Climate change: Is your Netflix habit bad for the environment?

A virtually endless supply of film, music and TV can be streamed and downloaded almost instantly.
But at what cost to the environment?

Vast amounts of energy are needed to keep data flowing on the internet and demand will only increase as our reliance on digital services grows.Some of that energy is generated from clean energy sources, but much of it comes from burning carbon-based fossil fuels, which scientists believe is a contributing factor to rising global temperatures.

The latest report by climate scientists demonstrates the scale of the dangers faced from carbon emissions.

"How we power our digital infrastructure is rapidly becoming critical to whether we will be able to arrest climate change in time," says Gary Cook, IT sector analyst at Greenpeace.So, could cutting down time spent on the internet really make a difference to energy consumption and global warming?
A virtually endless supply of film, music and TV can be streamed and downloaded almost instantly.

But at what cost to the environment?

Vast amounts of energy are needed to keep data flowing on the internet and demand will only increase as our reliance on digital services grows.

Some of that energy is generated from clean energy sources, but much of it comes from burning carbon-based fossil fuels, which scientists believe is a contributing factor to rising global temperatures.

The latest report by climate scientists demonstrates the scale of the dangers faced from carbon emissions.

"How we power our digital infrastructure is rapidly becoming critical to whether we will be able to arrest climate change in time," says Gary Cook, IT sector analyst at Greenpeace.

So, could cutting down time spent on the internet really make a difference to energy consumption and global warming?
Mr Andrae says data centres being built across the world need to be fed by renewable energy to minimise these emissions.

The European Commission-funded Eureca project found that data centres in EU countries consumed 25% more energy in 2017 compared with 2014.

The lead scientist, Rabih Bashroush, calculated that five billion downloads and streams clocked up by the song Despacito, released in 2017, consumed as much electricity as Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Somalia, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic put together in a single year.

What can you do about it?
Every time you sit down to watch or listen to something online, the amount of energy consumed might change. It depends on a range of factors including the efficiency of the device.

Terrestrial broadcast TV is a lot more efficient than current streaming technologies for TV channels that are watched by a large number of people, say Prof Preist and Dr Schien.

Mobile phones tend to be the most energy-efficient - more so than a TV or a laptop.

It depends how you stream too. A mobile using wi-fi consumes less energy than one connected to 3G or 4G.

Even if you're not using your device, by having home wi-fi active, you're still consuming energy, says Prof Preist. "So in the home, a lot of the energy consumption comes from us all having our network equipment on 24 hours a day."

Some data centres can be more efficient than others. Keeping them in cooler locations, underground for example, can cut down on large quantities of energy required for cooling.

The International Energy Agency's (IEA) latest report suggested that despite the increased workload for data centres, which will triple by 2020, the amount of electricity used will only go up by 3%.

This is down to continued improvements in the efficiency of servers and data centre infrastructure, and a move to bigger but more efficient centres.
Some of the large technology companies have been praised for being more open about how efficient they are.

Facebook expects its new data centre in Singapore will be powered by 100% renewable energy, something that Apple says already happens with all its global facilities. Many other firms have committed to reaching that goal.

Companies also make up for the amount of non-renewable energy that they consume by supporting renewable energy projects.

Scrutiny of less well known and smaller companies and their energy consumption should be a priority, says Mr Bashroush.

"More attention needs to be paid to the smaller data centre facilities that are off the radar, this is where the next big opportunity to save energy is, the big players are not that bad in comparison," he says.

Investing in nature to reduce disaster losses

The people of Kerala are used to coping with heavy monsoon rains and flooding which strike the Indian subcontinent every summer. This year was catastrophically unlike any other. In August 2018, torrential rains led to major floods in the south Indian state of Kerala, forcing the evacuation of at least a million people and causing almost 500 casualties and an estimated US$ 3.8 billion in losses. Authorities were forced to open dams, engulfing residents in floodwaters and landslides. Several other factors were cited to explain the unprecedented flooding, including quarrying, mining, deforestation and settlements encroaching on floodplains.

