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Tag: Pollution

  • Air So Polluted It Can Kill Isn’t Being Taken Seriously Enough

    Air So Polluted It Can Kill Isn’t Being Taken Seriously Enough

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    In 2010, three months before her seventh birthday, Ella Roberta suddenly developed a chest infection and a severe cough. Her mother, Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, took her to the local hospital in Lewisham, South East London, where she was initially diagnosed with asthma.

    In the following months, she got worse and began suffering from coughing syncope—coughing episodes so violent that they caused her to black out due to a lack of blood supply to the brain. “She had one of the worst cases of asthma ever recorded,” Kissi-Debrah recalls. “They didn’t really know what was wrong as she didn’t present as a normal asthmatic. They tested her for everything, from epilepsy to cystic fibrosis. Her condition was extremely rare.” So rare, in fact, that Kissi-Debrah couldn’t find a single case of a child suffering a cough from coughing syncope in the scientific literature. “It was only common in long-distance lorry drivers,” she says.

    In the next three years, Ella was admitted to hospital about 30 times. On February 15, 2013, shortly after her ninth birthday, she suffered a fatal asthma attack.

    Her original death certificate stated that she had died from acute respiratory failure. “At the inquest, it was established that some of it might be due to ‘something in the air,’” Kissi-Debrah says. None of the medical experts consulted had mentioned the possibility that air pollution could have triggered Ella’s syncope. That possibility came to light only after Kissi-Debrah was contacted by a reader of the local newspaper who had read about her story and suggested that she check the air pollution levels on the day Ella died. Indeed, that day the levels of nitrogen dioxide caused by the traffic on heavily congested South Circular Road, near where they lived, had far exceeded set limits.

    With the assistance of her lawyer, Kissi-Debrah applied to the High Court to quash the verdict of the first inquest and request a second one, which was one granted. “My lawyer, Jocelyn, outlined on a graph all the times Ella had been admitted to the hospital, and then she got the data from the monitors near the house,” Kissi-Debrah recalls. The pattern was clear: There was a spike in air pollution prior to Ella experiencing coughing syncope. “Twenty-seven out of 28 times. As far as I’m concerned, that’s scientifically significant.” Furthermore, they showed that, on average, dioxide emissions and particulate matter levels in Lewisham far exceeded World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.

    After nine days of deliberation, the inquest concluded that “Ella died of asthma contributed to by exposure to excessive air pollution.” It added: “Ella’s mother was not given information about the health risks of air pollution and its potential to exacerbate asthma. If she had been given this information she would have taken steps which might have prevented Ella’s death.” The cause of death on Ella’s death certificate was amended. To this date, she remains the only person in the world to have air pollution on her death certificate.

    Given the evidence at the inquest, the coroner also issued a Prevention of Future Deaths Report, which had a series of recommendations, such as ensuring that national air pollution levels be in line with WHO guidelines, that the public in England and Wales be made aware of the risks of air pollution, and that health professionals be educated on the health impacts of air pollution and inform patients accordingly.

    “The coroner felt that other children were at risk of dying,” Kissi-Debrah says. “He made it very clear, actually, that unless the air was cleaned up, more children would die.”

    Currently, 600,000 children worldwide die every year from breathing polluted air. In London alone, a quarter of a million children suffer from asthma. “The only time in this country no child has died from asthma was during the first lockdown,” Kissi-Debrah says. Ten years on from the death of her daughter, she continues to campaign for the legal right to clean air. As part of her campaign, she is lobbying for the approval of the Clean Air Bill in the UK, also known as Ella’s law: a parliamentary bill that establishes the right to breathe clean air.

    “It is our right to breathe clean air, and it is the government’s duty to clean up the air and ensure that the UK targets are in line with WHO targets, as currently, they are not,” she says. “This isn’t a party political issue. It’s about our health. It’s about our future.”

    This article appears in the July/August 2024 issue of WIRED UK magazine.

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    João Medeiros

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  • Senate pushes plastic bag ban

    Senate pushes plastic bag ban

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    BOSTON — Byproducts of a trip to the market and convenience store, plastic bags get a bad rap from environmentalists as wasteful consumables that litter oceans, parks and beaches and take hundreds of years to break down.

    Voters in at least 160 cities and towns in Massachusetts, including Gloucester, Manchester, Newburyport and Marblehead, have banned the bags or restricted their use.

    Others are considering limits, including lawmakers on Beacon Hill, who have revived a push for a statewide ban.

    The state Senate voted 38-2 Thursday to approve a bill that will ban single use plastic bags and require retailers to charge customers 10 cents for a paper bag, among other initiatives to reduce plastic waste.

    Supporters of the ban say single-use plastic bags clog the waste stream and litter oceans, parks and beaches.

    “They may sit in a landfill. They may be incinerated, both of which release microplastics and greenhouse gases back into the environment,” Sen. Becca Rausch, a Newton Democrat, the bill’s primary sponsor, said in remarks ahead of the bill’s passage. They probably won’t be recycled because less than 10% of plastics are actually recycled in the United States. And plastics can persist in the environment for decades to centuries to an entire millennium.”

    Members of the Senate’s Republican minority voted against the bill, arguing that a single use plastic ban will hurt the state’s small businesses while doing little to reduce pollution.

    “This is going to cost consumers more, in a state that already has an incredibly high cost of living and while we’re trying to increase affordability,” Sen. Peter Durant, R-Spencer, said in remarks on Thursday. “I think this becomes too much, too much for us to bear. There are still solutions we can take to implement moving forward, but we have to look at the cost-benefit ratio.”

    Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, one of two Republicans who voted for the bill, filed an amendment that would have removed the paper bag fee from the bill, but it was rejected by the Democratic majority.

    “If we are going to, rightfully, ban plastic bags, then we should not be dictatorial about how the market responds to the consequences,” the Gloucester Republican said.

    Lawmakers withdrew a proposed amendment that would have banned plastic liquor “nips” following pushback from the state’s package store owners who argued it would hurt business and do too little to reduce plastic pollution.

    Efforts to phase out the bags are opposed by the plastics and paper industries, as well as some retail groups, who call the restrictions unnecessary and costly.

    Beacon Hill has wrestled with the issue for years. Attempts at a statewide ban have faltered amid industry pressure.

    In 2019, a similar proposal fell apart after a legislative committee, deliberating behind closed doors, stripped the fee and added a “preemption” clause that would effectively override local plastic bag bans, many of them voter-approved.

    “What we’re really trying to do is encourage reuse,” said Janet Domenitz, executive director of MassPIRG, said Thursday. “So the ban on single use plastics gets rid of the most deleterious material. The fee on paper is a way to incentivize people bring your own bag.”

    Then-Gov. Charlie Baker suspended local plastic bag bans in 2020 and banned the use of reusable bags as part of a raft of measures to stop spread of COVID-19. The state rescinded those limits a year later after it proceeded with reopening plans, citing research that the virus doesn’t survive well on plastic surfaces.

    Nationwide, Americans throw away some 100 billion plastic bags a year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which says the average bag takes up to 1,000 years to break down. Most bags are used an average of 12 minutes.

    The bill now moves to the House of Representatives, which must approve it before sending it to Gov. Maura Healey’s desk for consideration.

    Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com

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    By Christian M. Wade | Statehouse Reporter

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  • Haverhill to borrow $12.4M to reduce CS0s, upgrade water lines

    Haverhill to borrow $12.4M to reduce CS0s, upgrade water lines

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    HAVERHILL — The city will borrow $12.4 million for a project aimed at reducing the amount of combined sewer overflows reaching the Merrimack River.

    The City Council this week unanimously approved borrowing $12.4 million for a project intended to reduce CSOs pouring into the Little River and into the Merrimack River while also improving the water distribution system in the Locke Street area.

    In his request for the funding, DPW Director Robert Ward told the council the amount of the loan order increased by about $2 million since the original request passed about a year ago.

    He said the project was deferred a year due to permitting issues hit by cost increases.

    He said a number of things, including the need for additional quantities of items such as 18-inch diameter pipes, the creation of additional stormwater outfalls not in the original cost estimates, the need to rehabilitate some stormwater drain pipes, additional roadway restoration costs and other items.

