Save Eco Destinations

A study by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has found a 100-fold upsurge in human-produced plastic garbage in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch within the Pacific Ocean. Researchers found that the plastic debris is disrupting habitats in the ecosystem — but not in the ways you might imagine.

In 2009, a team of graduate students led the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition (SEAPLEX) to the North Pacific Ocean Subtropical Gyre aboard the Scripps research vessel New Horizon. The researchers, who focused their studies on an area 1,000 miles west of California, documented an immense amount of human-generated trash, mostly tiny broken down bits of plastic the size of a human fingernail floating across thousands of miles of open sea.

The new study published by a graduate student researcher in the latest issue of the journal Biology Letters reveals that plastic debris in the area popularly known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” has grown by 100 times over in the past 40 years, thereby altering the natural habitat of animals such as the marine insect Halobates sericeus.

“When you go out into the North Pacific, what you find can be highly variable. So, to find such a clear pattern and such a large increase was very surprising,” said graduate student and lead author of the study Miriam Goldstein.

These insects — known also as ”sea skaters” or “water striders” – inhabit water surfaces and lay their eggs on flotsam such as seashells, seabird feathers, tar lumps and pumice. Now, sea skaters have are using plastic garbage as new surfaces for their eggs, which is strongly increasing the insects’ egg densities in the gyre.

This increase, documented for the first time in a marine invertebrate in the open ocean, may affect animals across the marine food web, such as crabs that prey on sea skaters and their eggs.

“This paper shows a dramatic increase in plastic over a relatively short time period and the effect it’s having on a common North Pacific Gyre invertebrate,” said Goldstein, chief scientist of SEAPLEX, a UC Ship Funds-supported voyage. “We’re seeing changes in this marine insect that can be directly attributed to the plastic.”

The amount of plastic debris will influence the survival of species specifically adapted to life on or around objects floating in the water.

The new study follows a 2011 report by Scripps researchers showing that 9% of the fish collected during SEAPLEX had consumed plastic waste. That study estimated that such fish in the North Pacific Ocean ingest plastic at a rate of roughly 12,000-24,000 tons a year.

The new study compared changes in small plastic abundance between 1972-1987 and 1999-2010 through historical samples gathered from various sources. In April, researchers with the Instituto Oceanográfico in Brazil published a report that eggs of Halobates micans, another species of sea skater, appeared on many plastic bits floating in the South Atlantic off the Brazilian coast.

“Plastic only became widespread in late ’40s and early ’50s, but now everyone uses it and over a 40-year range we’ve seen a dramatic increase in ocean plastic,” said Goldstein. “Historically we have not been very good at stopping plastic from getting into the ocean so hopefully in the future we can do better.”

GOOD has some fantastic infographics, some of which are even interactive.

Check ‘em out:

Your Daily Dose of Water – Find out all the hidden ways your daily habits add to your water footprint on a typical day.

How Does Lack of Water Affect Women and Children?

What’s Wrong with Our Food System? – “People are hungry not because there isn’t enough food produced but because our food system is broken. … Check out our latest infographic to learn about some of the ways that the food system can be fixed to improve the quality of life for millions.”

Why Don’t Americans Recycle?

How Does a Hybrid Car Work?

How car maker CODA is redefining electric vehicles (sponsored infographic)

How Levi’s is saving water (sponsored infographic)

A team of scientists from various universities in Israel has been studying marine macroalgae, also known as common seaweed. The group has determined that these algae can be farmed more quickly than land-based crops used for bioethanol and harvested as fuel without taking up land that could be employed in more profitable or environmentally conscious ways.

In addition, although both seaweed biofuels and bioethanol from food crops are less environmentally destructive than burning fossil fuels, using seaweed to develop biofuels is much more environmentally beneficial than creating bioethanol from crops like corn and sugarcane, as applying such crops for this purpose instead of using them to feed people causes food prices to rocket and can lead to food shortages.

Avigdor Abelson, a professor of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Zoology and the new Renewable Energy Center, also believes that growing macroalgae for bioethanol production can take care of the problem of eutrophication along the country’s coasts.

Eutrophication is pollution in waterways caused by human waste, or sewage, and aquaculture or fish farming operations. The result is excessive amounts of nutrients including phosphates and nitrates as well as harmful algae, all elements that ultimately damage endangered coral reefs. Multiple coastal regions, such as the Red Sea in the south of Israel, have suffered from eutrophication.

The scientists created an artificial “ecosystem” which they call “Combined Aquaculture Multi-Use Systems” (CAMUS). It incorporates the effects of human activity and realistically mimics the marine environment.