In advance of the 19th International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, on 13 October, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) released a report highlighting that direct economic losses from climate-related disasters increased by a staggering 151% between 1998 and 2017. Over these 20 years, India lost US$ 79.5 billion to disasters. 2017 was a particularly costly year worldwide and 2018 might prove even costlier.
Investing in nature - through ecosystem protection and restoration - can significantly reduce such losses. Ecosystems, such as forests, wetlands, sand dunes and mangroves can act as natural buffers to reducing many types of hazard events while providing women and men with food and income. For example, in Jamaica, coral reefs and sea grasses were found to provide up to 40% shoreline protection against storm surges and beach erosion, significantly reducing the need for engineered structures. In the United States, coastal wetlands helped to avoid US$625 million in direct flood damages. This resulted in a 16 per cent average reduction in annual flood losses and a reduction of surge heights by up to 9.4 cm per kilometre inland.

Over the past decade, the role of ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR) has received increased global attention. In March 2015, UN Member States adopted the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, which for the first time recognized sustainable ecosystem management as a priority for disaster risk reduction.

“Ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction is a sustainable preventive approach to reducing disaster risk while providing livelihoods benefits to communities, and it also makes economic sense,” says Karen Sudmeier-Rieux, Senior Adviser on Disaster Risk Reduction at UN Environment.

The close inter-linkages between sound environmental management, climate change impacts and disaster responses require a more systematic and comprehensive approach to disaster risk management”.

This is why UN Environment works in close partnership with multiple actors to promote sustainable ecosystem management in reducing disasters and supporting sustainable ecosystem management. Since 2008, UN Environment has been a core member of the Partnership for Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction (PEDRR), a global alliance of 24 UN agencies, NGOs and specialist institutes which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year

The time is now for a global pact for the environment

On 10 April 2018, the United Nations general assembly adopted a resolution that paved the way for negotiations on a global pact for the environment. This international treaty would combine the guiding legal principles for environmental action into one single and far-reaching text. In 2015, the adoption of the sustainable development goals and the Paris climate agreement represented major progress. However, environmental damage persists and is more serious than ever before. The years 2017 and 2018 have seen record-breaking temperatures. Biodiversity continues to decline at a rapid pace.
With the global pact for the environment, the international community would be equipped for the first time with a treaty of a general nature that covers all environmental areas. It would be the cornerstone of international environmental law, therefore overseeing the different existing sectoral agreements (climate, biodiversity, waste, pollution, etc), filling the gaps and facilitating their implementation.

The treaty would gather principles found in key national and international texts, giving them legal value. Each state legislator would find references to the adoption of more robust environmental laws. The supreme courts would draw from it as a common source of inspiration to build the foundations for global environmental law. Citizens and NGOs would see their environmental rights strengthened while businesses would benefit from the harmonisation of the rules of the game.

While we celebrate the 70-year anniversary of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the moment has come for a new chapter in the history of international law. We are calling for the adoption of a third pact, enshrining a new generation of fundamental commitments: the rights and duties of states, public and private entities, and individuals relating to environmental protection.

Top climate scientist blasts UK’s fracking plans as 'aping Trump

One of the world’s leading climate scientists has launched a scathing attack on the government’s fracking programme, accusing ministers of aping Donald Trump and ignoring scientific evidence.

James Hansen, who is known as the father of climate science, warned that future generations would judge the decision to back a UK fracking industry harshly.

“So the UK joins Trump, ignores science… full throttle ahead with the worst fossil fuels,” Hansen told the Observer. “The science is crystal clear, we need to phase out fossil fuels starting with the most damaging, the ‘unconventional’ fossil fuels such as tar sands and ‘fracking’.”

Hansen has also written to the UK energy minister, Claire Perry, to underline his objections, warning that the decision was a serious policy error that would contribute to “climate breakdown”.