    The council was provided with documents explaining the project, which will play out in three phases over the next 10 years.

    In his letter to the council, Ward noted that in 2016 the city entered into a consent decree with the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) requiring the city to reduce CSOs.

    Ward said that before the 1960s, sewage and stormwater were commonly collected in the same pipe. These combined sewers were designed and built to overflow into nearby waterways to prevent excessive flooding during rain storms from backing up into basements, streets, parking lots and other areas.

    Ward said the Locke Street area is the city’s biggest contributor to CSO overflows into the Merrimack River.

    This Locke Street Phase 1 combined sewer overflow (CSO) separation and water system improvements project will involve separating the combined sewer system in that area into separate wastewater and stormwater systems, thereby reducing excessive stormwater entering the sewer system during rain events.

    Ward noted that Phase 1 separates about 3,500 feet of combined sewers in the Locke Street area by installing new stormwater pipes, disconnecting catch basins from them, and connecting them to the separate stormwater lines. The project also involves upsizing existing storm drains, installing new outfalls to increase capacity of the existing storm drain system, and rehabilitating existing sewers and manholes.

    In conjunction with the sewer and drain work, old, undersized water mains in the Phase 1 area will be replaced and upsized. Ward said it makes sense to upgrade water lines in that area rather than return at a future date and having to dig up the streets again.

    The average household’s sewer rate impact from this project will be less than $21 annually, Ward stated in his letter. The water rate impact will add about $8 to the annual bill for an average size household, he said.

    The loan order funds Phase 1 of three phases over the next 10 years or so. Phases 2 and 3 will be in other areas, including Primrose, Main Street and Lawrence Street, which also discharge into Little River and to the CSO outlet behind the downtown bus station.

    “We’re paying for the sins of the past,” Ward said.

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    By Mike LaBella | mlabella@eagletribune.com

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  • Unbelievable facts

    Unbelievable facts

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    Half of all plastics ever produced have been made in the last 15 years.

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  • DTE Energy added to federal lawsuit over excessive pollution emissions on Zug Island

    DTE Energy added to federal lawsuit over excessive pollution emissions on Zug Island

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    DTE Energy is now entangled in a federal lawsuit that alleges its subsidiary, EES Coke Battery on Zug Island, violated the Clean Air Act by substantially increasing its sulfur dioxide emissions and jeopardizing the health of people who live in River Rouge and southwest Detroit.

    U.S. District Judge Gershwin A. Drain granted the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) request to add DTE Energy as a defendant in the lawsuit filed against EES Coke in June 2022.

    Environmentalists applauded the decision, saying the multibillion-dollar energy company must be held accountable for the actions of its subsidiaries. During the discovery phase of the case, depositions with EES Coke and DTE employees have revealed that DTE and two of its subsidiaries were behind the decision that led to increased pollution at the plant, activists say.

    “I am relieved that DTE will not be able to hide their illegal behavior from the court,” Ebony Elmore, a Sierra Club Executive Committee member who lives in River Rouge, said Wednesday. “It’s important for everyone to understand what the court found: The emissions may come from EES Coke, but the orders come from DTE Energy.”

    Over the past decade, the plant has emitted thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide, a dangerous air pollutant that can cause asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema, according to the EPA. Short-term exposure can cause difficulty breathing, stomach pain, headaches, nausea, vomiting, fever, and irritation of the nose, throat, and lungs. Asthma is a chronic lung disease that disproportionately affects Black Detroiters.

    The coal-powered plant manufactures coke, a key ingredient in steel production. During the process, it generates what the EPA refers to as “coke oven gas,” which can be used as fuel. When burned, this gas releases sulfur dioxide. The battery plant can utilize this fuel in other facilities, power its own operations, or burn it off in a flare.

    click to enlarge

    Shutterstock

    Zug Island is the site of pollution-spewing industrial plants in River Rouge, just south of Detroit.

    In 2014, state environmental regulators issued a new permit to the facility, lifting the limit on coke fire gas combustion, a process that emits sulfur dioxide. This decision was based on the company’s assurance that the change “would not result in a significant increase in emissions,” according to the EPA.

    However, the plant did significantly increase its emissions, and the company failed to obtain the necessary permits or implement required pollution controls, the EPA alleges.

    Activists say DTE has been especially problematic for lower-income, predominantly Black communities, where an abundance of pollution-spewing plants tends to be located.

    “In truth this is only one example in DTE’s long and ugly history of profiting at the expense of low-income people of color,” Sierra Club organizer Bryan Smigielski said. “This ruling is an important step in a long road towards environmental justice for southwest Detroit.”

    Zug Island is adjacent to Michigan’s most polluted ZIP code, 48217, located in Detroit. The community is inundated with a toxic stew of chemicals wafting from steel mills, coal-fired power plants, gas flares, billowing smokestacks, towering piles of coal and petroleum coke, a salt mine, wastewater treatment plant, and one of the nation’s largest oil refineries — all looming over schools, neighborhoods, parks, senior centers, and a recreation center.

    A nauseating stench of rotten eggs, burnt plastic, and gasoline permeates the air, and heavy-duty trucks spewing harmful emissions rumble to and from factories all day and night, often carrying toxic chemicals and debris.

    “We hope to move quickly and ensure that EES Coke and DTE end their illegal pollution and fix the damage they have caused,” Nick Leonard, director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, said.

    Earthjustice attorney Mary Rock says DTE can’t hide from what it has done.

    “At DTE’s direction, EES Coke sought the removal of pollution limits that allowed the facility to burn more coke oven gas and emit sulfur dioxide pollution,” Rock said.

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    Steve Neavling

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  • Space junk: Researcher says rocket launches are littering the air, is concerned about ozone layer

    Space junk: Researcher says rocket launches are littering the air, is concerned about ozone layer

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    ORLANDO, Fla. – A record-breaking number of launches is expected on the Space Coast this year.

    As launches increase experts say space pollution will too.

    Dr. Daniel Murphy with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said, “When the rockets burn up you get vaporized aluminum, you get vaporized copper, other metals, and that burn-up is happening at 40 to 80 kilometers, so well above 100,000 feet.”

    But, he said the vaporized metals don’t stay put.

    [EXCLUSIVE: Become a News 6 Insider (it’s FREE) | PINIT! Share your photos]

    “We were finding products from the burnup of rockets, that happens much higher in the atmosphere down in the stratosphere at about 60,000 feet. So finding what’s left over of the burn-up at much lower altitudes than people expected I think,” Murphy explained.

    He said the research is new.

    “We made measurements on a NASA airplane from Fairbanks, AK last February and it was looking at the data from those flights that we really started recognizing these metals,” Murphy said.

    It’s not clear what it all means and Murphy said more research is needed.

    Find every episode of Talk To Tom on YouTube:

    “We don’t think there is going to be impacts at ground level to people’s health and things, but what we are concerned about is that the stratosphere is the altitude where the ozone layer is and we don’t know for sure right now that there are any bad impacts from these metals, but it’s also a new thing to have found and we don’t know what the impacts are and I think there is always concern if you put some new material in at the same altitude as the ozone layer,” he said.

    According to Murphy, one of the next steps is studying the tropics, where he said scientists may discover particles from rocket launches are actually floating upward from the ground level into the atmosphere.

    To hear more about the space junk found in the air and how space companies are reacting, check out Talk to Tom. You can download the podcast from wherever you listen to podcasts or watch anytime on News 6+.

    Listen to Talk To Tom in the media player below:

    Copyright 2023 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.

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    Tiffany Browne, Tom Sorrells

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  • The World Is Ignoring the Other Deadly Kind of Carbon

    The World Is Ignoring the Other Deadly Kind of Carbon

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    Once again, vast expanses of Canadian wilderness are on fire, threatening towns and forcing thousands to flee. It appears to be a breakout of “zombie fires”: wildfires from last year that never actually went out completely but carried on smoldering underground, reigniting ground vegetation again this year. They’ve been pouring smoke—once again—into northern cities in the United States. That haze is loaded with a more obscure form of carbon, compared to its famous cousin CO2: black carbon. By May 16, the fires’ monthly carbon emissions surpassed 15 megatons, soaring above previous years.

