "Welp, this net has a hole in it. Guess we'll just drop it right here and bounce!" I mean, how hard can it be to drag it back without fish in it and just toss it in a landfill? Or even if the net isn't good for fishing, I'm sure you could still cut it up and reuse the rope. If you think about it, dumping ghost gear into the ocean is actually worse for fishermen. They're just killing the fish they're trying to catch and sell in the first place! The less ghost gear, the more live fish there'll be to fish out of the ocean later. Logic is what makes the world go round, people. Well, to start, it's important to note that Pyeongchang is a little bit better than Sochi. Sochi was an Olympic horror story for the environment, what with illegal dumping of hazardous substances inside a national park, building stadiums that blocked the migration routes of animals, and logging endangered species of trees just to build Shaun White his sweet half pipe. So there was that. But the thing is, the Pyeongchang Olympics may not be that bad, but that doesn't lessen the fact that they're not great. According to the Pyeongchang officials themselves, this year's games will generate 1.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, which is more than Barbados produces in a year. (Barbados, for reference, is it's own freaking country. Rihanna is from Barbados.) Most of those emissions will be spent on transporting people to the games. Not only that, but tens of thousands of trees were cut down to build the ski run. How many trees did the organizers pledge to replant after the games, you ask? 1,000.
The Olympics are great. No one is saying that anyone should get rid of the Olympics anytime soon. But maybe we should stop having conversations about Russian doping (seriously who cares? they already have to be called the Olympic Athletes from Russia and that's hilarious on multiple levels) and start having conversations about how the Olympics are literally trashing the environments they take place in. The Olympic people are there for less than a month. The trees and the animals and the environments in the Pyeongchang area are there forever. Why must irreversible damage take place, surely people can come up with a greener solution than what already exists? The next Olympic games are being held in Tokyo. With enough national attention, I think Tokyo can and should pull through and announce an environmentally sustainable plan for the construction and execution of the 2020 Olympics. Scientists apparently think that polar bears are going extinct sooner than they thought, and it's all because of the ice melting. The ice is melting at increased rates, and it means that the polar bears have to go further and expend more energy to find food. The number one cause of polar bear deaths besides natural causes is starvation. For one polar bear to sustain its energy requires 12,325 calories a day, usually one adult ringed seal every 10 days. However, one study found that four out of nine bears in the study didn't reach that calorie level.
This is important because these are polar bears! If polar bears go extinct, what are we even doing as a species? I don't want to live in a world where I have to tell my kids about these magical white bears that are in the same category as the dinosaurs. The only real solution I can see according to the article is "decisive action to address Arctic warming," whatever that means. I don't know what decisive action looks like but people should do something. Maybe a national Save the Polar Bears Day where everyone stays inside and doesn't use anything with carbon emissions, just watches polar bear documentaries all day. Perfluoalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, are a group of flourinated compounds that can often be found in houseware such as non-stick cooking supplies and upholstery, even cosmetics. However, PFAS are being slowly phased out because it was discovered that they can have a negative effect on the immune systems of humans. However, the problem is that PFAS are not biodegradable, so any PFAS already in the environment will stay there. In a study published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, it was discovered that PFAS in the ocean have a negative effect on the immune systems of mussels.
The good news is that the amounts of PFAS thought to be currently in the environment are not as concentrated as the amounts the study proved were needed to harm the mussels. But that means we need to be very careful about making sure no more PFAS are put in any products ever. Because mussels are freaking delicious. You haven't lived until you've had some Whidbey Island mussels. If you haven't already heard, California is definitely on fire. It is now the fourth-largest fire in California history. The cost of fighting it is coming up on 75 million dollars, and 8,000 firefighters are currently actively working to contain it. The fire is threatening Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, and one firefighter has already died, as well as an unconfirmed number of people dead from smoke inhalation and accidents in the traffic caused by evacuations. 900 homes have been razed to the ground, as well as other structures. Gov. Jerry Brown had declared a state of emergency, and we're literally all going to die.