His intervention came as the first fracking operation in England for seven years – which had been due to get under way on Saturday in Lancashire – was postponed until Monday because of bad weather.

It also followed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report last week that warned the world has only 12 years left to avoid catastrophic climate change, calling on governments to take radical and far-reaching measures to decarbonise their economies.

Last week it emerged that Perry was considering relaxing rules on the earthquake limits on fracking, making it easier for companies to push ahead at sites in England.

But in his letter Hansen warned that young people could inherit an environment “out of their control” if fracking was pursued. “If the UK were to join the US by developing gas fields at this point in time it will lock in the methane problem for decades,” he wrote, adding that fracking would fatally undermine the UK’s attempt to fulfil its climate obligations.

“The fossil fuel companies are well aware methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and yet they seem willing to continue on a path which can have disastrous consequences for our grandchildren,” Hansen said.

The Conservative party’s fracking programme – which aims to release fossil fuel gas from wells at sites across England – has been dogged by criticism from environmentalists as well as fierce local opposition. There is a moratorium on the practice in Scotland and Wales.

How Will 9 Or 10 Billion People Eat Without Destroying The Environment?

The human population has reached 7.6 billion and could number 9 billion or 10 billion by midcentury. All those people will need to eat. A sobering report published Wednesday in the journal Nature argues that a sustainable food system that doesn't ravage the environment is going to require dramatic reforms - including a radical change in dietary habits.

To be specific: Cheeseburgers are out, fruits and veggies are in.

The 23 authors of the report - hailing from Europe, the United States, Australia and Lebanon - reviewed the many moving parts of the global food system and how they interact with the environment. The authors concluded that current methods of producing, distributing and consuming food are not environmentally sustainable, and that damage to the planet could make it less hospitable for human existence.

A core message from the researchers is that efforts to keep climate change at an acceptable level will not be successful without a huge reduction in meat consumption.

"Feeding humanity is possible. It's just a question of whether we can do it in an environmentally responsible way," said Johan Rockstrom, an earth scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and a coauthor of the study.

The report comes on the heels of a warning from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that global leaders need to take unprecedented action in the next decade to keep the planet's average temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

Global warming has typically been linked to the burning of fossil fuels, but food production is a huge and underappreciated factor, and the new report seeks to place food in the center of the conversation about how humanity can create a sustainable future.

"Everybody knows that energy has something to do with climate - we need to transform our energy system. There's very few people who realize that it's just as, and maybe more, important to transform our food system," said Katherine Richardson, director of the Sustainable Science Center at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Richardson, who was not part of the team producing the new study, added, "The food system is broken and needs to be fixed if we have any hope of feeding 9 to 10 billion."

Already, half the planet's ice-free land surface is devoted to livestock or the growing of feed for those animals, Richardson said. That's an area equal to North and South America combined, she said. Rain forests are steadily being cleared for cropland. And the demand for food is increasing faster than the population: Rising income in China and many other formerly impoverished countries brings with it a higher demand for meat and other forms of animal protein. Some 70 percent of the world's fresh water is already used in agriculture, and the demand for that water will intensify.

The Nature report, titled "Options for keeping the food system within environmental limits,"
contends that, without targeted changes, pressures on various environmental systems will increase 50 to 90 percent by 2050 compared with 2010. There's no simple solution, the authors write; rather, "a synergistic combination of measures" will be needed to limit the environmental damage.

One obvious measure is a change in diets. Researchers say meat production - which includes growing food specifically to feed to livestock - is an environmentally inefficient way to generate calories for human consumption. Moreover, ruminants such as cows are prodigious producers of methane as they digest food, and methane is a potent greenhouse gas. The report says greenhouse-gas emissions from the global food system could be reduced significantly if people curb red-meat consumption and follow a diet built around fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes.

To limit greenhouse-gas emissions, "We won't get very far if we don't seriously think about dietary changes to a more plant-based diet," said Marco Springmann, lead author of the report and a senior researcher at the Oxford Martin Program on the Future of Food.