According to the scientists, the excess nutrients that come from man-made fish feeders, which are considered contaminants due to their harmful effects on the marine ecosystem, could be utilised by filter feeders like oysters and other shellfish and thus turned into food by these animals to sustain the growth of more seaweed.

Moreover, the seaweed can be grown along the coast unobtrusively, Abelson said.

“By employing multiple species, CAMUS can turn waste into productive resources such as biofuel, at the same time reducing pollution’s impact on the local ecosystem,” he stated.

Another advantage is that seaweed could become a renewable energy source that does not jeopardize natural habitats, biodiversity or human food sources.

Now, the scientists are collaborating to boost the carbohydrate and sugar contents of seaweed so they can efficiently ferment it into bioethanol.

The team is confident that macroalgae will be a major source for biofuel in the future. Let’s hope so!

 

Japan has been facing widespread criticism since it said it will be using some of the public funds allocated for disaster reconstruction to buttress its whaling operations. Instead of going to help fishing communities and others devastated by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami, a portion of the funds will go to strengthen security for the country’s divisive annual whaling hunt. Classy.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) and Greenpeace accused the Japanese Government of spending an extra USD 30 million on increased security for the whalers, whose efforts are regularly affronted by anti-whaling groups.

The awesome Paul Watson.

“I think that it’s totally disgraceful,” SSCS Captain Paul Watson stated. “People from around the world sending money to help the victims of the tsunami-earthquake were not expecting their money to be used to fund killing whales in the Southern Ocean.”

Before the Japanese fleet departed for Antarctica earlier this week, the coast guard informed it would be sending out guards to protect it from environmental activists, AFP reports.

Fisheries Agency official Tatsuya Nakaoku said the move would ultimately help people who depend on whaling and whose livelihoods were ruined by the tsunami.

“The government will support the reconstruction effort of a whaling town and nearby areas,” he said. “This programme can help it reconstruct food processing plants there…”

“Many people in the area eat whale meat, too. They are waiting for Japan’s commercial whaling to resume,” he retorted.

Last February, the defiant actions of Sea Shepherd prompted Japan to shorten its hunt for the 2010-11 season by a month — after catching only one-fifth of its planned bounty.

Japan intends to kill almost 1,000 whales this time around, The Guardian reports.

In November, the Japanese Government approved a USD 1.6 billion extra budget, the third of 2011, to fund reconstruction and boost the economy lagging from the impact of the March disaster. Of the USD 64.2 million designated for fisheries-related spending, USD 29.3 million were earmarked for “stabilising whaling research.”

“We will bolster measures against acts of sabotage by anti-whaling groups so as to stably carry out the Antarctic whaling research,” the fisheries department then said.

Sea Shepherd is ready to confront the Japanese fleet. Three of the green group’s ships will set sail next week, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

“We are hoping to deter their operations,” Watson said. “I assume the security vessels will try and dislodge us. I am assuming there will be some difficult confrontations.”

SSCS asked Australia to send a vessel down to keep the peace, but the country refused, he told.

Japan also approached Australia – asking to help protect it from groups like Sea Shepherd – to no avail. Apparently Australia doesn’t buy that Japan whales for scientific purposes, which is what Japan has claimed for a long time.

Australia does not “buy for one minute this argument,” said Australian Environment Minister Tony Burke.

“You don’t travel from one side of the globe to the other to harpoon whales and chop them up in the name of science,” he snapped.

Excellent.

Meanwhile, the clamor got louder this week when Latin American members of the International Whaling Commission urged Japan to halt its “scientific” whaling in Antarctica and respect sanctuaries.

Save the whales!

Climate change will bring a combination of rising temperatures and increased predation that will result in biodiversity loss – and it may be worse than currently predicted, claims a study by University of British Columbia (UBC) zoologist Christopher Harley.

“Global warming is already having significant ecological impacts and it’s only going to get more dramatic,” Harley warned.

The study

Published in the current issue of the journal Science, the study examines how rocky shore barnacles and mussels react to the combined effects of warming and predation by sea stars.

Harley looked at the upper and lower temperature limits of barnacles and mussels from the cool west coast of Vancouver Island to the warm shores of the San Juan Islands, where water temperature rose from relatively cool in the 1950s to the much warmer years of 2009 and 2010.

He found that in cooler locations, mussels and rocky shore barnacles could live high on the shore and be shielded from their predators. But as temperatures rose, barnacles and mussels had to move to lower shore levels — and be exposed to predatory sea stars, whose location has not shifted.