Half of the reason we're all on fire is the droughts, so all the trees are dead and we've basically just turned into one giant tinderbox. A little bit of fire is supposed to be good for forests but this is just ridiculous. On that note, the flood of refugees from the LA area have been welcomed with open arms by those in northern Cali, so at least the fires have helped to foster a sense of community, if little else. From tragedy comes heroism, or something like that. Like that man who saved the bunny. He may not be the hero Gotham needs, but he is the hero Gotham deserves. For many years, scientists named the bedrock that lies underneath the coniferous forests of the Sierra Nevadas as the ecosystem's primary source of nutrients. However, new data from the University of Wyoming proves that this is incorrect. The primary source of nutrients for the pine trees that cover the area is derived from the dust that blows in. This was discovered via biochemical "fingerprints" taken from pine needles from the trees. And there is more. Not only is this process true in the Sierras, but it is also thought to take place in mountain ranges such as the Appalachians and western Europe.
Scientists are debating how long this process has been the primary source of nutrients for the trees in these forests. It is still not known whether it has always been this way or if this is the trees adapting to depletion of nutrients from the bedrock/some other kind of ecological change. At any rate, this development gives scientists new things to take into consideration when measuring the health of the forests, as changes in the climate would affect wind patterns that blow the life-giving dust into the mountains. A new study finds that Ethiopia, the world's fifth-largest coffee producer, could lose up to 60% of its suitable farming land because of climate change. Rainfall is less and temperatures are higher, which is not an ideal climate to grow coffee beans in. According to a report from World Coffee Research, the demand for coffee will have doubled by 2050, but the suitable land to grow it on will be cut in half. This will also affect the quality of the coffee itself. In general, the colder the area the coffee grows in the better quality of the coffee. Climate change reverses this entirely.
Of course, coffee quality/quantity is not the most important reason to protect the environment. But if one person who might otherwise have been apathetic is spurred to the action under the threat of lesser quality coffee, by all means, they should go for it. A rallying cry is a rallying cry. Even if that rallying cry is coffee. Delhi has been called the smog capital of the world. Now, the smog is so bad that breathing the air in Delhi is the equivalent of smoking 44 cigarettes a day. The Delhi government has suspended all civic construction projects, and schools are closed and children are advised to remain inside. Doctors are being flooded with patients exhibiting symptoms such as chest pain, breathlessness, and burning eyes. The pollution is thought to be a combination of vehicle exhaust, smoke from garbage fires and crop burning, and road dust.
Pollution has always been a negative side effect of industrialization, but now, the seriousness of it all is starting to hit. And for Delhi, it already might be too late. The pollution is reversible, but for the millions of people who have been breathing the equivalent of 44 cigarettes a day, the effects on their health are not. The question is: How did it get this bad? How did it need to get to emergency crisis levels for officials to do something about it? Pollution needs to be better managed and regulated, or at least monitored, to keep a crisis like Delhi from happening again - be it in India, America, or anywhere in the world. Winter is upon us, and overall, the massive wildfires that swept California this fall are over. Most people assume the worst is over; we can get back to life, to rebuilding, to living. However, an invisible enemy is now poised to take even more lives. The massive amounts of smoke pollution in the air from the wildfires is a major concern. Every year, particulates in the air kill 3 million people, and that's without the major spike in particulates from this year's more-disastrous-than-normal wildfires. People with heart and lung conditions, or even something as simple as asthma, may be at risk from the smoke that is traveling to places in California where the wildfires themselves were never even a concern.
As well as affecting the human population, the pollution caused by wildfires will have a similar effect on animals. By harming the wildlife and the humans, increased pollution can send the environment into a tailspin. Clearly, the primary way to prevent it is to prevent wildfires, but not all of it is caused by the fires. We can also prevent pollution from other sources such as industry and carbon emissions. Clearly, it is a hazard to human health, and that alone should convince people to take pollution seriously if the disastrous effects on the environment aren't enough. |