'Conservation successes' bring hope for mountain gorilla

Conservation efforts appear to be paying off for some of the world's most charismatic animals, according to new assessments for the extinction Red List.

Prospects look better for the mountain gorilla, after years of conservation measures, including anti-poaching and veterinary patrols. And numbers of two large whales are recovering, following hunting bans. However, other flora and fauna are declining. Species getting closer to extinction include several types of fish, a globally important timber tree, and one of the world's largest and smelliest flowers. The fin whale, western gray whale, mountain gorilla, and Rothschild's giraffe are among the animals where numbers are rising.

§  What other animals are at risk?

Almost 100,000 plants and animals have now been evaluated for extinction threats by the IUCN. Of these, around a quarter are on the edge of extinction.

The "winners" in the new Red List include:

The mountain gorilla

There were around 600 mountain gorillas left in the wild in 2008, but numbers have now risen to over 1,000 after intensive conservation efforts. These include anti-poaching patrols and vets trained to give care to gorillas in the wild. The gorilla is restricted to protected areas in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda. Threats remain, including poaching, civil unrest, and diseases passed on by humans. But while mountain gorillas are increasing in number, the great ape remains endangered.

The fin whale

Populations of this large whale - one of the biggest in the ocean - are on the rise, and have roughly doubled since the 1970s. There are now estimated to be 100,000 adults.

The western gray whale

This whale too is reaping the benefits of bans on commercial whaling. Numbers are starting to rise, albeit more slowly. However, this success could be derailed by threats from oil and gas development and commercial fisheries.

The titan arum

Nicknamed the corpse flower, one of the world's largest and smelliest flowers has been assessed for the first time. It is found in the wild only on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. Only about 1,000 plants remain in the wild. It is under threat from logging and the clearing of forest for oil palm plantations.

The vene tree

Illegal logging is threatening the survival of this globally important timber tree, found in West and Central Africa

Fish

Fifty-four fish species from two important fisheries are threatened by unsustainable fishing. They include Malawi's most economically valuable fish, the chambo, and more than 100 types of grouper, a fish found widely around the world.

woman held in Australia in strawberry needle scares case

A 50-year-old former strawberry farm supervisor was charged in an Australian court on Monday for sticking sewing needles in strawberries. The woman was arrested Sunday after a "complex" and "extensive" investigation by Australian police. She has been charged with seven counts of contaminating goods and could face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.

"This is a major and unprecedented police investigation with a lot of complexities involved," Detective Superintendent Jon Wacker said in a statement on Sunday. The Queensland Police Service has allocated a significant amount of resources to ensure those responsible are brought to justice, Wacker added. In September, consumers in six of Australia's eight states and territories had discovered needles hidden inside strawberries.

South Pole: Rock 'hotspot' causes ice sheet to sag

Scientists suspect a combination of unusually radioactive rocks and geothermal springs may be responsible. The warm bedrock is removing some 6mm a year from the underside of the 3km-thick ice sheet, producing a mass of meltwater that then flows away through sub-glacial rivers and lakes towards the continent's coastline. The roughly 100km-by-50km hotspot came to light when researchers examined radar images of the ice sheet at 88 degrees south. This revealed a startling sagging in the ice layers directly above the hotspot. Antarctica is in no danger of melting away as a result of this hotspot. In the grand scheme of things, the area affected and the amount of melting is simply too small to have a significant impact. But the knowledge adds to our understanding of the under-ice hydrology of the continent. There is a vast network of sub-glacial rivers and lakes in Antarctica and they influence the way the ice sheet moves above them. Any attempt to model how the frozen landscape might respond to future climate warming has to take account of this water system. The discovery also has a bearing on efforts to drill the most ancient ice on the continent. Scientists are currently looking for places where they could core an unbroken record of snowfall going back more than 1.5 million years. The air bubbles and dust trapped in this ice would provide key insights into the way Earth's atmosphere has changed through time.

But any drill site would have to avoid locations with enhanced basal heating because the melting will erase any climate record imprinted in the core.

The new study is the latest result to come out of the PolarGAP project.

This was initiated by the European Space Agency with the primary objective of acquiring gravity measurements at the South Pole.

Esa's satellites do not fly directly over the bottom of the world, meaning there is always a hole in their data.