“Sea stars are the terrors of the intertidal zone,” said Harley, Vancouver Sun reports. “As it gets hotter you would expect [species] to just move down to lower positions on the shore where they wouldn’t be out of the water for so long. But things aren’t shifting in unison.”

As daily high temperatures during the summer have jumped by almost 3.5 degrees Celsius in the last 60 years, barnacle and mussels have moved 50 cm lower on the shore. However, the effects of predators, and therefore the position of the lower limit, have thus far remained unchanged.

“That loss represents 51% of the mussel bed. Some mussels have even gone extinct locally at three of the sites I surveyed,” said Harley.

He then found that when stress from sea star predation was reduced by using exclusion cages, mussels and other species were able to live in hotter sites where they usually can’t — and their populations there more than doubled.

“A mussel bed is kind of like an apartment complex – it provides critical habitat for a lot of little plants and animals,” said Harley. “The mussels make the habitat cooler and wetter, providing an environment for crabs and other small crustaceans, snails, worms and seaweed.”

In contrast with many previous studies on how species ranges will change due to global warming, this analysis does not assume that species will simply relocate to remain in their current temperature range.

As animals or plants are unable to change their habitat ranges, Harley told, the findings show that warming and predation together could spawn more widespread extinction than scientists currently anticipate.

“Warming is not just having direct effects on individual species,” Harley added. “This study shows that climate change can also alter interactions between species, and produce unexpected changes in where species can live, their community structure, and their diversity.”

The effect on fishers

Relatedly, UBC researchers have also determined how climate change can impact the economic viability of current fisheries practices. Fish stocks are already yielding fewer fish due to overfishing and environmental factors such as pollution.

“Climate change is likely to cause more losses unless we choose to act,” said Rashid Sumaila, principal investigator of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at UBC and lead author of the study.

A collaboration between economists, biologists and climate-change scientists, the study gives a broad outlook of the effect of climate change on fisheries and their profitability; it was published online in the journal Nature Climate Change. It received the support of the Pew Charitable Trusts, National Geographic, the World Bank and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

As waters warm, species move to cooler waters

Warming ocean temperatures have led many species to move farther towards the poles and into deeper and cooler waters. This means that while fishers in a few regions, such as Scandinavia in the far north, may benefit because they will now have more fish to catch, many others, and particularly fishers in the tropics, will lose an important food source along with their livelihoods. (Many fishers in tropical regions are poor and fish to feed themselves and their families.)

Researchers examined regional phenomena to help them find out what could happen on a global scale. For instance, lower catches of pelagic fish (such as sardines and anchovies) in Peru resulting from warmer waters during the 1997-1998 El Niño event caused more than USD 26 million in losses.

“For example, if you think about sardines on the Pacific Coast here: Whenever the temperatures are a bit higher, we see more sardines moving from Mexico through the US to Canada,” Sumaila noted, CBC News reports.

Fish survival is compromised

William Cheung, a biologist at the UBC Fisheries Center, said changes in temperature and ocean chemistry directly and adversely affect the physiology, growth, reproduction and distribution of marine life.

“Fish in warmer waters will probably have a smaller body size, be smaller at first maturity, with higher mortality rates and be caught in different areas,” he explained.

NOAA scientist and co-author Sam Herrick is calling for ongoing studies on how climate change and related factors will shape marine ecosystems and the productivity of fish populations.

Richer fish stocks = better adaptation to change

It was found that the bigger populations are, the better fish can adjust to environmental shifts such as warming temperatures. Minimizing the combined strains from overfishing, habitat degradation, pollution runoff, land-use transformation, competing aquatic resource uses and other anthropogenic factors will also contribute to helping stocks cope with climate change.

“We have to remember that the effect of climate change on the marine environment will occur alongside the impacts on land,” said Daniel Pauly, a UBC fisheries biologist and co-author.  “It will not be easy to divert resources from one sector to help another sector. This is why a strong governance system is needed – to temper the losses on the sectors that are worst hit.”

In other words, government officials need to step up and work harder to stop overfishing and illegal fishing, reduce runoff from agriculture and other polluting sources, and fight habitat destruction, among taking other measures.

