Diesel pollution stunts children’s lung growth, major study shows

Pollution from diesel vehicles is stunting the growth of children’s lungs, leaving them damaged for life, a major study has found.

The research, conducted with more than 2,000 school children in London, is the first such study in a city where diesel pollution is a significant factor, and has implications for cities around the world. It also showed that charges to deter polluting trucks from entering the city did reduce air pollution a little but did not reduce the harm to children’s lungs.

The World Health Organization classifies air pollution, which causes 7 million early deaths every year, a global public health emergency. Ninety per cent of children around the world breathe unsafe air. Growing children are especially vulnerable to toxic air and previous research has linked it to low birth weights, cot deaths, obesity and mental health problems.
Most urban areas in the UK have illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution, and the government has suffered three legal defeats over the inadequacy of its plans. The latest government action plan, which environmental lawyers called “pitiful”, revealed air pollution was even worse than previously feared.

“We are raising a generation of children with stunted lung capacity,” said Prof Chris Griffiths, at Queen Mary University of London, who led the research team. “This reflects a car industry that has deceived the consumer and central government, which continues to fail to act decisively to ensure towns and cities cut traffic. The public very much wants better air quality, and they are right.”
The study, published in the Lancet Public Health, found the capacity of children’s lungs was reduced by about 5% when NO2 pollution was above legal levels. Lung capacity peaks at age 18, then declines, Griffiths said. “If your lungs are already smaller than they should be as you enter adulthood, then as they decline with age you’ll be at higher risk of an early death,” as well as at a higher risk of lung diseases, he said.

The researchers said doctors should consider advising parents of children with lung problems to avoid living in high-pollution areas if possible, or to limit their exposure.

Delhi Asked To Consider Ban On All Vehicles Except CNG To Curb Pollution

Delhi may soon consider a ban on all private vehicles except ones running on CNG in an effort to curb pollution and improve air quality in the national capital. The pollution control authority, in its latest recommendations, asked for "at least" odd-even to be implemented in the national capital as an immediate measure.
In its list of recommendations to the Central Pollution Control Board or CPCB, the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) asked them to "either impose a complete ban on non-CNG private vehicles, or at least implement the odd-even scheme if air pollution levels rise again in Delhi."

The recommendation was made directly by the chairman of the Environment Pollution Control Authority - a Supreme Court-appointed body.

The air quality in Delhi and its neighbouring cities - Gurgaon, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Noida and Greater Noida - has been oscillating between "very poor" and "severe", and on certain days reaching "hazardous" levels.

An AQI (Air Quality Index) between 0 and 50 is considered "good", 51 and 100 "satisfactory", 101 and 200 "moderate", 201 and 300 "poor", 301 and 400 "very poor", and 401 and 500 "severe". Anything above that is considered "hazardous".

Reacting to the recommendation by EPCA Chairman Bhure Lal, the Central Pollution Control Board said the order for a complete ban on non-CNG private vehicles should be "deliberated" by the EPCA themselves as they are a larger body.

Earlier this week, Mr Lal had also written to the chief secretaries of Delhi and its neighbouring states - Uttar Pradesh and Haryana - asking them to consider a complete ban on private vehicles except those running on CNG.

In a letter to CPCB member secretary Prashant Gargava, Mr Lal wrote that most major cities across the world have similar emergency plans. He even cited the examples of Paris and Beijing, which impose strict restrictions on private vehicles. He stated that the restrictions were based either on the basis of number plate (odd-even or similar schemes) or by type of fuel or the age of the vehicle.

Air pollution affects unborn girls more than boys

Air pollution seems to affect unborn girls more than boys, resulting in more pre-term girls than boys being born when pregnant woman are exposed to extreme air particulate pollution, researchers have found.

In addition to the infant mortality effect, air pollution results in earlier births, more of which are girls, Amir Jina, an environmental economist and Assistant Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, said from his yet-to-be-published study on the impact of particulate matter on infant mortality and fertility in developing countries.

“We however need to find out whether this is happening through pollution effects on the foetus itself by air pollution passing through the mother’s blood stream through the placenta to the baby, or if it is something happening to the mother,” he told indiaclimatedialogue.net.

In pregnant women, exposure to carbon monoxide, the major pollutant from vehicles and from wood and kerosene stoves, reduces the availability of oxygen to be transported to the foetus. Carbon monoxide also readily crosses the placenta and binds to foetal haemoglobin more readily than to maternal haemoglobin and is cleared from foetal blood more slowly than from maternal blood, leading to concentrations that may be 10% to 15% higher in the foetus’s blood than in the mother’s, according to several earlier studies.