He said that what is good for the planet is good for the eater. For most people consuming a typical Western diet, eating less meat will generally mean better health.

Two representatives of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, asked to respond to the Nature report, said the U.S. beef industry is focused on improving the efficiency of beef production. The United States had 128 million head of cattle (including dairy cows) in 1976 and 94 million cattle as of this past January, yet it produces just as much beef today as it did in the 1970s, in part because of breeding efforts that boosted the growth rate of the livestock, said Sara Place, the Beef Association's senior director for research on sustainable beef production.

Ashley McDonald, senior director of sustainability for the association, said, "We're trying as an industry to take a proactive stance and really make a commitment to continuous improvement."
The report notes that the current food system is incredibly wasteful, with about one-third of the food produced eventually being discarded. Most of that food waste comes from spoilage. Halving the amount of wasted food would put a dent in the overall environmental problem, they said, and reducing waste by 75 percent is theoretically possible.

The report is agnostic on whether the world should adopt genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the food supply. The report also does not take a position on population growth. Although birth rates have declined dramatically in many countries - to levels far below the replacement rate - the global population continues to rise. A 2015 U.N. report estimated that the population would reach 9.7 billion by 2050.

Decades ago, the prospect of so many human beings crowding the planet inspired predictions of widespread famine. The "green revolution" in agriculture changed the equations. Still, the food is not evenly distributed. About 3 billion people are malnourished today and 1 billion of them suffer from food scarcity, according to Rockstrom.

At the core of this research is the argument that Earth has several limits, the "planetary boundaries," that cannot be exceeded without potentially dire consequences. These boundaries - which involve factors such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, atmospheric aerosols (smog), stratosphere-ozone depletion and the supply of fresh water - define the "safe operating space" for humanity. Proponents of the hypothesis say that human civilization has thrived in the geological epoch known as the Holocene, covering a period of roughly 11,700 years since the end of the last ice age, but that damage to the environment could put humanity into an existential crisis.

"You can imagine a scenario in which contemporary society starts to unravel" because of degradation in the environment, said Will Steffen, an emeritus professor of Earth-system science at the Australian National University and a proponent of the planetary-boundaries hypothesis. "So it's a long fuse, big bang."

He noted a movement in Australia to promote the consumption of kangaroo meat, since kangaroos are not ruminants and don't have the same ecological footprint.
"It's a gamier taste, but it's also a much leaner meat. It takes more talent to cook it to make it easy to chew and digest," he said, before quickly adding, "I don't like the thought of the poor little guys getting shot

The science behind New York City’s rising seas

The sea level is rising, but it’s not rising evenly. Over the 20th century, the water lapping New York City climbed 1.5 times faster than the global average, according to a report published last year. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if you imagine sea levels rising like water in a tub. So Verge Science set out to discover what’s going on.

Big picture, this story is set against a backdrop of climbing global temperatures, which do a couple of things to the sea. Land ice melts and dribbles into the ocean, causing water levels to rise. Warmer waters also expand. “And that causes some amount of sea level rise as well,” says Andrea Dutton, associate professor of geology at the University of Florida.

Here’s the weird part: different parts of the ocean are at different heights. “It turns out that on the surface of the ocean today, the surface is not perfectly flat,” Dutton says. She told us there are hills and valleys wrinkling the ocean’s surface, currents that could pile water up against the East Coast of the US if freshwater from melting ice jams up the circulation, and land masses that are still settling back into place after a massive ice sheet began melting thousands of years ago.

With Dutton’s help, along with ice cubes, a blow dryer, and the world’s largest couch cushion analogy, this video explains the science of rising seas.

https://youtu.be/SA5zh3yG_-0

IPCC report: we need behavioral change not climate change.