    Black carbon consists of tiny particles generated from the incomplete combustion of fuels—whether that’s Canadian trees and soils, cooking fuels like wood and charcoal, or coal. “The problem is they don’t burn efficiently,” says Yusuf Jameel, who researches black carbon at the climate solutions nonprofit Project Drawdown. “They don’t combust properly. So they emit a lot of particles and poisonous gases.”

    In a home in an economically developing nation which might use a wood stove for cooking, that can lead to catastrophic indoor air quality and all kinds of health consequences, including heart problems, breathing difficulty, and cancer. If black carbon wafts from such wildfires in the Arctic, it darkens ice and snow, dramatically accelerating melt. “It’s a huge health issue. It’s a big climate issue,” says Jameel. “And yet, it barely receives any mention when we talk about a powerful climate solution.”

    CO2 and methane (CH4) get all the attention as planet-warming gases. And rightfully so: Humanity has to massively cut its emissions as fast as possible to slow climate change. At the same time, we’re neglecting easy ways to reduce emissions of black carbon.

    While not a greenhouse gas like CO2 and methane, black carbon has its own significant impacts on the climate. Clouds of dark wildfire smoke, for instance, absorb the sun’s energy, warming the atmosphere. While CO2 stays up there for centuries, and methane for a decade or so, black carbon falls back to Earth after no more than a few weeks.

    That short lifespan is fortunate, atmospherically speaking, but unfortunate for the Arctic and other frigid places where black carbon lands. Usually snow and ice can persist because they’re so reflective, bouncing the sun’s energy back into space. But if they’re dusted with black carbon, the dark coloration absorbs heat. “You can see these little particles drilling holes down into the ice. It’s just very dramatic how the black carbon can absorb sunlight and heat things up,” says Brenda Ekwurzel, director of scientific excellence at the Union of Concerned Scientists. And if you fully melt the highly reflective snow or ice, she says, you uncover darker ground or ocean underneath, which absorbs sunlight much more readily, helping to heat up the region.

    This then forms a feedback loop. As the world warms, wildfires in northern latitudes get ever more frequent and intense, as hotter temperatures suck out what moisture remains in the vegetation. Warming also provides more sources of ignition for these fires by encouraging thunderstorms: Modeling shows that lightning strikes across the Arctic could double by the end of the century. Wildfires have gotten so intense that they’re even spawning their own thunderclouds made of smoke, which roam across the landscape sparking new fires.

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    Matt Simon

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  • Salad chain says a cleaner farming method will offset adding steak to its menu. What is it?

    Salad chain says a cleaner farming method will offset adding steak to its menu. What is it?

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    Salad chain Sweetgreen is adding steak to its menu, an announcement that led to strong reactions online, with customers questioning how that would impact the company’s carbon neutral plans.

    Founded in 2007 and known as a fast-casual spot serving salads and bowls, Sweetgreen says it will be carbon neutral by 2027 — meaning it plans to offset its own emissions by putting in place strategies that also remove carbon from the atmosphere.

    But beef production is incredibly resource-intensive and a contributor to climate change. It’s the largest agricultural source of greenhouse gases globally, emitting massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere, and requires extensive land use.

    Sweetgreen’s rationale for the controversial caramelized, garlic-flavored steak menu addition this week includes using regenerative farming. The chain also says carbon offsets are part of its pledge to combat climate change and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

    A Sweetgreen spokesperson referred request for comment to its menu expansion details.

    Regenerative agriculture means farming and ranching in a way that not only produces food from a landscape, but also sees that landscape improve ecologically, said Jason Rowntree, co-director of the Michigan State University Center for Regenerative Agriculture.

    This means “minimizing disturbance, keeping ground covered,” Rowntree said, “improving biodiversity below and above ground through adding animals to your cropping systems or enhancing biology below ground.”

    Many grocery chains and restaurants are starting to look to regenerative agriculture for animal proteins, grains and fruits and vegetables while meeting climate goals. Starbucks cited regenerative agriculture as one way it aims to slash its carbon, water use and waste in half by 2030. Chipotle and Burger King have also dabbled in it.

    “It’s all in what you do and how you implement it,” said Allen Williams, a farmer and founder of agriculture consultancy Understanding Ag. “It allows for the repair, rebuilding and restoration of our ecosystems — and that’s critically important if we want to mitigate climate change.”

    Some experts question whether regenerative agriculture can offset all emissions from beef production in particular.

    Companies, including those in dining, also buy carbon offsets. They purchase “credits,” as part of a voluntary and unregulated market for projects that claim to absorb carbon dioxide that otherwise would’ve happened.

    These offsets are an effort to cancel out one’s own carbon dioxide pollution. But it isn’t an exact science.

    Though companies including Sweetgreen should be applauded for their efforts, “We all know that the offsets schemes over the last few years have been really problematic, to say the least,” said Jonathan Foley, executive director of climate nonprofit Project Drawdown.

    Even if a chain employs productive regenerative agriculture and offsets, experts say its use of plastic, paper or non-renewable energy could negate those practices.

    So the priority should be focusing on a restaurant chain’s whole carbon footprint, fostering and improving landscapes that are more resilient for food security and improving water cycling, experts say.

    “At the end of the day,” Rowntree said, “I think these challenges we’re going to see with aridity, with heightened intensity of rain events followed by longer periods of drought are probably agriculture’s biggest challenge moving forward.”

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    Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Activist who fought for legal rights for Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon wins ‘Green Nobel’

    Activist who fought for legal rights for Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon wins ‘Green Nobel’

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    LOS ANGELES — Growing up, Teresa Vicente spent long days in Spain‘s Mar Menor swimming in transparent waters, cupping seahorses in her hands and partying under the moonlit sky. Out there, she recalled, time stood still.

    But over the decades, chronic contamination from mining, development and agricultural runoff turned the once crystal-clear waters of Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon into a graveyard. A mass fish die-off in 2019 prompted the professor of philosophy of law at the University of Murcia to take action.

    Over the next several years, Vicente, now 61, led a grassroots campaign to save the region’s ecological jewel from collapse. Her efforts helped lead to a new law passed in 2022, giving the lagoon the legal right to conservation, protection and damage remediation.

    Vicente is one of this year’s seven winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the “Green Nobel,” which honors grassroots activists and leaders from across the globe for achievements in protecting the natural world. The recipients were selected from about 100 nominees.

    “(This prize) signifies an international recognition that we are facing a new stage in humanity,” said Vicente in Spanish. It’s a stage where “human beings understand they are part of nature. And this recognition means that it is not a local or national conquest, but rather a European and international one.”

    “They call Mar Menor the lagoon of magic,” she added, “and all of us on this journey have seen a lot of magic.”

    The other winners are:

    — Marcel Gomes, executive secretary for the media nonprofit Repórter Brasil, who organized a campaign that alleged connections between beef from the world’s largest meatpacking corporation, JBS, and illegal deforestation in Brazil and helped pressure retailers around the world to stop selling the meat.

    — Indigenous activist Murrawah Maroochy Johnson, who helped stop development of a coal mine in Australia’s Queensland state that would have devasted nearly 20,000 acres (8,000 hectares) of a nature preserve, spewed nearly 1.6 billion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over its lifetime, and endangered the rights and culture of Indigenous peoples.

    — Alok Shukla, who led a community movement that saved nearly half a million acres (200,000 hectares) of forests from 21 proposed coal mines in Chhattisgarh, a state in central India.

    — Andrea Vidaurre, who helped convince the state of California’s air quality agency to establish two transportation regulations that limit emissions from trains and trucks. The rules include the nation’s first emissions limit for trains.

    — Nonhle Mbuthuma and Sinegugu Zukulu, Indigenous activists who prevented seismic testing for coal and gas in a coastal area off South Africa’s Eastern Cape.

    Michael Sutton, executive director of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, called the winners “an incredible group of individuals laboring, sometimes in obscurity, against overwhelming odds to prevail against governments, against industry.”