However, particulate matter — from construction dust, motor vehicle exhaust and biomass fuel burning — cannot cross the placenta.

“Air pollution related infant death, on the other hand, claims more boys,” Jina, a founder of the Climate Impact Lab, said.

“When pregnant women are exposed to highly polluted air, it produces clots in the arteries and in some of the critical blood vessels including the placenta. As the placenta provides oxygen and nutrients to the growing baby during pregnancy, clots can deprive the baby of the flow of nutrients and oxygen and depending on the extent of the clot, they can either abort or have a premature birth,” said Sola Olopade, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. “When pollution-driven clots are not severe enough but still compromised, babies are born full term but weighed 148 grams less than babies born to mothers who breathed cleaner air.”

More at risk

“Unborn babies exposed to air pollution can have learning and memory development issues,” Olopade said. “They are also at greater risk for chronic diseases such as asthma and cardiovascular disease later in life.”

In his study, Jina has measured the economic burden to individual lives and society in developing countries like India and others when an unborn baby, particularly a girl, survives pollution but is born with health complications that plague them throughout life owing to the pre-birth exposure.

Researching household air pollution impact on unborn babies, Olopade found that 70% exposure to pollutants was from indoor cooking smoke and 30% from outside pollutants, mainly vehicular exhaust.

The impact was very different when mothers cooked with dirty firewood or kerosene and when they cooked using ethanol, a clean biofuel.

Women who cooked with ethanol were more likely to be able to take their pregnancy to full term, significantly more than women who continued cooking with firewood or kerosene. They also had fewer miscarriages, according to Olopade. “We also observed women in the ethanol group had much lower blood pressure closer to delivery, relative to those using polluting cooking fuel. Both groups had normal blood pressure throughout early pregnancy,” he said.

Delhi’s air pollution problem could be solved, and by Ikea; here’s how

By late October every year, Delhi gets covered in a thick silver blanket of smog as stubble burning by farmers peaks. Despite efforts, stubble burning by farmers mostly in the state of Punjab and Haryana has not been stopped. But now, Ikea has a plan that may help in solving Delhi’s air pollution problem.

Swedish furniture retailer wants to make products using agricultural waste — which means that farmers will no longer be needed to burn it. Ikea said in a statement that it plans to buy rice straw to use it as a renewable source for Ikea products. “The ambition is to create a model for how to reduce air pollution that could be replicated in other megacities,” the company said in a statement on Thursday.

As per System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting (SAFAR), a government agency, stubble burning accounted for 33% of Delhi’s air pollution, which was the highest for the month. The pollution caused by crop burning has ranged from 5%-33% over the last one month.

While crop burning may be the trigger for dense smog, other factors such as vehicular emissions, industrial pollution, and smoke from firecrackers around Diwali also plague the national capital’s air quality every year.

Ikea, which opened its first India store in Hyderabad leading to an overwhelming footfall on the inauguration, will kick-off the plan of using rice straw in areas around New Delhi before extending to other parts of the country.

The company said that its first products prototype based on rice straw will be ready by 2018 and will hit the Indian market by 2020.

Australia's most polluting industries are almost all in poor areas – report

Almost all of Australia’s most polluting industries are located in low-income areas, according to new research by the Australian Conservation Foundation.

The report looks at pollution from emitters including coal-fired power stations as well as mining, refineries and manufacturing and finds the country’s five most polluted areas are the Hunter Valley in NSW, the Latrobe Valley in Victoria, Mount Isa in Queensland and Newman and Collie in WA.

The environment group used data from the national pollution inventory and matched it to bureau of statistics data on postcodes and income levels.
Coal-fired power stations are the largest pollution emitters in three of the areas while mining operations create the most emissions in the other two.

“Air pollution kills around 3,000 Australians every year and worsens conditions such as asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and other respiratory diseases,” said Matthew Rose, the economics program manager for ACF.

It comes amid calls for new laws to limit the amount of toxic air pollution from coal-fired power stations in New South Wales after environment groups raised concerns they are allowed to emit higher levels of pollution than in the EU and China.

The NSW Greens environment spokesperson, Cate Faehrmann, has introduced a bill that would bring regulations for the state’s five power stations into line with standards in the EU.

The NSW Greens proposal for new pollution limits would apply to coal-fired power stations.

It follows a submission from Environmental Justice Australia to a review of the environmental protection licences for the Eraring, Mount Piper and Vales Point power stations that drew attention to the “extraordinarily high pollution limits” for NSW stations.