According to the message of the International Panel on Climate Change, we must reduce the emissions to net zero by 2050. To make it happen, human behaviour needs to change. Humans are creatures of habit and that is what makes addressing climate change additionally challenging. To limit global warming, as consumers and citizens we need to change as well. We need to make greener behaviour changes ourselves and demand environmentally conscious alternatives as these can propel political decision making and markets towards pursuing 1.5 degree Celsius consistent path when they are not. The IPCC report states the following ways in which one can make climate change with examples.

• Implementing resource efficiency in buildings- Insulation, low carbon construction materials.
• Adopting low emissions innovations-Electric vehicles, district vehicles, heat pumps and cooling
• Adopting energy efficiency appliances-Energy efficient heating/cooling or energy efficiency appliances.
• Adoption of renewable energy-solar rooftops and solar water heaters
• Energy saving behaviour-walking or cycling of short distances, using mass transit, line drying for laundry, reducing food waste.
• Consumption of products with low greenhouse gas emissions- Reducing meat and dairy intake, buying local and seasonal food, replacing aluminium products with low GHG alternatives.
• Organization Behaviour-designing low emission products, replacing business travels with video conferencing when possible.

70 hydro power projects in Himalaya at risk of quake

A recent study on 2015 revealed that building dams in the Himalayan region associated with many risks. The study was conducted based on the Nepal earthquake. As a result of the 2015 Nepal earthquake, country temporarily lost its 20% hydropower capacity and more than 30 hydropower projects were damaged. Two years before, the flooding in Uttarakhand resulted in damage of at least 10 hydropower projects in operation and under construction. Currently, 37 hydropower projects are ongoing in Uttarakhand. The study reveals that many hydropower projects in Nepal were wiped out by moving debris.

 The researchers from Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam Golm, Germany analyzed reports on damages hydropower plants in Nepal and concluded that the damage is caused to plants in the aftermath of the quake was due to land slides triggered by the quake rather than the earthquake itself. The team analyzed 273 projects that are in operation, under construction or being planned in the Indian, Nepalese, and Bhutan Himalayas. They found that 25%nof them are risk-prone, are likely to experience damages due to quake.Researchers urge a re evaluation of the hydro power projects in the region. Currently, 600 large dams have been built or under construction in the seismic zone areas of Himalaya, but none of them is built in a way that is to withstand the worst earthquakes that could hit the region. According to Downearth report, Himalayas have the highest dam density in the world. 

India ‘will not let you fail’ to reach Sustainable Development Goals, Foreign Minister tells UN

• India is totally committed to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) said Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday, addressing the United Nations General Assembly’s annual debate.
•  The existential threats of climate change and terrorism, Ms. Swaraj urged developed nations who had “exploited nature for their immediate needs” to help “lift the deprived, with financial and technical resources”, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change.

SOURCE : UN news

We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero or face more floods

The authoritative new report by the inter governmental panel on climate changes sets the world a clear target, we must reduce emissions greenhouse gases to net zero by the middle of this century to have a reasonable chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degree.
            Accelerate the transition to clean and sustainable growth mounting damage from sea level rise, floods and droughts that will severely hinder efforts to tackle poverty, raise living standardsand improve. Human activities are currently emitting about 42 bn tonnes of CO2 every year, and at that rate the carbon budget allowing us 50-50 chance of keeping warming to 1.5 degree would be exhausted within 20 years. Report states there should be reduction in annual emission by 50 percent.
    Next 10 years will be absolutely crucial in determine what kind of world will exist in decades beyond. If we act decisively, innovate, invest wisely we could both avoid the worst impacts of climate change and successfully achieve the sustainable development goals.

How profit-driven inbreeding could bring the world dairy herd to its knees

Known for their distinctive long horns, the Ankole cattle of western Uganda have evolved over millennia to withstand their harsh environment, with its long dry spells and abundance of local maladies such as trypanosomiasis, a disease spread by the tsetse fly. But after flourishing for almost 10,000 years, the Ankole have begun to rapidly disappear.