Take a small step to make a difference

In the meantime, if you eat fish, something you can do is commit to purchasing only sustainably caught seafood. Read more about how to do this here:

• Greenpeace reveals canned tuna guide
• Fish eaters beware – your “sustainable” fish may not be

Related blog posts on Save Eco Destinations:

• Marine experts spell doom for world’s oceans, Pt. 2
• Marine experts spell doom for world’s oceans, Pt. 1

 

 

Created by: Public Health Degree

Created by: Marketing Degree

This is Part 2 of a two-part series of blog posts on the health dangers of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and ways we can fight back against the corporations that produce them. Part 2 of the series discusses recent developments and some GMO trends, mentions promising anti-GMO phenomena, and lists some things you can do right now to oppose Monsanto and GMOs worldwide. Part 1 talks about the emergence and spread of superweeds, the litany of problems associated with GMOs, and some steps you can take to remove genetically modified (GM) foods from your diet. Both posts contain myriad links to resources so readers can learn more about various related topics.

Recent developments

In a baffling move, the U.S. Government has made a deal with the agricultural biotechnology industry to allow for the expansion of GM crops. Why the U.S. is echoing Argentina’s efforts (Argentina’s Government inked an agreement with farmers this year) is beyond me – although it probably has to do with crazy-strong lobbying efforts and a bribe here and there (just guessing). In addition, the U.S. continues to push Monsanto pesticides on Argentina despite the latter’s opposition. Some Argentines support it but it looks like most oppose it. Argentina is one of the world’s main soy producers, by the way.

More shockers:

• 95% of soybeans and 93% of corn grown in Minnesota this year are GM.
• More than 80% of soy grown and nearly two-thirds of the world’s cotton worldwide is GM.
• 94% of soybeans and more than 70% of corn and cotton planted in the U.S. contain the Roundup-resistant gene.

Documentaries on Monsanto and the dangers of GMOs

If you’re interested, here are two documentaries on Monsanto that I fully recommend:

• The World According to Monsanto
• Controlling Our Food

Watch ‘em and let me know what you think! I found them both fascinating and utterly terrifying, but ignorance is definitely not bliss when your food is toxic and you’re the one who will lose when your health falters. Thus, I’d rather know and take preventative steps, even if it’s inconvenient and potentially troublesome, than tell myself that everything I eat is innocuous. What about you?

Exciting anti-GMO developments

Fortunately, it’s not all bad. Hungary is kicking butt by driving Monsanto’s GM crops out and criminalizing the dissemination of GMO seeds. The country has destroyed all of Monsanto’s corn fields in its territory! Fantastic and tremendously inspirational. The U.S. (and all other countries, of course) should follow suit. Let’s do all we can to make this happen!

Take Action

• Join the campaign Millions Against Monsanto and sign its petition
• Promote sustainable agriculture through Greenpeace’s action campaign
• Join this group to learn about organic and self-sustaining gardening practices so you can take direct action to look after your health
• Check out the Organic Consumers Association and support its efforts
• Sign in support of Greenpeace’s call for Australia to stop unsafe GM wheat trials
• Sign a petition against GMOs in Poland
• Join the Facebook page Say No To GMO Foods
• Join the Facebook page Environmental Labels: Your Right to Know
• Do your own research
• Spread the word by linking to this blog post and any others you find informative

Want to add something? Did I miss anything important? All contributions are welcome, including guest posts!

 

This is Part 1 of a two-part series of blog posts on the health dangers of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) — also known as GM (genetically modified) or GE (genetically engineered) crops – and ways we can fight back against the corporations that produce them. Part 1 talks about the emergence and spread of superweeds, the litany of problems associated with GMOs, and some steps you can take to remove genetically modified (GM) foods from your diet. Part 2 of the series discusses recent developments and some GMO trends, mentions promising anti-GMO phenomena, and lists some things you can do right now to oppose Monsanto and GMOs worldwide. Both posts contain myriad links to resources so readers can learn more about various related topics.

Farmers have been aghast to discover that their Monsanto Roundup crops are spurring Roundup-resistant superweeds. Even scarier, these plants are not only resisting Roundup but also other types and cocktails of pesticides. Nature’s fighting back against corporations’ thoughtless genetic engineering practices — and now it’s getting out of control for both farmers and Monsanto, and there will be repercussions for everyone from India to Argentina.

The problem is getting worse – and quickly — because the resistant weeds are replacing their non-resistant counterparts as well as cross-pollinating them with the resistant gene as they are carried by the wind across vast regions of the U.S.

Mother Jones reports:

“These weeds adapt faster and more vigorously than their weed cousins, choking fields and clogging irrigation ditches so badly water can’t pass through. ‘Pollen can transfer the resistant trait; that’s the problem,’ said Kevin Bradley, a weed scientist with the University of Missouri. ‘There’s not much we can do about pollen flying through the air, and that’s why we see such rapid spread of resistance.’”

 

What are the problems with GMOs?