To retrieve the missing gravity information, Antarctic scientists were asked to run an instrumented airplane back and forth across the pole

But they used the opportunity to sense also the magnetism in the bedrock, and to profile the height and structure of the ice.

SC Restrains West Bengal From Processing Tenders for Fire Torches to Protect Elephants

The Supreme Court on Monday restrained the West Bengal government from processing tenders issued by it for the supply of burnt mobile oil to keep herds of elephants away by using fire torches.

The counsel for the state of West Bengal submitted to the bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta that fire torches are the only way to prevent herds from causing damage. The bench, however, was doubtful of the state’s claim and asked it to place on affidavit the name and designation of the person who will be responsible in each forest division in the event of a mishap due to fire.

“The concerned person will also file an affidavit that he will be responsible in case of any mishap”, the order issued by the bench said. The bench has also directed the Odisha government to file an affidavit in this regard.

Meanwhile, the Centre through Additional Solicitor General A.N.S. Nadkarni, assured the bench that a meeting is scheduled on December 1 for instituting a task force or a steering committee to assist the Centre and the states to formulate and implement measures to effectively deal with conflicts with elephants occurring in all parts of the country – through the active participation of all relevant stakeholders and experts.

Air pollution may up autism risk in children: Study

Air pollution may up autism risk in children: Study

BEIJING: Exposure to sources of outdoor pollution such as vehicle exhausts, and industrial emissions can increase a child's risk of developing autism spectrum disorder by up to 78 per cent, a study has warned. 

The research followed children in Shanghai from birth to three years to understand the effect of exposure to fine particles (PM2.5). 

The study included 124 ASD children and 1,240 healthy children in stages over a nine-year period, examining the association between air pollution and ASD. 

The study, published in the journal Environment International, is first to examine the effects of long-term exposure of air pollution on ASD during the early life of children in a developing country, adding to previous studies that have already linked prenatal air pollution exposure to ASD in children. 

"The causes of autism are complex and not fully understood, but environmental factors are increasingly recognised in addition to genetic and other factors," said Zhiling Guo, from Chinese Academy of Sciences. 

The smaller the airborne particles, the more capable they are of penetrating the lungs and entering the bloodstream causing a range of serious health conditions. 

PM1 is the smallest in particle size but few studies have been done on PM1 globally and agencies are yet to set safety standards for it. 

One of Earth’s shimmering dust clouds has been spotted at last

Meet the Kordylewski dust clouds, shimmering pseudo-satellites that orbit Earth near the moon. A team of Hungarian astronomers say they have spotted light scattered from one of these clouds, providing evidence that the clouds really exist after nearly 60 years of controversy.

The twin dust clouds gather at two of the points in space where the gravity of Earth and the moon cancel each other out. That gravitational stability makes these spots, called Lagrange points, good places to park spacecraft. They also could trap interplanetary debris.

No one had seen any dust clouds since 1961, when Polish astronomer Kazimierz Kordylewski reported the first sighting at two gravity holes, L4 and L5. Some astronomers thought that the sun’s stronger gravity would periodically sweep dust out of L4 and L5, making it hard for the areas to support clouds.

Astronomers Judit Slíz-Balogh, András Barta and Gábor Horváth, all of Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, looked for the clouds using specially designed filters. These filters detect light that’s been polarized, or had its electromagnetic waves aligned, by bouncing around the dust grains.

Why farmers still continue to burn stubble in Punjab, Haryana

Why farmers still continue to burn stubble in Punjab, Haryana

NEW DELHI: There is a visible reduction in the volume of post-harvest stubble-burning in Punjab and Haryana this year owing to the promotion of farm machinery backed by financial assistance by government and awareness programmes. 

But I am nervous as I heard this machine lowers the output," said the farmer from Sangrur's Namol village. 

Gursharan Singh from the same village firmly believes the Happy Seeder lowers crop output. 

There is a need to restore confidence among farmers that the Happy Seeder is affordable and does not impact the yield, said Sridhar Iyer of the EY Foundation. 

The EY Foundation, along with NGO India Paryavaran Sahayak (IPS) Foundation, is working in five districts of Punjab to spread awareness about Happy Seeder and to make it available on rent to farmers at a subsidised rate. 