    Vicente was born and raised in Spain’s southeastern city of Murcia, home to the Mar Menor. When she learned about the 2019 fish die-off, she was at the University of Reading in England studying how other countries had successfully bestowed legal rights upon natural resources to protect them.

    To save the lagoon, Vicente in 2020 helped write the first draft of a bill granting legal protection to the Mar Menor and submitted it to Spain’s Parliament, which allows citizens to propose laws directly. But the process required her to gather 500,000 signatures during COVID-19 lockdowns.

    By November 2021, with help from thousands of volunteers across Spain, Vicente had amassed nearly 640,000 signatures — and the law was passed in 2022.

    She never doubted she would succeed. “People had understood that they were part of that ecosystem and were excited about the idea of ​​being able to defend their rights,” she said. “When people forget their political differences, their religious differences or their economic differences, and give themselves over to a new idea of ​​justice, that is a sure success.”

    The Goldman Environmental Prize was founded in 1989 by philanthropists Richard and Rhoda H. Goldman to recognize common people working in their communities to protect and improve their environment.

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    AP video journalist Haven Daley contributed to this report from San Francisco.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

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  • 1 in 3 Americans Live in Areas With Dangerous Air Pollution

    1 in 3 Americans Live in Areas With Dangerous Air Pollution

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    For Gaddy, who is African American, the report’s findings confirm what she and her neighbors in Newark’s predominantly Black South Ward have experienced for years. Gaddy and her three children were all diagnosed with asthma; her eldest child died of a heart attack in 2021 at the age of 32.

    “It’s just the cumulative impacts of pollution is what is harming us,” Gaddy said. “And so, unfortunately, that’s what happens in our city.”

    The New York/Newark metropolitan area has 1.8 million adults with asthma and 370,000 children with the disease, according to the report.

    Researchers are hopeful that a series of new auto emissions standards that were announced last month by the Biden administration might significantly reduce some forms of particle pollution.

    Under the newly proposed standard, by 2032, 56 percent of all new vehicles that are sold should be electric; the proposal also calls for increases in plug-in hybrid vehicles or other partially electric cars and more efficient gasoline-powered cars.

    “We’ve seen the Environmental Protection Agency finalize a number of new standards to clean up the air pollution and address climate change, with more on the way,” said Bender.

    “We’ve seen the tighter particulate matter standard. We’ve seen strong measures to reduce emissions from future cars and future trucks. We’ve seen measures to reduce methane and volatile organic compounds from the oil and gas industry,” she said. “And we’re calling on the administration to get across the finish line to more items on their to-do list.”

    Bender said that the association hopes that the EPA will update the national ozone standard, which has not been revised since 2015.

    “Sometimes people don’t realize that poor air can affect them pretty drastically,” said Amit “Bobby” Mahajan, a national spokesperson for the Lung Association. “We know that there are asthma attacks, heart attacks and strokes, but we also see increases in preterm birth, cognitive impairment, and development of lung cancers in individuals who have high exposure to ozone and particle pollution.

    “So not only is it important just to provide clean air, but providing clean air minimizes the number of exposures we have to these serious diseases and honestly reduces our risk of having deadly underlying conditions,” said Mahajan, who also serves as the director of interventional pulmonology at Inova Health System in Northern Virginia.

    Gaddy said that she’s confident that federal officials will soon act on the recommendations of researchers and other experts to help alleviate the asthma crisis in her city.

    “We know that eventually, our communities will be healed and restored to the level that they should be,” added Gaddy. “And that just because of our zip code or the color of our skin, our communities won’t continue to be these sacrifice zones.”

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  • Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs

    Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs

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    For decades, concerns about automobile pollution have focused on what comes out of the tailpipe. Now, researchers and regulators say, we need to pay more attention to toxic emissions from tires as vehicles roll down the road.

    At the top of the list of worries is a chemical called 6PPD, which is added to rubber tires to help them last longer. When tires wear on pavement, 6PPD is released. It reacts with ozone to become a different chemical, 6PPD-q, which can be extremely toxic — so much so that it has been linked to repeated fish kills in Washington state.

    The trouble with tires doesn’t stop there. Tires are made primarily of natural rubber and synthetic rubber, but they contain hundreds of other ingredients, often including steel and heavy metals such as copper, lead, cadmium and zinc.

    As car tires wear, the rubber disappears in particles, both bits that can be seen with the naked eye and microparticles. Testing by a British company, Emissions Analytics, found that a car’s tires emit 1 trillion ultrafine particles per kilometer driven — from 5 to 9 pounds of rubber per internal combustion car per year.

    And what’s in those particles is a mystery, because tire ingredients are proprietary.

    “You’ve got a chemical cocktail in these tires that no one really understands and is kept highly confidential by the tire manufacturers,” said Nick Molden, CEO of Emissions Analytics. “We struggle to think of another consumer product that is so prevalent in the world and used by virtually everyone, where there is so little known of what is in them.”

    Regulators have only begun to address the toxic tire problem, though there has been some action on 6PPD.

    The chemical was identified by a team of researchers, led by scientists at Washington State University and the University of Washington, who were trying to determine why coho salmon returning to Seattle-area creeks to spawn were dying in large numbers.

    Working for the Washington Stormwater Center, the scientists tested some 2,000 substances to determine which one was causing the die-offs, and in 2020 they announced they’d found the culprit: 6PPD.

    The Yurok Tribe in Northern California, along with two other West Coast Native American tribes, have petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to prohibit the chemical. The EPA said it is considering new rules governing the chemical. “We could not sit idle while 6PPD kills the fish that sustain us,” said Joseph L. James, chairman of the Yurok Tribe, in a statement. “This lethal toxin has no place in any salmon-bearing watershed.”

    California has begun taking steps to regulate the chemical, last year classifying tires containing it as a “priority product,” which requires manufacturers to search for and test substitutes.

    “6PPD plays a crucial role in the safety of tires on California’s roads and, currently, there are no widely available safer alternatives,” said Karl Palmer, a deputy director at the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control. “For this reason, our framework is ideally suited for identifying alternatives to 6PPD that ensure the continued safety of tires on California’s roads while protecting California’s fish populations and the communities that rely on them.”

    The U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association says it has mobilized a consortium of 16 tire manufacturers to carry out an analysis of alternatives. Anne Forristall Luke, USTMA president and CEO, said it “will yield the most effective and exhaustive review possible of whether a safer alternative to 6PPD in tires currently exists.”

    Molden, however, said there is a catch. “If they don’t investigate, they aren’t allowed to sell in the state of California,” he said. “If they investigate and don’t find an alternative, they can go on selling. They don’t have to find a substitute. And today there is no alternative to 6PPD.”

    California is also studying a request by the California Stormwater Quality Association to classify tires containing zinc, a heavy metal, as a priority product, requiring manufacturers to search for an alternative. Zinc is used in the vulcanization process to increase the strength of the rubber.

    When it comes to tire particles, though, there hasn’t been any action, even as the problem worsens with the proliferation of electric cars. Because of their quicker acceleration and greater torque, electric vehicles wear out tires faster and emit an estimated 20% more tire particles than the average gas-powered car.

    A recent study in Southern California found tire and brake emissions in Anaheim accounted for 30% of PM2.5, a small-particulate air pollutant, while exhaust emissions accounted for 19%. Tests by Emissions Analytics have found that tires produce up to 2,000 times as much particle pollution by mass as tailpipes.

    These particles end up in water and air and are often ingested. Ultrafine particles, even smaller than PM2.5, are also emitted by tires and can be inhaled and travel directly to the brain. New research suggests tire microparticles should be classified as a pollutant of “high concern.”

    In a report issued last year, researchers at Imperial College London said the particles could affect the heart, lungs and reproductive organs and cause cancer.

    People who live or work along roadways, often low-income, are exposed to more of the toxic substances.

    Tires are also a major source of microplastics. More than three-quarters of microplastics entering the ocean come from the synthetic rubber in tires, according to a report from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the British company Systemiq.

    And there are still a great many unknowns in tire emissions, which can be especially complex to analyze because heat and pressure can transform tire ingredients into other compounds.