Farmland is dwindling in Uganda due to the expanding human population, and Ankole requires vast areas to graze. Local herders have responded to the pressure by replacing them, cross-breeding Ankole cattle with industrial species such as the European Holstein. But while these hybrids gain favourable genetic traits from the Holstein, producing more milk and meat, and requiring less land to keep, there is a hidden cost.

The reason why industrial breeds are particularly vulnerable to new bacterial or viral infections is that they have very little genetic diversity compared with local breeds, due to decades of inbreeding. Ginja estimates that for breeds like the Holstein, millions of these cows originate from a mere handful of bulls.

We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN

The world’s leading climate scientists have warned there are only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.
The authors of the landmark report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released on Monday say urgent and unprecedented changes are needed to reach the target, which they say is affordable and feasible although it lies at the most ambitious end of the Paris agreement pledge to keep temperatures between 1.5C and 2C.
Sea-level rise would affect 10 million more people by 2100 if the half-degree extra warming brought a forecast 10cm additional pressure on coastlines. The number affected would increase substantially in the following centuries due to locked-in ice melt.

Investing in nature to reduce disaster losses

•  In August 2018, torrential rains led to major floods in the south Indian state of Kerala, forcing the evacuation of at least a million people and causing almost 500 casualties and an estimated US$ 3.8 billion in losses.
• In advance of the 19^th International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, on 13 October, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) released a report highlighting that direct economic losses from climate-related disasters increased by a staggering 151% between 1998 and 2017. 
• Over these 20 years, India lost US$ 79.5 billion to disasters. 2017 was a particularly costly year worldwide and 2018 might prove even costlier.
• Investing in nature - through ecosystem protection and restoration - can significantly reduce such losses. Ecosystems, such as forests, wetlands, sand dunes and mangroves can act as natural buffers to reducing many types of hazard events while providing women and men with food and income.
• The close inter-linkages between sound environmental management, climate change impacts and disaster responses require a more systematic and comprehensive approach to disaster risk management.

Is meat's climate impact too hot for politicians?

Reducing meat consumption will also be good for people's health and will free up agricultural land to make space for nature.
Huge cuts in carbon emissions were needed to protect the climate, a UK minister has shown just how hard that will be.
Eat much less meat because the meat industry causes so many carbon emissions.
The evidence is now very clear that eating less meat could be one of the quickest ways to reduce climate pollution.

Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary limits may be achievable

A global shift towards healthy and more plant-based diets, halving food loss and waste, and improving farming practices and technologies are required to feed 10 billion people sustainably by 2050, a new study finds. Adopting these options reduces the risk of crossing global environmental limits related to climate change, the use of agricultural land, the extraction of freshwater resources, and the pollution of ecosystems through over application of fertilizers, according to the researchers.

• In addition to dietary changes, improving management practices and technologies in agriculture is required to limit pressures on agricultural land, freshwater extraction, and fertilizer use. Increasing agricultural yields from existing crop land, balancing application and recycling of fertilizers, and improving water management, could, along with other measures, reduce those impacts by around half.
• Finally, halving food loss and waste is needed for keeping the food system within environmental limits. Halving food loss and waste could, if globally achieved, reduce environmental impacts by up to a sixth (16%).

Many of the solutions we analysed are being implemented in some parts of the world, but it will need strong global co-ordination and rapid up scale to make their effects felt.

Extinction of large animals could make climate change worse

The extinction of large animals from tropical forests could make climate change worse. New research reveals that a decline in fruit-eating animals such as large primates, tapirs and toucans could have a knock-on effect for tree species and carbon capture.

New research published in Science Advances reveals that a decline in fruit-eating animals such as large primates, tapirs and toucans could have a knock-on effect for tree species.

This is because large animals disperse large seeded plant species often associated with large trees and high wood density -- which are more effective at capturing and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than smaller trees.

Seed dispersal by large-bodied vertebrates is via the ingestion of viable seeds that pass through the digestive tract intact.