This year, stubble burning has gone down by almost 60-70 per cent. Many farmers have rented Happy Seeders from 8,000 CHCs in the state. There may be a section of small farmers, who could not use it. But they will also soon be brought on board," Bains told IANS. 

india to release 8 captive-reared vultures with tracking devices

eight captive-reared critically endangered white blacked vultures are set to take wings early next year for the first time in India. tagging will help in studying their behavior, survival instincts in the wild.
the jatayu conservation breeding center on the edge of the bir shikargada wildlife sanctuary is a joint project of Haryana and the Bombay natural history society (BNHS) with the British government's Darwin initiatives for the survival of species found to investigate the massive decline of three critically endangered gyps species of vultures in India    

U.S. cases of a polio-like illness rise, but there are few clues to its cause

The cause of a rare polio-like disease continues to elude public health officials even as the number of U.S. cases grows

Confirmed cases of acute flaccid myelitis cases have risen to 90 in 27 states, out of a possible 252 under investigation, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced November 13. That’s up from 62 confirmed cases out of 127 suspected just a month ago  There were a record 149 cases in 2016.

“I understand parents want answers,” Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases in Atlanta, said at a news conference. The agency continues to investigate the disease, which causes weakness in one or more limbs and primarily affects children. But “right now the science doesn’t give us an answer,” she said

A deep dive into 80 of the confirmed cases offered some details about the course of AFM. In most, fever or respiratory symptoms like coughing and congestion, or both, preceded limb weakness by three to 10 days. Most cases involved weakness in an upper limb, researchers report online November 13 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

From nose filters to charcoal bags, bad air is good business

From nose filters to charcoal bags, bad air is good business

An air quality index between 0 and 50 is considered good. A day after Diwali the AQI in Delhi stood at 390, which means very polluted air. But Lavanshi Jain, an asthma patient residing in Rohini in north Delhi, was not too worried. Every day she steps out of her house wearing a pair of thin mesh-like nostril filters. "It has helped me breathe better, and my asthma attacks have reduced," believes Jain. 

Jain is using a product called Nasofilters, developed by Nanoclean Global, a startup based in Delhi, in collaboration with researchers from IIT-Delhi. These filters are made with a special cellulose-based fibre and claim to trap microscopic pollutants like PM 2.5 and 10. "It's use-and-throw. Each pair costs Rs 10 and can be worn for 10-12 hours daily," says Jatin Kewlani, COO, Nanoclean Global. 

Rising air pollution levels have spawned a mini industry of anti-pollution products that go beyond air purifiers and face masks. From small bags of activated charcoal that clean up indoor air to bigger outdoor devices, the catalogue of anti-pollution merchandise is growing. Bengaluru-based startup Devic Earth has developed a device, Pure Skies, which uses radio waves to scatter pollutants like PM 2.5 and 10, nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide. 

"Technology can be useful but it cannot stand alone," reasons Anumita Roychowdhury, a senior expert on air pollution at the Centre for Science and Environment. In an article in Down to Earth, Roychowdhury writes: "More than the technology prowess, it is important to follow the basic principles of public health protection which demand control of pollution sources and reduction of direct exposure for millions…" 

Climate change may have made the Arctic deadlier for baby shorebirds

Climate change may be flipping good Arctic neighborhoods into killing fields for baby birds.

Every year, shorebirds migrate thousands of kilometers from their southern winter refuges to reach Arctic breeding grounds. 

But what was once a safer region for birds that nest on the ground now has higher risks from predators than nesting in the tropics, says Vojtěch Kubelka, an evolutionary ecologist and ornithologist at Charles University in Prague. With many shorebird populations dwindling, nest success matters more every year.

A longtime fan of shorebirds, Kubelka had heard about regional tests of how predator risk changes by latitude for bird nests. He, however, wanted to go global. Shorebirds make a great group for such a large-scale comparison, he says, because there’s not a lot of variation in how nests look to predators. A feral dog in the United States and a fox in Russia are both creeping up on some variation of a slight depression in the ground.

India's share in global air conditioning units to jump from 2.2% to almost 25% by 2050

India's share in global air conditioning units to jump from 2.2% to almost 25% by 2050

NEW DELHI: Increasing incomes and urbanisation will see increase in room air conditioning units from 1.2 billion to 4.5 billion in the world by 2050 when India alone may account for one billion units. 