    One outstanding research question is whether 6PPD-q affects people, and what health problems, if any, it could cause. A recent study published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters found high levels of the chemical in urine samples from a region of South China, with levels highest in pregnant women.

    The discovery of 6PPD-q, Molden said, has sparked fresh interest in the health and environmental impacts of tires, and he expects an abundance of new research in the coming years. “The jigsaw pieces are coming together,” he said. “But it’s a thousand-piece jigsaw, not a 200-piece jigsaw.”

    This article was produced by KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism. KFF Health News is the publisher of California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

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  • Critics call out plastics industry over

    Critics call out plastics industry over

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    Jan Dell is a former chemical engineer who has spent years telling an inconvenient truth about plastics. “So many people, they see the recyclable label, and they put it in the recycle bin,” she said. “But the vast majority of plastics are not recycled.”

    About 48 million tons of plastic waste is generated in the U.S. each year; only 5 to 6 percent of it is actually recycled, according to the Department of Energy. The rest ends up in landfills or is burned. 

    Dell founded a non-profit, The Last Beach Cleanup, to fight plastic pollution. Inside her garage in Southern California is all sorts of plastic with those little arrows on it that make us think they can be recycled. But, she said, “You’re being lied to.”

    Those so-called chasing arrows started showing up on plastic products in 1988, part of a push to convince the public that plastic waste wasn’t a problem because it can be recycled.

    plastic-recycling-wide.jpg

    CBS News


    Davis Allen, an investigative researcher with the Center for Climate Integrity, said the industry didn’t need for recycling to work: “They needed people to believe that it was working,” he said.

    A new report, called “The Fraud of Plastic Recycling,” accuses the plastics industry of a decades-long campaign “…to mislead the public about the viability of plastic recycling,” despite knowing the “technical and economic limitations that make plastics unrecyclable” at a large scale. 

    “They couldn’t ever lie about the existence of plastic waste,” said Allen. “But they created a lie about how we could solve it, and that was recycling.”

    Tracy asked, “If plastic recycling is technically difficult, if it doesn’t make a whole lot of economic sense, why has the plastics industry pushed it?”

    “The plastics industry understands that selling recycling sells plastic, and they’ll say pretty much whatever they need to say to continue doing that,” Allen replied. “That’s how they make money.”

    Plastic is made from oil and gas, and comes in thousands of varieties, most of which cannot be recycled together. But in the 1980s, when some municipalities moved to ban plastic products, the industry began promoting the idea of recycling as a solution.  

    Allen showed us documents and meeting notes they obtained from public archives, and from a former staff member of the American Plastics Council. “What we see in here is a widespread knowledge that plastics recycling was not working,” he said.

    At a trade conference in Florida in 1989, an industry leader told attendees, “Recycling cannot go on indefinitely, and does not solve the solid waste problem.”

    In 1994 an Exxon executive told the staff of the plastics council that when it comes to recycling, “We are committed to the activities but not committed to the results.”

    Allen said, “They always kind of viewed recycling not as a real technical problem that they needed to solve but as a public relations problem.”

    The industry just launched a new ad campaign, called “Recycling is real,” and says it’s investing in what it calls advanced recycling technology.

    The American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, responded to “CBS Sunday Morning” in a statement, calling the Center for Climate Integrity’s report “flawed” and “outdated,” and says “plastic makers are working hard to change the way that plastics are made and recycled.”

    Jan Dell doesn’t believe plastic will ever be truly recyclable: “It’s the same process they were trying 30 years ago, and my response to that is, it’s science fiction,” she said.

    Plastic production is set to triple by 2050, and with so much plastic waste piling up on land and sea, more than 170 countries are working on a United Nations treaty to end plastic pollution.

    In a letter to President Biden about the negotiations, the plastics industry says it opposes any bans on plastic production, but supports more recycling.

    To which Dell says, “The only thing the plastics industry has actually recycled is their lies over and over again.”

          
    For more info:

          
    Story produced by John Goodwin. Editor: Emanuele Secci.

         
    See also:


    Drowning in plastic waste

    09:02

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  • Lawsuit seeks to save trees, protect residents at contaminated AB Ford Park in Detroit

    Lawsuit seeks to save trees, protect residents at contaminated AB Ford Park in Detroit

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    Three Detroit residents filed a lawsuit against the city this week in hopes of halting a controversial plan to remove more than 250 trees from AB Ford Park and cover the contaminated park in two feet of new soil.

    The lawsuit, filed in Wayne County Circuit Court on Monday, alleges the city violated the Michigan Environmental Protect Act and is endangering residents by exposing them to toxic pollutants.

    The residents — Terry Swafford, Brenda Gail Watson, and Emma Miller — are seeking “protection of the air, water, and other natural resources and the public trust in these resources from pollution, impairment, or destruction,” according to a lawsuit filed by their lawyer Lisa Walinske of the Detroit East Community Law Center.

    Walinske tells Metro Times that she plans to file an emergency preliminary injunction later this week to stop the work until the city pulls the proper permits and provides sufficient evidence through scientific tests that its proposed solution won’t endanger residents.

    In late February, the city announced that it was closing the waterfront park in the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood to begin removing the trees, some of which are more than 100 years old and are used by bald eagles and other wildlife.

    The city insists the trees won’t survive after crews cover the 32-acre park in two feet of fresh soil.

    The plan comes nearly two years after environmental testing uncovered excessive levels of arsenic, mercury, lead, barium, cadmium, copper, zinc, volatile organic compounds, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the soil.

    Despite this, the city kept a large portion of the park open to the public without revealing the findings. The test results weren’t disclosed until after Metro Times raised questions about why the city hadn’t been more transparent about the findings.

    Despite increasing concerns about the park, the Detroit City Council unanimously approved the renovation plan on Tuesday.

    The lawsuit also alleges the city’s plan will increase pollution in the neighborhood because an average of 20 to 30 heavy trucks will trudge through nearby streets every day from March to September to cover the park in new soil.

    In addition, the lawsuit claims the city’s plan will destroy habitat, cause soil erosion, and increase the risks of floods because the additional soil will raise the level of the river’s edge, blocking stormwater runoff.

    The city “is not taking sufficient remediation steps to ensure that the soil contamination does not harm the visitors to the park, does not harm the adjoining waterway and does not have a negative environmental effect on the Park’s ecosystem,” the lawsuit states.

    In effect, the city’s plan to cover the contaminated soil in even more dirt will “encapsulate toxic pollutants” at the edge of the Detroit River without remediating the contamination, the lawsuit alleges. Since the park is in a designated floodplain, excessive rain could cause the toxic pollutants to spread.

    The lawsuit also raises concerns about a large mound of “toxic soil” at the park’s entrance that is across the streets from homes. The dirt was dumped there during previous renovations, and the contamination is spreading “with each passing breeze.”

    After the remediation, the city plans to include walkways, a playground, basketball court, fitness and picnic areas, tennis and pickleball courts, a fishing node, beach, and waterfront plaza.

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    Steve Neavling

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  • Al Gore Fast Facts | CNN Politics

    Al Gore Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look at the life of Al Gore, 45th vice president of the United States and environmental activist.

    Birth date: March 31, 1948

    Birth place: Washington, DC

    Birth name: Albert Arnold Gore Jr.

    Father: Albert Gore Sr., former US senator from Tennessee

    Mother: Pauline (La Fon) Gore

    Marriage: Mary Elizabeth “Tipper” (Aitcheson) Gore (May 19, 1970-present, separated June 2010)

    Children: Albert III, Sarah, Kristin, Karenna

    Education: Harvard University, B.A., 1969; Vanderbilt University, Graduate School of Religion 1971-1972; Vanderbilt University, J.D., 1976

    Military service: US Army, 1969-1971, served in Vietnam as a reporter with the 20th Engineering Battalion.

    Religion: Baptist

    Wrote his 1969 Harvard thesis on how television would impact the conduct of the American presidency.

    In 2009, former President Bill Clinton flew to North Korea to negotiate the release of two journalists working for Gore’s Current TV.

    1971-1976 – Is an investigative reporter and editorial writer for the Nashville Tennessean.