Brexit withdrawal agreement pledges no reduction in environmental protection during 'backstop'

Environmental protection laws - including those covering environmental impact assessments (EIAs) - will not be watered down following the UK's exit from the European Union (EU) during the period of the proposed 'backstop', under the terms of the draft Brexit agreement issued earlier this week.
UK Brexit negotiators are being pushed by Brussels to accept EU environmental targets and stringent state-aid policing in any Irish 'backstop' provisions agreed under the terms of Britain's exit from the European Union, according to reports in the Financial Times.

EU negotiators want a number of assurances governing any temporary customs union and some of the most sensitive issues surround EU environmental targets, the paper reported yesterday.
The news follows separate reports from news agency Bloomberg last week, which suggested Prime Minister was facing a "backlash" from some Brexit-supporting Ministers after telling Cabinet her planned deal would see the UK sign up to "level playing field" rules as part of the Irish border backstop commitment. The rules would require the UK to commit to retaining EU regulations on a wide range of issues, including competition rules, state aid and environmental regulations.

Throughout the entire Brexit negotiations the EU has insisted continued UK adherence to EU environmental and climate goals would be a red line for any post-Brexit trade deal.

India's emission targets most ambitious among G20 nations

None of the G20 nations determined emission contributions for 2030 are in line with the Paris agreement. India's emission targets are the most ambitious and close to 1.5 degree Celsius. 82 percent of energy supply in the world's 20 biggest economies still comes from fossil fuels. According to G 20 brown to green report 2018 says that 20 nations need to roughly halve their emissions by 2030 to meet the Paris goals. India is doing quite good but not up to the goals set by the Paris agreement. The report says that India's greenhouse gas emissions more than doubled between 1990 and 2015 but on a per capita level, India's GHG will come only below the G20 average. Carbon dioxide emissions contribute the most to overall GHG emissions in India. These emissions have tripled more than since 1990. The report says India still doesn't have a 2050 emission target when its floor area is expected to increase by 400% by 2050 and energy demand from buildings by 800 percent. 

'Predator' wind turbines hit birds, damage ecosystem

'Predator' wind turbines hit birds, damage ecosystem- Times of India

• Wind farm act as a top predator in some ecosystems,harming birds at the top of the food chain and triggering a knock on effect by green energy.
• Wind is the fastest growing renewable energy sector.
• Supplies around 4% global electrical demand.
• It is found that predatory birds were four times rarer in areas of plateau where wind turbines were present.
• Raptors favorite meal lizards in areas where dominated by turbines.
• As level of raptor fells down the rate of predatory attacking lizards had come down.
• The lizards living around this wind farm areas lessened their vigilance against possible danger.
• The wind farms replicated the role predator in the food chain by keeping raptors at bay.

Dying, Konothupuzha river waits for revival

Dying, Konothupuzha river waits for revival-The Hindu

• River Konothupzha was once a major waterway connecting Thripunithura in Ernakulam and Vaikom in Kottayam.
• Today the river is been reduced to a trickle with thick overgrowth and width reduced to 10-13 meters.
• Haphazard developments and rampant encroachments have choked the waterway.
• The river is now on the brink of death.
• Rs 8 crore is required to do basic maintenance work.
• Paddy fields along  the side have been lost.
• The river ecology is almost dead.
• The lack of maintenance for decades has resulted in wild growth of grass and aquatic plants.
• The stagnant water,where mosquitoes breed has also given rise to number of health hazards.
• The river is under threat of becoming extinct.

Not Cool : 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 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 requirements will need 3 times more electricity by that period from the 2016 level in a world that has been 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 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.

                                                                                                               (TOI)

Synchronized survey of vultures on the card

Synchronized survey of vultures on the cards- The Hindu

• The Vulture Conservation Working Group of South India (  VCWG-SI ) is going to organize a synchronized survey of the critically endangered vulture population in south India.
• An action plan for first survey was finalized at Bandipur Tiger reserves in Karnataka.
• Vultures are capable of travelling more than 100km a day so monitoring will be a difficult task.
• Counting birds on different dates may results in inaccurate number.
• So it is decided to synchronise survey on a specific date.
• Wild populations of vultures are found in the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve.
• The presence of  'Diclofenac' a veterinary non steroidal anti inflammatory caused massive death of vulture population
• Some drugs are banned like 'ketoprofen' in vulture habitat but there are drugs yet to be banned.