India will, in fact, see a phenomenal growth during the period - from 26.3 million installed stock of room air conditioner (RAC) units in 2016 to over 1 billion in 2050. It means its share will jump from 2.2% of the overall RACs globally to almost 25% in next three decades. 

This projected jump in space cooling requirement will need three times more electricity by that period from the 2016 level in a world that has already seen nearly one degree Celsius rise in average temperatures from the pre-industrial level. And, if the world continues to carry on with the same air conditioning technology, the temperature of the planet will rise by 0.5 degree through use of cooling units alone. 

“A winning technology could prevent up to 100 gigatons (GT) of CO2-equivalent emissions by 2050, and put the world on a pathway to mitigate up to 0.5 degree C of warming by 2100,” said a government statement. 

Not cool: ACs will make world 0.5 degree Celsius warmer by 2100.

Not cool: ACs will make world 0.5 degree Celsius warmer by 2100.

NEW DELHI: Increasing incomes and urbanisation will see increase in room air conditioning units from 1.2 billion to 4.5 billion in the world by 2050 when India alone may account for one billion units, posing a serious challenge to the global community which is fighting climate change and rising temperatures. 

India will, in fact, see a phenomenal growth during the period - from 26.3 million installed stock of room air conditioner (RAC) units in 2016 to over 1 billion in 2050. It means its share will jump from 2.2% of the overall RACs globally to almost 25% in next over three decades. 

This projected jump in space cooling requirement will need three times more electricity by that period from the 2016 level in a world that has seen nearly one degree Celsius rise in average temperatures from the pre-industrial level. And, if the world continues to carry on with the same air conditioning technology, the temperature of the planet will rise by 0.5 degree Celsius through use of cooling units alone by 2100. 

India on the occasion launched a Global Cooling Prize, an international competition to incentivise development of a residential cooling technology that will have at least five times less climate impact than the standard RAC units available now. 

Global warming never stopped in last hundred years: Study

BEIJING: Global warming has never stopped in the past hundred years, with maximum rate of change occurring after Second World War II, according to a study. 


"Our study suggests that future climate conditions will likely rely on competition between multidecadal cooling and global warming if the multidecadal climate cycle repeats," said Xingang Dai from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. 

Global warming has been attributed to persistent increases in atmospheric greenhouse gasses (GHGs), especially in CO2, since 1870, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, according to the study published in the journal Scientific Reports. 

The upward trend in global mean surface temperature (GMST) slowed or even paused during the first decade of the twenty-first century, even though CO2 levels continued to rise and reached nearly 400 parts per million (ppm) in 2013. 

This episode has typically been termed the global warming hiatus or slowdown in warming. 
The hiatus is characterised as a near-zero trend over a period. 

Detection found that the hiatus appeared during 2001-2013/2002-2012 with extremely weak inter-annual variability in some GMST sequences, and the slowdown in the others, researchers said. 

The hiatus is often attributed to internal climate variability, external forcing, or both, involving an increase in aerosols in the stratosphere during the period 2000-2010, they said. 

The phase saw Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) accompanying intensified trade winds, extensive heat uptake by the deep ocean or an extremely low number of sunspots during the latest solar activity cycle. 

The new study reveals that the global warming has never stopped in the past hundred years, with maximum rate of change after Second World War II and almost constant rate during the latest three decades. 

However, the key cooling against global warming comes from the interannual variability of the temperature that is coincided with the variability of the sea surface temperature in the equatorial mid-eastern Pacific. 

Hence, the hiatus is merely a decadal balance between global warming and the cooling resulting from anomalous sea surface temperature in equatorial Pacific. 

The hiatus ended in 2014 as a new El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event was developing in the equatorial mid-eastern Pacific which caused a rapid warming in the Earth, researchers said. 

On the other hand, the multidecadal climate oscillation follows a downward path with increase in cooling, they said. 

Earth's oceans have absorbed 60 percent more heat than previously thought

Since 1991, the world's oceans have absorbed an amount of heat energy each year that is 150 times the energy humans produce as electricity annually, according to a new study. The strong ocean warming the researchers found suggests that Earth is more sensitive to fossil-fuel emissions than previously thought.