• GM crops are dangerous on many levels, including health. GMO pesticides have been linked to cancer, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, miscarriages, birth defects, and other severe ailments.
• A study has found that GM crops causes endocrine disruption, birth defects, cancer, damage to DNA, reproductive and developmental toxicity, and neurotoxicity.
•  A 2010 study linked GM corn to organ failure in rats:

“Effects were mostly concentrated in kidney and liver function, the two major diet detoxification organs, but in detail differed with each GM type. In addition, some effects on heart, adrenal, spleen and blood cells were also frequently noted. …These substances have never before been an integral part of the human or animal diet and therefore their health consequences for those who consume them, especially over long time periods are currently unknown.”

Monsanto of course accused the study of being “based on faulty analytical methods and reasoning” and said the findings “do not call into question the safety findings for these products.” Right, Monsanto.

As the Huffington Post reports, the study’s author, Gilles-Eric Séralini, subsequently fired back on the blog Food Freedom:

“Our study contradicts Monsanto conclusions because Monsanto systematically neglects significant health effects in mammals that are different in males and females eating GMOs, or not proportional to the dose. This is a very serious mistake, dramatic for public health. This is the major conclusion revealed by our work, the only careful reanalysis of Monsanto crude statistical data.”

• Monsanto’s Roundup pesticide has led to superweeds that grow a mind-boggling 3 inches a day. Perhaps scarier is the fact that herbicide-resistant weeds will probably have an adverse effect on food production across the globe. The outlook is grim. Superweeds are multiplying across the United States like wildfire. At least 21 weed species have thus far become resistant to Roundup. Food will become more expensive as a result and become harder to obtain for people in financial straits – often the people who are already malnourished or starving and thus in great need of nutritious, safe (read: non-toxic) foods in order for their health to recover. This will affect us everywhere in the world.

“The same selection pressure creating bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics is leading to the rapid evolution of plants that survive modern herbicides. If the trend continues, yields could drop and food costs climb as weeds grow more difficult to uproot,” Fast Company reports.

• Hungary is incurring billions of forints in losses thanks to GM seeds.
• There is evidence suggesting that GM soy, corn, and canola colonize your gut bacteria and genetically alter it to also produce pesticide within your own cells. In other words, eating these food products transform your digestive system into a pesticide factory. Fun!
• Read about how Monsanto has refused to provide independent scientists with seeds for research or else has set restrictive conditions that severely limit outside scientists’ research. The article behind the link also includes information on potential health hazards caused by GM crops.

By Derek Singleton

At Software Advice, a software review website, I recently decided to look into how we build our roads. We hardly ever think about it, but building our roads is one of the most environmentally – and economically – taxing things we do. Our roads system connects us to everywhere we want or need to go. If you’re going on a trip, chances are that you’re taking a road to get there. As Shane Stathert of Think Green Roads put it:

Our roads are everywhere. Anywhere you turn, you automatically on a road. We can’t get away from them. We step outside of our house and we’re on a road. If we go to a National Park, we take a road. People don’t realize this but [building roads] is one of the highest impact things we do.

That’s an apt observation. Every year we spend roughly 7% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on building or repairing our transportation infrastructure. In 2010, that was roughly $1 trillion. But the costs don’t end there. It’s estimated that roughly 38,760,000 tons of CO2 are emitted from building our roads every year. That’s the same emissions as 6 million homes over an entire year.

We obviously need to find more sustainable ways of building our roads and highways. Actually, some very innovative ideas have arisen out of the green construction movement. We currently have the technology to recycle our roads ‘in place’ without having to use much additional asphalt. This method is called hot in-place recycling. Compared to normal road construction, this hot in-place recycling reduces greenhouse emissions by 60% and material usage by more than 80%. It’s great economically and environmentally. But this method is underutilized and relatively unknown. So what’s keeping us from doing more of this green road construction?

It turns out that there’s an archaic contracting system in place that prevents us from using this method more. It’s called “cost-plus” pricing. Never heard of it? I hadn’t either until I did my homework. It works like this:

A while back, contractors negotiated to have all their road projects funded through a contract that pays them for the price of their labor and the price of the asphalt. Under this system, contractors that use more asphalt are paid more. In effect, there’s no incentive use a more sustainable method that requires less asphalt. Since our tax dollars pay for most road construction, we’re the ones taking the hit in the pocket book. This system is unsustainable environmentally and economically and we need to do something to repair it quickly.

To find out more about how contractors thwart green road construction, visit my blog at Green Roads Construction: Are Contractors Our Roadblock? While you’re there, be sure to leave me a comment with your thoughts and opinions.