Removing large animals from the ecosystem upsets the natural balance and leads to a loss of heavy-wooded large trees, which means that less CO2 can be locked away.

Secondary forests have short lifespans

Secondary forests, or forests that have regrown after agriculture use, only last an average of 20 years, according to a recently released scientific paper.

The finding presents a major problem for large-scale restoration policy, which often focuses on commitments to restore a certain number of hectares by a given year. But the benefits of restoration depend on those forests persisting. It takes much longer than 20 years for a secondary forest to absorb large amounts of carbon, or to provide habitat for many forest species.

The research has the longest time scale, 67 years, and the greatest special resolution, 10 meter resolution, of any studies that have looked at secondary tropical forest persistence. Two previous studies only went back as far as 1985 and used lower resolution data.

Smallest ever Tylosaurus fossil sheds light on species

The smallest Tylosaurus mosasaur fossil ever found has been revealed in a new study in the Journal of Vertebrate Pale ontology and surprisingly it lacks a trademark feature of the species.The fossil, likely to be that of a newborn, does not have the recognizable long snout typically seen in the species. The lack of this snout initially perplexed researchers, who struggled to identify which group of mosasaurs it belonged to.

After examining and comparing the fossil to young specimens of closely-related species, such as T. nepaeolicus and T. proriger, which already had identifiable noses, researchers finally deemed it to be a young Tylosaurus. The lack of snout in the baby specimen found suggests to researchers that the development of this feature happens extremely quickly, between birth and juvenile stage -- something that previous studies on the species had failed to notice.

Liquid metal discovery to make toxic water safe and drinkable

Researchers have discovered a revolutionary and cheap way to make filters that can turn water contaminated with heavy metals into safe drinking water in a matter of minutes.

Recent UNSW SHARP hire Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh and his former colleagues at RMIT showed that nano-filters made of aluminium oxide could be cheaply produced using virtually no energy from a fixed amount of liquid metal gallium.

In a paper published in Advanced Functional Materials, lead author Dr Ali Zavabeti (RMIT) and Professor Kalantar-zadeh explained that when a chunk of aluminium is added to the core of liquid gallium at room temperature, layers of aluminium oxide are quickly produced at the surface of the gallium.

The authors discovered that these aluminium oxide nano-sheets were highly porous and went on to prove they were suitable for filtering both heavy metal ions and oil contamination at unprecedented, ultra-fast rates.

Irrigating vegetables with wastewater in African cities may spread disease

Urban farmers growing vegetables to feed millions of people in Africa's ever-growing cities could unwittingly be helping to spread disease by irrigating crops with wastewater.Experts discovered that wastewater collected from canals used for urban agriculture in Burkina Faso was rich in virulent human pathogens which cause gastroenteritis and diarrhoea, a major cause of death in low and middle-income countries.

Researchers at the University of Birmingham led an international team from Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Germany in studying wastewater samples from three canals in the capital Ouagadougou, a city of 2.2 million inhabitants.After identifying a wide range of antibiotic resistance genes in the water, they concluded that using wastewater for urban agriculture in the city posed a high risk of spreading bacteria and antimicrobial resistance among humans and animals.

Parijat offers farmers alternate to hazardous crop burning

      Parijat industries had been conducting training for farmers in different parts of northern India, aiming at fostering best agricultural practices and to provide training farmers against  agriculture residue burning.

     Parijat industries recently conducted a session for farmers at Hisar,Haryana. The main focus of the campaign was to create awareness among farmers about proper management of crops residue and the impact of stubble burning after harvesting.The farmers procured the machines from co-operatives to aggregate the stubble and convert it into fertiliser, which can then be used back in the field.

      The problem of agriculture waste burning has been intensifying over the years, with Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh being the major burning hotspots.

UK scientists say eating less meat can save planet

               A study conducted by UK scientist titled "Options for keeping the food system within environmental limits" says that reducing the consumption of meat and adopting a "flexitarian" diet is one of the key steps towards the sustainable future.