For each year during the past quarter century, the world's oceans have absorbed an amount of heat energy that is 150 times the energy humans produce as electricity annually, according to a study led by researchers at Princeton and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego. The strong ocean warming the researchers found suggests that Earth is more sensitive to fossil-fuel emissions than previously thought

freezing air can stop 99% of pollutants

London, Nov 11 (IANS) Freezing pollutants can prevent deadly outdoor air pollution thought to cause more than three million premature deaths worldwide every year from seeping indoors by 99 percent, scientists have discovery’s research, by a team of scientists from the Nottingham Trent University in the UK and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, involved studying the effectiveness of cryogenics for indoor air purification, by removing the gaseous pollutants and tiny particulates caused by haze.

The team found that as they circulated haze-polluted air through a cryogenic condenser, the finer particles stuck together in the condenser tube before dropping out by gravity, and emerging as clean air. Their method was able to remove 99 percent of particulates and 98 percent of nitrogen oxide pollutants."Hazardous outdoor air pollution has severely affected indoor air quality, threatening the health of billions of people," said Professor Robert Mortimer, Dean of the School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences at Nottingham.

Transforming carbon dioxide into industrial fuels

One day in the not too distant future, the gases coming from power plants and heavy industry, rather than spewing into the atmosphere, could be captured and chemically transformed from greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into industrial fuels or chemicals thanks to a new system that can use renewable electricity to reduce carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide a key commodity used in a number of industrial process

Humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations since 1970

• Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, leading the world’s foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation.
• The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and everything else.
• Many scientists believe the world has begun a sixth mass extinction, the first to be caused by a species – Homo sapiens. Other recent analyses have revealed that humankind has destroyed 83% of all mammals and half of plants since the dawn of civilisation and that, even if the destruction were to end now, it would take 5-7 million years for the natural world to recover.
• Wildlife and the ecosystems are vital to human life, said Prof Bob Watson, one of the world’s most eminent environmental scientists and currently chair of an intergovernmental panel on biodiversity that said in March that the destruction of nature is as dangerous as climate change.

Invisible air polluting gases revealed by satellite imagery

• The Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, operational since early 2018, is starting to return high resolution maps of air polluting gases that are invisible to the human eye. Amongst the first images released by mission scientists were plumes of nitrogen dioxide flowing from power plants as well as traffic-choked cities in Europe.
• Sentinel-5P, the first Copernicus satellite dedicated to monitoring atmospheric chemistry, carriesa single instrument called Tropomi. The Tropomi is a spectrometer that observes the reflected sunlight coming up off the Earth and analyzes its many different colours.
• Sentinel-5P is the sixth in a constellation of satellites that are part of Copernicus - an Earth and environmental monitoring programme run by the European Space Agency and the European Union.
• The satellite can produce daily global maps of the gases and particles that pollute the air. “While pollution puts the health of millions of people at risk, it is important to understand exactly what is in the air so that accurate forecasts can be issued, and, ultimately, appropriate mitigation policies put in place,” the European Space Agency says.
• Specifically, the Sentinel-5P satellite is measuring global levels of the following key trace gases: ozone (O₃), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), carbon monoxide (CO), methane (CH₄) and formaldehyde (HCHO), as well as aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere.
• All of these gases affect the air that we breathe and therefore our health.

Ban on trucks’ entry into city lifted

The ban on the entry of heavy vehicles into the national capital was lifted on Tuesday, four days after it was imposed due to alarming pollution levels, even as a thick haze engulfed the city with the air quality remaining in the “severe” category with the authorities saying that rains in some parts of the national capital has made the air heavier and increased pollution.
The Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) said heavy vehicles would now ply on normal timings between 11 pm and 6 am.
On Monday, EPCA allowed entry of only those vehicles which were stranded for the previous four days at Delhi borders, as it anticipated the situation getting out of hand with the owners of over a 1,000 trucks getting “restive”.

california wild fire kills 25, and numbers of death are increasing

wildfires north sanfransico and near Los angels have killed at least 25 people, caused record destruction and forced evacuation of more than 2.5 lakh people, including in Malibu. the fires have spread across 1.7 acres and threaten to destroy tens of thousands of structures according to the California Department of forestry and fire protection. around 50,000 homes are destroyed. according to the data given by cal fire, the wildfire may get wore and it may affect the Burbank and Simi Valley where about 25 lakhs peoples live.    