    1977-1985 – US Representative in the 95th-98th Congresses, representing first the 4th and then the 6th District of Tennessee. Elected to the House in 1976, 1978, 1980 and 1982.

    1985-1992 – US Senator from Tennessee.

    1988 – Runs for the Democratic Party nomination for president in the 1988 election. Later drops out of the race.

    July 9, 1992 – Bill Clinton chooses Gore to be his running mate in the 1992 presidential election.

    1992 – Publishes “Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit.”

    January 20, 1993 – Inaugurated as vice president.

    January 20, 1997 – Second term as vice president begins.

    March 9, 1999 – Gore states in an interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.” This quote creates a large amount of rhetoric with his opponents.

    June 16, 1999 – Announces his intention to run for president in the 2000 election.

    August 16, 2000 – Wins the Democratic Party nomination.

    November 7, 2000 – Election Day.

    November 8, 2000 – Concedes in the early morning to George W. Bush but later retracts his concession. Florida is too close to call for either Bush or Gore.

    November 9, 2000 – Requests a recount in Florida.

    December 13, 2000 – Concedes the election to Bush after the US Supreme Court rules that another recount in Florida would be unconstitutional, 36 days after the election.

    2002 – “Joined at the Heart: The Transformation of the American Family,” co-written with Tipper Gore, is published.

    March 19, 2003 – Joins the board of directors for Apple Computers Inc.

    May 4, 2004 – Announces intention to purchase Newsworld International from Vivendi Universal SA for an undisclosed price and plans to transform it into a network aimed at viewers ages 18-35.

    August 1, 2005 – Gore’s cable television channel, Current TV, debuts.

    2006 – His crusade against global warming is featured in the book “An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do about It “ and documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”

    May 2007 – His book, “The Assault on Reason,” is published.

    February 9, 2007 – Joins Sir Richard Branson at a press conference announcing the $25 million Virgin Earth Challenge, a prize for a design to safely remove man-made greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Gore and Branson are among the judges.

    February 15, 2007 – Announces a series of concerts called Live Earth to be held on all seven continents on July 7, 2007. The 24-hour music event is the kickoff of a campaign to “Save Our Selves (SOS).”

    February 25, 2007 – “An Inconvenient Truth” wins an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

    March 21, 2007 – Testifies at separate House and Senate events, urging legislation to curb climate change.

    October 12, 2007 – Is co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for work on global warming. The prize is shared with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

    October 26, 2007 – Receives the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation.

    November 12, 2007 – Announces he is joining the venture capital firm of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers. He will help the company invest in start-up “green” companies. Gore will also donate his salary to the Alliance for Climate Protection.

    November 2007 – Receives the International Emmy Founders Award at the 35th International Emmy Awards.

    December 10, 2007 – Accepts the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.

    February 12, 2009 – Receives the NAACP Chairman’s Award during the annual Image Award ceremony. The honor is given in recognition of special achievement and distinguished public service. This year’s award is shared with Dr. Wangari Muta Maathai.

    June 1, 2010 – Gore and wife Tipper, announce they are to separate after 40 years of marriage.

    January 2, 2013 – Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera purchases Current TV for a reported $500 million, personally netting Gore an estimated $70 million.

    December 5, 2016 – Meets with President-elect Donald Trump to speak about climate change issues.

    January 19, 2017 – “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power,” premieres at the Sundance Film Festival. Paramount Pictures releases the film worldwide in July.

    2017 – Publishes “The Assault on Reason: 2017 Edition” with a new preface and conclusion: “Post-Truth: On Donald Trump and the 2016 Election.”

    November 4, 2019 – Releases a statement expressing his disappointment over failing to persuade Trump to keep the US in the Paris climate agreement. “I thought that he would come to his senses on it, but he didn’t,” Gore said.

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  • The US Buried Nuclear Waste Abroad. Climate Change Could Unearth It

    The US Buried Nuclear Waste Abroad. Climate Change Could Unearth It

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    This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

    Ariana Tibon was in college at the University of Hawaii in 2017 when she saw the photo online: a black-and-white picture of a man holding a baby. The caption said: “Nelson Anjain getting his baby monitored on March 2, 1954, by an AEC RadSafe team member on Rongelap two days after ʻBravo.’”

    Tibon had never seen the man before. But she recognized the name as her great-grandfather’s. At the time, he was living on Rongelap in the Marshall Islands when the US conducted Castle Bravo, the largest of 67 nuclear weapon tests there during the Cold War. The tests displaced and sickened Indigenous people, poisoned fish, upended traditional food practices, and caused cancers and other negative health repercussions that continue to reverberate today.

    A federal report by the Government Accountability Office published last month examines what’s left of that nuclear contamination, not only in the Pacific but also in Greenland and Spain. The authors conclude that climate change could disturb nuclear waste left in Greenland and the Marshall Islands. “Rising sea levels could spread contamination in RMI, and conflicting risk assessments cause residents to distrust radiological information from the US Department of Energy,” the report says.

    In Greenland, chemical pollution and radioactive liquid are frozen in ice sheets, left over from a nuclear power plant on a US military research base where scientists studied the potential to install nuclear missiles. The report didn’t specify how or where nuclear contamination could migrate in the Pacific or Greenland, or what if any health risks that might pose to people living nearby. However, the authors did note that in Greenland, frozen waste could be exposed by 2100.

    “The possibility to influence the environment is there, which could further affect the food chain and further affect the people living in the area as well,” said Hjalmar Dahl, president of Inuit Circumpolar Council Greenland. The country is about 90 percent Inuit. “I think it is important that the Greenland and US governments have to communicate on this worrying issue and prepare what to do about it.”

    The authors of the GAO study wrote that Greenland and Denmark haven’t proposed any cleanup plans, but also cited studies that say much of the nuclear waste has already decayed and will be diluted by melting ice. However, those studies do note that chemical waste such as polychlorinated biphenyls, man-made chemicals better known as PCBs that are carcinogenic, “may be the most consequential waste at Camp Century.”

    The report summarizes disagreements between Marshall Islands officials and the US Department of Energy regarding the risks posed by US nuclear waste. The GAO recommends that the agency adopt a communications strategy for conveying information about the potential for pollution to the Marshallese people.

    Nathan Anderson, a director at the Government Accountability Office, said that the United States’ responsibilities in the Marshall Islands “are defined by specific federal statutes and international agreements.” He noted that the government of the Marshall Islands previously agreed to settle claims related to damages from US nuclear testing.

    “It is the long-standing position of the US government that, pursuant to that agreement, the Republic of the Marshall Islands bears full responsibility for its lands, including those used for the nuclear testing program.”

    To Tibon, who is back home in the Marshall Islands and is currently chair of the National Nuclear Commission, the fact that the report’s only recommendation is a new communications strategy is mystifying. She’s not sure how that would help the Marshallese people.

    “What we need now is action and implementation on environmental remediation. We don’t need a communication strategy,” she said. “If they know that it’s contaminated, why wasn’t the recommendation for next steps on environmental remediation, or what’s possible to return these lands to safe and habitable conditions for these communities?”

    The Biden administration recently agreed to fund a new museum to commemorate those affected by nuclear testing as well as climate change initiatives in the Marshall Islands, but the initiatives have repeatedly failed to garner support from Congress, even though they’re part of an ongoing treaty with the Marshall Islands and a broader national security effort to shore up goodwill in the Pacific to counter China.

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    Anita Hofschneider

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  • Use your hair to help your garden or fight pollution. A Bay Area group shows how

    Use your hair to help your garden or fight pollution. A Bay Area group shows how

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    Try answering this off the top of your head: What’s an abundant renewable resource that can spur growth in your garden and clear pollutants from bodies of water?

    The answer, according to a Bay Area nonprofit, is hair.

    Matter of Trust, an ecologically focused group in San Francisco, has been using hair for more than two decades to clean up oil spills and other pollution from bodies of water. Its latest project is encouraging the growth of vegetation in the Presidio in San Francisco, a national park site.

    Matter of Trust is using hair to encourage the growth of vegetation in the Presidio in San Francisco.