               A "flexitarian" diet means average world citizen needs to eats 75%less beef, 90%less pork and half the number of eggs, while tripling the consumption of beans, pulses and nuts and seeds.

               This would reduce the emission from the livestock and better management of manure.The study also says that if we follow a "flexitarian" diet ,the green house emission from agriculture will be reduced to  more than half.

The research says that there is need to change the farming practices which involves increasing the yield from the existing cropland,improving water management and restricting and recycling the fertilizer use.

South Delhi Mayor calls for intensifying clean-up activities

       The South Delhi Mayor has asked the department of environment management services to  intensify the cleaning activities, in order to manage the waste disposal and pollution during this festive season.

       The department is instructed to  arrange special sanitation drives at religious places and markets in order to tackle higher quantities of garbage,the civic body to clean garbage bins twice a day and to conduct night sweeping.Also,more water tankers to reduce for dust pollution.

EPA Announces It Will Discontinue Science Panel That Reviews Air Pollution Safety

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has decided it will end a scientific review panel that advises the agency on safety and health standards surrounding certain kinds of air pollution.

Made up of doctors, researchers, and other experts, the 20-person Particulate Matter Review Panel works to provide guidelines on particulate matter (PM) tiny solid particles found in the air, such as soot  known to cause respiratory and other health issues.

 The panel will be replaced by the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee , a seven-member group established in 1977 under the Clean Air Act to address “research related to air quality, sources of air pollution, and the strategies to attain and maintain air quality standards.” CASAC will be legally required to advise the EPA administrator on quality standards beginning in 2019.

Coca Cola, Pepsi, Nestle Top Ocean Polluters: Report On Plastic Pollution

• Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestle are among the companies that contribute most to ocean pollution with single-use plastics, according to a study by the "Break Free from Plastic" initiative.
• The environmental movement, launched in 2016, has helped clear the coasts of 42 countries around the world of discarded plastics.
• Between September 9 and 15, over 10,000 volunteers carried out 239 plastic cleaning actions on coasts and other natural environments in 42 countries
• They collected more than 187,000 pieces of plastic, of which more than 65 per cent were from products by Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestle. But companies such as Danone, Mondelez, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever, among others, were also mentioned in the report.
• Around 100,000 pieces of plastic collected were made of materials like polystyrene, PVC (polyvinyl chloride), PET (polyethylene terephthalate) or the film of single-use plastic that were not biodegradable, the report said.
• Plastic production has reached 320 million metric tonnes per year and is expected to grow by 40 per cent over the next decade, which will exponentially increase the release of greenhouse gases. Ninety per cent of plastics are produced from fossil fuels and pollutants.
• The study said that these large corporations must take responsibility for polluting the environment, as production of plastics exposes harmful substances to communities living near factories and pollutes foods and products contained in plastic wraps.

Constant exposure to ozone may backfire on health

A new study has utilized a novel method to estimate long-term ozone exposure to quantify the health burden from long-term ozone exposure in three major regions of the world. 

For the study, the researchers used 2015 data from ground-based monitoring networks in the USA, Europe, and China to estimate long-term O3 exposure. They then calculated premature mortalities using exposure-response relationships from two American Cancer Society (ACS) cancer prevention studies.

First, health impacts attributable to long-term O3 exposure are higher when using the newest ACS CPS-II cohort analysis. Plus, the impacts are expanded further if the association between long-term O3 exposure and cardiovascular mortality is indeed shown to be causal and included in the total health burden estimates. 

Second, results from the newest ACS CPS-II cohort analysis suggest that O3 exposure should be considered year-round. This is particularly relevant for the three regions included in this analysis, where the seasonal cycle and regional distributions of O3 have shifted over the last few decades." 

Finally, these results also highlighted the importance of accurately estimating O3 exposure and the consequences of high exposure bias in estimating impacts for health assessments.