‘Predator’ wind turbines hit birds, damage ecosystem

Wind farms act as a top “predator” in some ecosystems, harming birds at the top of the food chain and triggering a knock-on effect overlooked by green energy advocates, scientists said Monday. 


Wind is the fastest-growing renewable energy sector, supplying around 4% of global electricity demand. 

Close to 17 million hectares — an area roughly the size of Tunisia — is currently used for generating wind energy worldwide, and researchers warned that developers had “greatly underestimated” the impact the technology has on wildlife. 

An international team of scientists studied the effects of wind turbine use in the Western Ghats, a UNESCOlisted range of mountains and forest spanning India’s west coast region and a global “hotspot” of biodiversity. 

They found that predatory raptor birds were four times rarer in areas of plateau where wind turbines were present, a disruption that cascaded down the food chain and radically altered the density and of the birds’ prey.

ACs will make world 0.5 degree Celsius warmer by 2100

Increasing incomes and urbanisation will see increase in room air conditioning units from 1.2 billion to 4.5 billion in the world by 2050 when India alone may account for one billion units, posing a serious challenge to the global community which is fighting climate change and rising temperatures. 


India will, in fact, see a phenomenal growth during the period - from 26.3 million installed stock of room air conditioner (RAC) units in 2016 to over 1 billion in 2050. It means its means its share will jump from 2.2% of the overall RACs globally to almost 25% in next over three decades. 

This projected jump in space cooling requirement will need three times more electricity by that period from the 2016 level in a world that has seen nearly one degree Celsius rise in average temperatures from the pre-industrial level. And, if the world continues to carry on with the same air conditioning technology, the temperature of the planet will rise by 0.5 degree Celsius through use of cooling units alone by 2100. 

Beijing, northern China hit by worst pollution this year

Beijing and several cities in northern China on Wednesday were blanketed by the worst smog so far this year with pollution readings shooting up well above hazardous levels. 


Readings by the US Embassy's air quality monitor in Beijing showed PM 2.5, the fine particulate matter that causes smog, hit 376 micrograms per cubic meter which meant 'hazardous' levels of air pollution with potential to cause 'serious health' problems to everyone. This is the highest reading in Beijing so far this winter

MUSIC OF MARS SUNRISE

Scientists have created the soundtrack of the 5000th mars sunrise captured by NASA's robotic rover, opportunity, using data sonification techniques to create a two-minute piece of music. researchers will use both conventional speakers and vibrational transducers so the audience could feel the vibrations with the hands the piece, entitled mars soundscapes, and it will be present at the supercomputing SC18 conference in Dallas, US, on Tuesday     

Preventing the exploitation of the environment in war and armed conflict

• Nearly 1.5 billion people, over 20 per cent of the world’s population, live in conflict-affected areas and fragile states.
• War and armed conflict present a risk for humanity and other forms of life on our planet. Too many lives, and species, are at stake.
• Decades of ugly wars in countries such as Afghanistan, Colombia or Iraq have led to the immense loss of natural resources. In Afghanistan alone, we have witnessed astounding deforestation rates which have reached 95 per cent in some areas.
• In 2017, the Islamic State triggered vast toxic clouds by setting ablaze oil wells and a sulfur factory near the Iraqi city of Mosul, poisoning the landscape and people.
• Critical biodiversity hotspots in Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan have offered cover and refuge for rebel groups.
• This has been disastrous for wildlife and forest conservation as these habitats have opened the doors to illegal logging, unregulated mining, massive poaching and breeding grounds for invasive species.
• Elephant populations have been decimated in DR Congo and Central African Republic, while in Ukraine the Siverskyi Donets River has been further damaged by pollution from the conflict.
• In Gaza, Yemen, and elsewhere, water infrastructure, from groundwater wells to wastewater treatment plants and pumping stations to desalination plants have been damaged, posing environmental and public health risks.
• It would be a dangerous mistake to ignore these environmental consequences of conflict, and the international community needs to act with greater urgency.
• This International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict I urge you all to speak up boldly and renew your commitment to protecting our imperiled planet, even in the face of hostile armed aggression.
• Through resolutions passed at the Second and Third UN Environment Assemblies in 2016 and 2017, Member States demonstrated their recognition of the need to improve protection of the environment in times of armed conflict.
• As part of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development we also need to integrate natural resource and environmental issues into conflict assessments and planning.