    (Matter of Trust)

    The group got its start after learning about Phil McCrory’s hairy idea in the ’90s.

    The inspiration came to McCrory, a hair stylist in Alabama, when he was washing a client’s locks as CNN was showing images of otters covered in crude oil from the Exxon Valdez tanker that slammed into an Alaskan reef in 1989.

    McCrory realized that in his hands was a fiber that soaks up oils, according to Lisa Gautier, founder of Matter of Trust. But after the haircut, it would be swept up, trashed and dumped in a landfill.

    Gautier and McCrory became partners. He developed a way to turn hair, fur, wool or fleece into mats to absorb petroleum. Later, they discovered that the material could be stuffed into recycled burlap sacks and pantyhose to make booms or mats that would soak up oil.

    The idea was put to the test in 2007, when a 926-foot cargo ship, the Cosco Busan, sideswiped a support on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The collision opened a nearly 100-foot-long gash on the side of the ship, causing 58,000 gallons of heavy bunker fuel to leak into the ocean.

    Within hours, Gautier said, she and her team coordinated hundreds of volunteers to place hair-infused booms and mats along San Francisco’s beaches.

    To try to get rid of the waste the booms and mats collected, the team subjected them to two composting methods: worms and thermophilic fungi, or heat-loving bacteria and fungi that can kill pathogens by generating high temperatures. After about 18 months, the hazardous waste was turned into healthy compost, Gautier said.

    The hair mats’ latest job, at the Presidio, will test their fertilizing capabilities.

    The Matter of Trust team places hair into the soil of its vegetables to aid in composting and vegetation

    Hair can be formed into mats that soak up oil or can be used as mulch.

    (Matter of Trust)

    In a pilot study, the hair mats are being used as a mulch on the patchy park land. The results surprised the Presidio Trust’s associate director, Lew Stringer, SFGate reported.

    “The sections we planted using that material as substrate clearly grew more robustly than the control areas,” Stringer said.

    Bay Area and Los Angeles residents who compost or want to boost the vegetation on their property can use human or pet hair. It’s lightweight, and you can put it on top of the soil in your flower pots and garden, Gautier said. If the hair is longer than 2 inches, bury it in the soil to avoid entangling birds’ feet, she recommends.

    If you want to donate hair to Matter of Trust, sign up on the organization’s website, the Hum Sum. Gautier said the group accepts all human, pet and synthetic hair but asks that the various types be packaged separately.

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    Karen Garcia

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  • UN member states are meeting to plan how to tackle the world’s environmental crises

    UN member states are meeting to plan how to tackle the world’s environmental crises

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    NAIROBI, Kenya — The world’s top decision-making body on the environment is meeting in Kenya’s capital on Monday to discuss how countries can work together to tackle environmental crises like climate change, pollution and loss of biodiversity.

    The meeting in Nairobi is the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, and governments, civil society groups, scientists and the private sector are attending.

    “None of us live on an island. We live on planet Earth, and we are all connected,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, which is leading the process, told The Associated Press ahead of the talks. “The only way we can solve some of these problems is by talking together.”

    At the meeting, member states discuss a raft of draft resolutions on a range of issues that the assembly adopts upon consensus. If a proposal is adopted, it sets the stage for countries to implement what’s been agreed on.

    In the last round of talks in 2022, also in Nairobi, governments adopted 14 resolutions, including to create a legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution globally. Andersen described it then as the most significant environmental multilateral deal since the Paris Agreement to limit global warming.

    For this year’s talks, countries have submitted 20 draft resolutions for discussion, including on how best to restore degraded lands, combat dust storms and reduce the environmental impact of metal and mineral mining.

    But with countries having different priorities, it’s often hard to get consensus on the draft resolutions. However, Andersen said, there’s generally “a forward movement” on all draft resolutions for this year’s meeting, known as UNEA-6.

    With this meeting’s focus on multilateralism, UNEP wants to build on past agreements it led between governments, such as the Minamata Convention to put controls on mercury and the Montreal Protocol to heal the hole in the ozone layer, Andersen said.

    Björn Beeler, international coordinator for the International Pollutants Elimination Network, thinks there’ll be slow progress on more complex issues such as financing around chemicals and waste.

    Beeler also expects strong opposition on a draft resolution that wants to phase out the use of highly hazardous pesticides. The draft resolution, which was submitted by Ethiopia and is co-sponsored by Uruguay, aims to create a global alliance of U.N. bodies like UNEP, the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization.

    “If this does go through, it would be very significant because it would be the first time ever to see global movement on highly hazardous pesticides,” said Beeler, who is attending the talks.

    UNEP anticipates more than 70 government ministers and 3,000 delegates at the talks.

    “What we should expect at UNEA-6 is decision makers looking into the horizon, being aware of what is it that’s coming to us that could potentially damage our planet, and taking preemptive action to prevent this,” said Andersen.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Renters are most exposed to climate hazards in these two states, a Harvard study finds

    Renters are most exposed to climate hazards in these two states, a Harvard study finds

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    Jodi Jacobson | E+ | Getty Images

    More than 18 million rental units are located in areas exposed to extreme weather hazards, according to the American Rental Housing Report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

    That exposure isn’t spread evenly. While most states have at least one “high-risk” county with 2,000 or more rental units, many are concentrated in California and Florida.

    Harvard researchers paired data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Risk Index with the five-year American Community Survey to find out what units are in the areas that are expected to have an annual economic loss from environmental disasters like wildfires, flooding, earthquakes, hurricanes and more.

    A high-risk area is one with a “relatively moderate,” “relatively high” or “very high” expected annual loss.

    “What the map is showing is the number of rental units that are located in areas that have at least moderate risk,” said Sophia Wedeen, research analyst focused on rental housing, residential remodeling and affordability at the Joint Center for Housing Studies.

    How many rentals are at risk in California, Florida

    Harvard researchers found the number of rental units exposed to climate hazards in the U.S. by combining an area’s risk of economic loss from natural disasters with the number of rental units in those areas, Wedeen said.

    Florida, for example, has many rental units as well as census tracts, or neighborhoods, that FEMA identified as having at least moderate risk, Wedeen said. The state appears as a hotspot as a result; the same applies for areas in California.

    More from Personal Finance:
    What tenants should know to make rent improve credit
    Three ways Gen Zers can boost credit before renting
    ‘Housing affordability is reshaping migration trends’

    California has 4.6 million rental units, or 77% of the state’s rental stock, located in census tracts or neighborhoods that are estimated to face annual economic losses through climate-related hazards.

    Florida has 2.4 million rental units at risk, or about 89% of its rental stock, according to the Harvard study.

    How renters can protect themselves

    As more areas in the U.S. become further exposed to climate-related risks, it will be important for renters to consider renters insurance and understand what such policies cover, experts say.

    To that point, landlords and building owners are responsible for any physical damage to the building or unit caused by natural disasters. But their property insurance does not cover a tenant’s personal belongings.

    Renters insurance policies usually cover losses or damages to a tenant’s personal property and some even cover living expenses if a tenant needs temporary housing during a unit’s repair.

    Renters should check what type of disasters are included in their renter’s insurance policy. They may need riders or a separate policy to cover risks such as flooding or earthquakes, experts say.

    Additionally, renters may want to shop around for insurance plans before signing a lease in an at-risk area. Homeowners in some areas are struggling to find coverage as major insurers leave some markets exposed to fires and floods.

    “The best thing that renters can do is make sure what types of products are available to protect their property but then also…understand risk,” said Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications research for First Street Foundation.

    Renters should understand the climate risks of buildings they live in and make informed decisions, Porter explained.

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  • 1 in 4 Americans today breathes unhealthy air because of climate change. And it’s getting worse.

    1 in 4 Americans today breathes unhealthy air because of climate change. And it’s getting worse.

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    Expert discusses EPA crackdown on air quality rules


    Expert discusses EPA crackdown on air quality rules

    03:16

    Much of the U.S. Northeast was smothered last summer by dense smoke from Canadian wildfires, leading to New York City’s worst air quality since the 1960s. Such episodes, once mostly isolated incidents, are increasingly common due to the impact of climate change, new research shows. 

