India’s perfume tree agarwood a step away from extinction

The agarwood tree (Aquilaria malaccensis), whose resin extract is widely used in perfumes and incense, is one step away from being declared extinct in the wild by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The IUCN, an international organisation which maintains an authoritative database on the status of species, called the red list, issued an update and moved the species from the vulnerable to the critically endangered category.

“The Aquilaria malaccensis tree, which produces one of the world’s most valued woods, moved from ‘vulnerable’ to ‘critically endangered’ as logging and deforestation caused population to decline by more than 80% over the past 150 years,” the IUCN summary said

'The urgency to tackle e-waste is showing on the ground'- Source, Business Line

• India Clean up week held on October 13 to 19 is the largest e-waste collection drive in the country.
• Bengaluru based e-recycling company called Cerebra Green which is the part of Cerebra Integrated Technologies is organizing it.
• It is to be executed in seven cities- New Delhi, Mumbai,Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad.
• The idea is to make people aware of  e-waste ,its impacts on the environment, proper recycling and its legislation.
• E-waste production in India is estimated to touch three million tonnes by the end of 2018.
• Industries contribute to 70% of e-waste ,while households contribute almost 15%. The rest comes from discarded or 'end of life' electrical and electronic equipment. 
• Cerebra  have programme is about  signing up illegal e-waste collectors and recyclers and bringing them under their umbrella.

'Sentinels of the sea' at risk from changing climate- Source, Environmental research letter Journal

Summary :-Climate change's effect on coastal ecosystems is very likely to increase mortality risks of adult oyster populations in the next 20 years.

• The article talks about the relationship between climate variability and historical mortality of adult oyster on the French Atlantic cost from 1993 to 2017.
• Oyster build reef habitat which sustains a high biodiversity and provide tremendous food source  world wide through fishing or aqua-cultural activities.
• But they are very sensitive  to climate and water quality as they cannot move if a location become inhospitable.
• Positive North Atlantic Oscillator (NAO) leading to milder temperature have a long lasting effect on the biological and environmental  factors influencing oyster mortality.
• The storms also caused more freshwater to flow from rivers into seas which impacts the oysters by lowering the salinity of the water.
• The near future looks bleak  without the clear reduction of the greenhouse gas emission.
• Rapid actions should be taken to avoid further damage to many sensitive and vulnerable coastal ecosystem.

What are Cigaratte butts made of?

Many people think that cigarette butts are made of cotton ,it's made of cellulose acetate which is a form of plastic .

So how long do cigarette butts take to degrade?

Various sources have stated that cigarette filters take 18 months to 10 years to degrade. It is safe to say that the cellulose acetate fibers in cigarette filters, like other plastics, are with us for some time after they are discarded. Since environments differ—some places are wetter, dryer, sunnier, colder, hotter, windy, etc.—so too will the degrading time differ. A cigarette butt that is littered in a dry sunny place will degrade differently than one that is littered into a river or on a sandy beach.

But even if cigarette filters were quick to degrade, we would still have fires caused by lit cigarette butts, and the toxins found in cigarette butts would still be harmful. I believe the best way to decrease cigarette butt litter is to educate smokers, rather than try to make filters biodegradable.

Clean Water Act dramatically cut pollution in US waterways.

The 1972 Clean Water Act has driven significant improvements in U.S. water quality, according to the first comprehensive study of water pollution over the past several decades, by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and Iowa State University.

The team analysed data from 50 million water quality measurements collected at 240,000 monitoring sites throughout the U.S. between 1962 and 2001. Most of 25 water pollution measures showed improvement, including an increase in dissolved oxygen concentrations and a decrease in fecal coli form bacteria. The share of rivers safe for fishing increased by twelve percent between 1972 and 2001.Despite clear improvements in water quality, almost all of 20 recent economic analyses estimate that the costs of the Clean Water Act consistently outweigh the benefits, the team found in work also coauthored with researchers from Cornell University. These numbers are at odds with other environmental regulations like the Clean Air Act, which show much higher benefits compared to costs.

Nobel Prize in Economics 2018.

The 2018 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is being awarded to William D. Nordhaus for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis and Paul M. Romer for integrating technological innovations into long-run macroeconomic analysis.

Romer demonstrates how knowledge can function as a driver of long-term economic growth. When annual economic growth of a few per cent accumulates over decades, it transforms people's lives. Previous macroeconomic research had emphasised technological innovation as the primary driver of economic growth, but had not modelled how economic decisions and market conditions determine the creation of new technologies. Paul Romer solved this problem by demonstrating how economic forces govern the willingness of firms to produce new ideas and innovations.

Nordhaus findings deal with interactions between society and nature. Nordhaus decided to work on this topic in the 1970s, as scientists had become increasingly worried about the combustion of fossil fuel resulting in a warmer climate. In the mid 1990s, he became the first person to create an integrated assessment model, i.e. a quantitative model that describes the global interplay between the economy and the climate. His model integrates theories and empirical results from physics, chemistry and economics. Nordhaus model is now widely spread and is used to simulate how the economy and the climate co-evolve. It is used to examine the consequences of climate policy interventions.

Water quality is threatened by a long history of fertiliser use on land.

A study led by researchers quantifies for the first time the maximum amount of nutrients specifically, phosphorus that can accumulate in a watershed before additional pollution is discharged into downriver ecosystems. That average threshold amount is 2.1 tonnes per square kilometre of land, Beyond this, further phosphorus inputs to watersheds cause a significant acceleration of loss in runoff.Phosphorus, an element in fertiliser, is essential to the growth of plant food. But the mineral is also harmful when overused. When it gets into surface water, it can lead to excessive plant growth in lakes and rivers and proliferation of toxic algae, harmful to human and animal health.

The two main sources of phosphorus to watersheds, the land adjacent to tributaries, come from agriculture (fertilisers and animal manure) and from the human population (through food needs and sewage).In some countries, including China, Canada, and the US, phosphorus is so heavily used now that the saturation point is reached in as little as five years.Nutrient management strategies developed using novel creative approaches are urgently required for the long-term sustainability of water resources.

One possible mitigating measure would be to do what is already being done in some European countries, instead of adding more and more to help plants grow, phosphorus can be recycled and reused as fertiliser rather than accessing more of the raw mined material.