Of all human diseases, 60% originate in animals – “One Health” is the only way to keep antibiotics working

• Antibiotic resistance is a growing threat to global health. As a result of infection with drug-resistant bacteria an estimated 700 000 people die each year worldwide. A total of around 33 000 die annually in the European Union and European Economic Area, and this number is increasing all the time.
• Many of the same microbes (e.g. bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites) affect both animals and humans via the environment they share and 60% of all human diseases originate in animals. This means that when microbes develop drug resistance in animals, they can easily go on to affect humans, making it difficult to treat diseases and infections.
• Human, animal and environment health are all equally responsible for the correct use of antimicrobials and to avert the threat of antimicrobial resistance,” said Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO Regional Director for Europe. “As we strive to ensure that antibiotics are rightly used in the community and in health-care settings, one sector alone will not solve the problem. A ‘One Health’ approach brings together professionals in human, animal, food and environment health as one force, and as such is the only way to keep antibiotics working. I call on all European countries to secure the highest commitment to this approach from the whole of society and the whole of government.

Closing nuclear plants risks rise in greenhouse gas emissions

• Looming climate breakdown is opening fresh divisions among environmentalists over nuclear energy, with a major advocacy group calling for struggling nuclear plants to be propped up to avoid losing their low-carbon power.
• Nuclear is the single largest source of low-carbon electricity in the US. But a third of nuclear plants are unprofitable or scheduled to close, risking a rise in greenhouse gas emissions if they are replaced by coal or natural gas, a major Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) report has found.
• US emissions could increase by as much as 6% if struggling plants are shuttered early, the report warns. This scenario has put pressure on many environmental groups to re-evaluate their intrinsic opposition to nuclear energy as a dangerous blight that must be eradicated.
• A third of US nuclear power plants are set to close down or are unprofitable largely due to a major shift to cheaper natural gas. As nuclear provides more than half of the US’s low-carbon energy, this situation “raises serious concerns about our ability to achieve the deep cuts in carbon emissions needed to limit the worst impacts of climate change”, the UCS report states.

No 'flushable' wet wipes tested so far pass water industry tests.

All wet wipes sold as "flushable" in the UK have so far failed the water industry's disintegration tests. Water companies say wet wipes don't break down and are causing blockages which cost millions to put right. Manufacturers insist their test is adequate and say sewer blockages are caused by people putting non-flushable wipes down the toilet. Wet wipes are sold for everything from makeup removal to surface cleaning. Most importantly when it comes to flushability, they're available as moist toilet tissue. The government has said it is working with manufacturers and water companies to develop a product that does not contain plastic and can be safely flushed.

Wet wipes will flush - in that they will disappear down the U-bend of your toilet. The problem is what happens to them next. Wet wipes are behind up to 80% of blockages in UK sewers, a key element of the infamous giant obstacles known as fatbergs, according to water companies. They say it costs £100m a year to deal with them. Skips full of wipes are caught by the filters at water treatment works and end up in the landfill. From their treatment sites across the North West, United Utilities collect around 12,000 tonnes of wipes and other rubbish every year.

Deadly consequences

Meanwhile, wipes which escape the filters have an even greater environmental impact, ending up in rivers and on beaches. The wipes contain tiny plastic fibers which go on to harm fish and other marine life as the fibers are released and ingested, sometimes with deadly consequences. In addition, the plastic fibers might then go on to be consumed by other animals potentially entering the human food chain.

Last year, the government asked the manufacturers and water companies to agree to a flushable standard. But these efforts have failed, leaving the water companies to insist that only three 'Ps' should go down the toilet: pee, poo, and paper.