    About 83 million Americans, or 1 in 4, are already exposed each year to air quality that is categorized as “unhealthy” by the Air Quality Index (AQI), a number that could grow to 125 million people within decades, according to First Street Foundation, which analyzes climate risks. The unhealthy AQI level, color-coded red, means that outdoor activities can result in lung impairment for some people, including respiratory ailments like chest pain and coughs. 

    The nation’s worsening air quality comes after decades of improvements thanks to regulations such as the 1970 Clean Air Act, which tightened federal rules on pollutants emitted by factories and automobiles. But the recent rise in poor air quality could be harder to battle because it’s linked to global warming, with higher temperatures and drought causing more smoke-spewing wildfires, First Street said. 

    “Additional heart attacks”

    At the same time, the rise in poor air quality threatens to reverse the health benefits that followed stricter pollution regulations starting in the 1960s and to hurt the U.S. economy, said Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications research at First Street. 

    “We’re essentially adding back additional premature deaths, adding back additional heart attacks,” Porter told CBS MoneyWatch. “We’re losing productivity in the economic markets by additionally losing outdoor job work days.”

    Already, there’s some evidence that people are leaving parts of the country with lower air quality, contributing to what is effectively a redrawing of the nation’s map by wildfire, flood and other effects of climate change.

    “We’ve seen very early statistical signals in our own analysis that people are moving away from the smoke that comes from wildfire,” Porter said. “The downstream effect of people moving away is that property values start to suffer because the area becomes less desirable. And then as the area becomes less desirable, tax revenues are directly impacted because the property values are decreasing.”

    Residents of California, Oregon and Washington state are seeing the greatest decline in air quality, partially due to wildfires in those regions. In California, air quality today is often in the “purple” and “maroon” levels — considered very healthy to hazardous — something that was unheard of about 15 years ago, First Street’s analysis found. At the same time, the number of “green” days, considered healthy, have decreased by a third since 2010. 

    Yet the impact isn’t only being felt on the West Coast, First Street found. 

    “It’s become something that is impacting people’s daily lives east of the Mississippi River,” Porter noted. In 2022, fires in the Florida panhandle were “so bad that people were asked to evacuate from their neighborhoods, which is kind of unheard of.”

    The number of unhealthy AQI days is likely to grow in the coming decades due to climate change, First Street projected. Worst hit could be the Western states, but Eastern states aren’t immune. Pockets of the Southwest, especially on the Florida-Georgia border, are already seeing an increase in the number of days with unhealthy AQI numbers. 

    Particulate matter and ozone

    Poor air quality is linked to increases in particulate matter and ozone, which are rising due to changes in the environment including extreme heat, drought and wildfires. Particulate matter that’s less than 2.5 microns in diameter, also called PM2.5, is particularly concerning because these tiny flecks of pollution can get deep into your lungs, causing a range of health problems. 

    PM2.5 particulates are increasing because of wildfires, while 2022 research found that ground-level ozone is also being exacerbated by the increasingly devastating blazes. Ozone levels can inflame your airways and raise the risks of an asthma attack, among other health problems, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.


    Stockton, Sacramento rank as nationwide “asthma capitals” thanks to bad air quality

    02:42

    Although reversing the amount air pollution linked to climate change is difficult, at least knowing the risks and how to mitigate them can help, Porter said. First Street has a site called RiskFactor.com where you can enter your address and see your risks for flooding, fire, wind and heat. 

    Individuals may also need to take steps to protect their health in the face of more poor air quality days, he added.

    “Being able to keep smoke out of your house is really important,” Porter said. “Things like making sure your windows are sealed, and something as simple as changing the filter on your HVAC can make a big, big impact on how clean the air is inside your house.”

    Aimee Picchi

    Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

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  • More than 18 million rental units at risk from climate hazards as extreme weather becomes more common, Harvard study finds

    More than 18 million rental units at risk from climate hazards as extreme weather becomes more common, Harvard study finds

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    D3sign | Stone | Getty Images

    Extreme weather and climate hazards are becoming more frequent, posing a threat not only for homeowners but for renters.

    More than 18 million rental units across the U.S. are exposed to climate- and weather-related hazards, according to the latest American Rental Housing Report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

    Harvard researchers paired data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Risk Index with the five-year American Community Survey to find out what units are in the areas that are expected to have annual economic loss from environmental hazards such as wildfires, flooding, earthquakes, hurricanes and more. 

    “The rental housing stock is the oldest it ever has been, and a lot of it is not suited for the growing frequency, severity and diversity in environmental hazards,” said Sophia Wedeen, research analyst focused on rental housing, residential remodeling and affordability at the Joint Center for Housing Studies.

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    In 2023, there were 28 weather and climate disasters with damages totaling $1 billion or more, a record high, according to the latest report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information. These weather disruptions collectively cost $92.9 billion in damages, an estimate adjusted for inflation, the agency found.  

    “It’s clear that not only are climate hazards happening more often, but they’re happening more often in places where people live, which is why we’re seeing all of these damages increase over time,” said Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications research for First Street Foundation, a nonprofit organization in New York.

    In addition, about twice as many properties in the U.S. have flood risks than what FEMA accounts for, according to research by First Street Foundation.

    And flood insurance is only mandated for properties inside official flood zones, Porter said.

    “Half the properties across the country don’t know they have a flood risk, which means the building owner may not have flood insurance,” he said.

    Some renters ‘can’t afford to move away from the risk’

    At a national level, 45% of single-family rentals and 35% to 40% of units in small, midsize and large multifamily buildings are located in census tracts, or neighborhoods, that are exposed to annual losses from climate-related hazards, the Harvard study found.

    Units with the highest risk are manufactured housing, such as mobile homes and RVs, said Wedeen. While they’re a smaller share of the rental stock, 52% of manufactured units are located in areas with extreme weather exposure. 

    As the market already faces a declining supply of low-rent units available, “environmental hazards would really exacerbate the existing affordability concerns,” Wedeen said. 

    Renters in manufactured housing, low-rent or subsidized units are also often stuck with the housing they have or lack the same level of mobility as wealthier renters, experts say.

    “These populations are more vulnerable and don’t have the financial means to protect themselves against the risks that exist,” Porter said. “It’s sort of a compounding risk when we see these increases in climate hazards and start impacting people who can’t afford to move away from the risk.”

    Most of the state and local funds that cover post-disaster assistance go to homeowners, not rental property owners.

    “That in turn puts a lot of burden on renters who are displaced by natural disasters and who may find it hard to find new housing,” she said.

    Many homes need upgrades to withstand disasters

    Low-rent or subsidized units also face preservation issues, leaving them in poor physical condition. According to the Harvard study, units renting for less than $600 per month have higher rates of physical inadequacy from disrepair and structural deterioration.

    Manufactured housing units are more likely to be physically inadequate, meaning they are “much less able to withstand the impact of a weather-related hazard,” Wedeen said.

    What renters need is greater investment in the existing housing stock and upgrades that can mitigate the damage to a building and improve its resilience to hazards, Wedeen said.

    “Without substantial investment, displacements and units becoming uninhabitable is only going to continue,” Wedeen said.

    How renters can protect themselves

    It’s important for tenants to understand that they need renter’s insurance to protect their possessions.

    Landlords and building owners are responsible for repairing physical damage to the unit or building from a climate-related hazard, and those repairs will depend on whether the landlord or building owner is covered by property insurance, said Porter.

    But the landlord’s insurance on the building does not cover renters’ personal property.

    Renters should check what type of disasters are included in their renter’s insurance policy. They may need riders or a separate policy to cover risks such as flooding or earthquakes, experts say.

    While a lot of the risks are out of the hands of renters, they can research to make informed decisions and prepare.

    Before moving to a new area, renters should research the floodplain, look for a building with resilient features and find out what risks that area is exposed to by using search tools such as the FEMA flood map or riskfactor.com, a search tool backed by First Street Foundation’s data analysis.

    In some areas, landlords must disclose to prospective tenants if a property is in a floodplain or has experienced flooding in the past.

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