Nagaland's 'Hornbill Night Carnival' to be plastic free

The Kohima Chamber of Commerce and Industries (KCCI) has said the stretch showcasing Nagaland's Hornbill Night Carnival' from December 1-10 will be "Plastic - free Zone". The carnival is part of the International Hornbill Festival of Nagaland ,an annual tourism promotion event of the state government.

There will be a ban on usage of all forms of plastic and non-biodegradable materials including mineral water bottles and thermocol. KCCI and Kohima Municipal Council would be providing alternate paper bags, while eateries can use washable dishes and defaulters would be penalised. The 10 -day night carnival would  be set up from 6pm to 9pm from Phoolbari Junction to Razhu Point.

                                                                                                                          (TOI)

Ice age crater discovered beneath Greenland glaciers

Ice age crater discovered beneath Greenland glaciers- The Hindu 

• Beneath a kilometer of snow and ice in northern Greenland,an asteroid impact crater bigger than the area of Paris is discovered.
• This is the first time crater of any size has been found under earth's ice sheets.
• It is more than 31km in diameter.
• The crater is well preserved because glaciers ice is an incredibly efficient erosive agent.
• This crater is over 3 million year old.
• This is first discovered in July 2015

CUBS OF TIGRESS AVNI,SHOT FOR KILLING 13,SPOTTED

Days after T1 was shot dead on November 2, her cubs were sighted after a gap of 14 days by monitoring teams in the wee hours of  Thursday at Vihirgaon. They were later spotted near the Anji dam. Like T1 was lured by tigress urine and Calvin Klein perfume in Borati for capture, the two elusive cubs were lured by playing a voice recorder of a tigress calling her cubs. These calls were originally recorded a year back from a forest area open for tourism. The cubs look healthy and travelled 7.5km to Anji from Vihirgaon during the night, which is astonishing .

The cubs moving around the mothers trail seem did not consume meat put by department to lure them, but it is possible they must have killed any small animal to feed themselves.The two cubs will be shifted to a big enclosure in Pench Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra ,where they will be trained to hu t and later released back in the wild.

                                                                                                                               (TOI)

Super-Earth found orbiting Sun's nearest single star

Super-Earth found orbiting Sun's nearest single star- The Hindu

• Astronomers have discovered a frozen planet with a mass over three time that of earth
• It is second closest solitary star to the sun. 
• Known as Barnard's star b and it is a super earth
• This is well beyond the habitual zone in which liquid water and possibly life could exist.
• Its temperature is around -170 degree Celsius.

Global warming never stopped in last hundred years : Study

Global warming has never stopped in the past hundred years , with maximum rate of change occurring after second World War, according to a study. It has been attributed to persistent increases in atmospheric greenhouses (GHGs), especially in CO2, since 1870,the beginning of the industrial Revolution. 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 nearly 400 parts per million (ppm) in 2013.

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.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.

                                                                                                        (TOI)

Climate change adaptation in Europe and Central Asia : adapting to a changing climate for resilient development

With an impressive development progress over the past two decades, the countries of the Europe and Central Asia region(ECA) are primed for significant economic and social growth. Climate change, however, threatens to undermine decades of development gains and put at risk efforts to eradicate poverty. Tackling climate change must be central to efforts to reduce poverty and sustain development. ECA countries are ready to mainstream and accelerate climate change adaptation actions. Adapting proactively to a changing climate will help build resilient nations, promote strong economies and protect lives and live hoods. Promoting strong climate action will protect security in the region ,enhance efforts to eradicate poverty and foster greater social inclusion. 

The new face of South American people

A study by 72 researchers from eight countries concludes that the Lagoa Santa people are descendants of Clovis culture migrants from North America. Distinctly African features attributed to Luzia were wrong.

Over 17,000 years ago this original contingent crossed the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska and began peopling the New World. Fossil DNA shows an affinity between this migratory current and the populations of Siberia and northern China. Contrary to the traditional theory it had no link to Africa or Australasia.

The new study also reveals that once they had settled in North America the descendants of this ancestral migratory flow diversified into two lineages some 16,000 years ago.

The members of one lineage crossed the Isthmus of Panama and peopled South America in three distinct consecutive waves.

The first wave occurred between 15,000 and 11,000 years ago. The second took place at most 9,000 years ago. There are fossil DNA records from both migrations throughout South America. The third wave is much more recent but its influence is limited as it occurred 4,200 years ago. Its members settled in the Central Andes.

According to the researchers' findings, the lineage that made the north-south journey between 16,000 and 15,000 years ago belonged to the Clovis culture, named for a group of archaeological sites excavated in the western US and dating from 13,500-11,000 years ago.