Purple bacteria 'batteries' turn sewage into clean energy

Organic compounds in household sewage and industrial wastewater are a rich potential source of energy, bioplastics and even proteins for animal feed -- but with no efficient extraction method, treatment plants discard them as contaminants. researchers have found an environmentally-friendly and cost-effective solution.
The first to show that purple phototrophic bacteria -- which can store energy from light --, when supplied with an electric current, can recover near to 100% of the carbon from any type of organic waste while generating hydrogen gas for electricity production.

The environmental cost of contact lenses

• Many people rely on contact lenses to improve their vision. But these sight-correcting devices don't last forever and they are eventually disposed of in various ways. Now, scientists are reporting that throwing these lenses down the drain at the end of their use could be contributing to microplastic pollution in waterways.
• Analyzing what happens to these lenses is a challenge for several reasons. First, contact lenses are transparent, which makes them difficult to observe in the complicated milieu of a wastewater treatment plant.
• he plastics used in contact lenses are different from other plastic waste, such as polypropylene, which can be found in everything from car batteries to textiles. 
• Contact lenses are instead frequently made with a combination of poly(methylmethacrylate), silicones and fluoropolymers to create a softer material that allows oxygen to pass through the lens to the eye. 

SOURCE : SCIENCE DAILY

Alpine ice shows three-fold increase in atmospheric iodine

Analysis of iodine trapped in Alpine ice has shown that levels of atmospheric iodine have tripled over the past century, which partially offsets human-driven increases in the air pollutant, ozone.

The study showed, however, that, although iodine can destroy 'bad' ozone, there isn't enough to counter all of the production. Researchers say it is now important to include iodine data in climate models that predict future global environmental outcomes.

Iodine concentration began to increase after the Second World War following the growth in motor vehicles and electricity generation.

Deepwater Horizon oil spill's dramatic effect on stingrays' sensory abilities

Marine fishes rely on their sensory systems to survive. 
A study is the first to quantify the physiological effects of whole crude oil on the olfactory function of a marine vertebrate -- the Atlantic stingray. 
Results of the study, confirm that exposure to crude oil, at concentrations mimicking those measured in coastal areas following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, significantly impaired olfactory function in the Atlantic stingray after just 48 hours of exposure.
It has been almost a decade since the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill. Described as the worst environmental disaster in the United States, nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil oozed into the Gulf of Mexico, severely degrading the marine ecosystem immediately surrounding the spill site and directly impacting coastal habitats along 1,773 kilometres of shoreline. About 10 million gallons remain in the sediment at the bottom of the Gulf and may continue to cause severe physiological damages to marine life, including impairment of sensory systems.

Action needed for minimizing use of private vehicles

Private vehicles contribute nearly 40 per cent to air pollution in Delhi, a green body said Monday as the air quality of the national capital nosedived to severe category.

Anumita Roychowdhury, an executive director at the Delhi-based think-tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), said when the authorities are ramping up emergency actions on all sectors why should vehicles be spared. She said traffic would increase due to Diwali shopping until November 7 which would further worsen the air quality and action needs to be taken against the vehicles.

Delhi's air quality deteriorated drastically to severe Monday. The overall air quality index on Monday was registered at 418, a sharp decline from a day before when the AQI was moderate at 171. The Supreme-Court appointed Environment Protection Control Authority last week proposed a ban on the use of private vehicles in case of further deterioration of air quality.

Public participation is critical to keep up pressure on public and demand action. People can also play a role in combating pollution by reducing footprint, carpooling, public transport and increasing use of cycles for transportation, she said. A thick haze has engulfed the national capital two days ahead of Diwali, following which, experts have warned, the air quality is likely to worsen further due to local factors.

Air pollution may up heart, lung disease risk

The study, published in the journal Environment International, found that exposure to pollutants such as ground-level ozone and nitrogen oxides, which are created from burning fossil fuels, led to increased ED visits.

While most past studies were conducted on a single-city level, this study looked at pollution across five cities -- Atlanta, Birmingham, Dallas, Pittsburgh, and St Louis. The researchers analyzed the associations between cardiorespiratory ED visits and twelve major air pollutants to examine short-term changes in health as pollution varies on a daily basis.

This is also one of the first multi-city studies to look at multiple air pollutants, including gases and particles, and multiple causes of ED visits, such as asthma and stroke. It is a larger and more comprehensive study than previous work that has commonly looked at one pollutant and multiple health outcomes, or multiple pollutants and one health outcome.