Talking Points: Spring 2022

News in Brief

HIGH VOLTAGE

Step Off the Gas

Buildings are a top source of emissions in urban areas. That’s why, in December, New York City banned natural gas use in new buildings, joining 56 other towns and cities in the United States that have already enacted laws prohibiting gas use as part of locally driven efforts to phase out fossil fuels.

In December, New York City banned natural gas use in newly-constructed residential and commercial buildings, joining 56 other cities and towns that have enacted similar legislation. Photo by Nature Life Photo.

The ban — which will take effect in December 2023 for buildings under seven floors and in 2027 for buildings higher than seven floors — will apply to all newly constructed residential and commercial buildings. In practice, it means that buildings will have to use electricity onsite rather than fossil fuels. So instead of using natural gas furnaces, water heaters, and cooking ranges, buildings will have to use electric appliances, such as energy-efficient heat pumps and induction stoves.

As the largest city to enact such a ban, the climate-friendly legislation shows the path forward for the country’s other big metros. “New York City is proof that it’s possible to end the era of fossil fuels, invest in a sustainable future, protect public health, and create good paying jobs in the process,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said when he signed the ban into law on December 22. “If the largest city in America can take this critical step to ban gas use, any city can do the same!” (New York City, home to some 8.5 million people, is the most populous US city.)

According to some estimates, by 2040 the ban on new gas hookups in just New York City will lead to emissions reductions equivalent to taking 450,000 cars off the road.

Now, it appears, this emissions-reductions strategy might extend across the state as well. In early January, in her annual State of the State speech, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul announced her support for fossil-free building legislation, raising the possibility that the state could soon be the nation’s first to enact such a regulation. The bill, introduced by Senator Brian Kavanagh and Assembly member Emily Gallagher, would require all new buildings in the state to use zero-emissions sources of heat by 2027.

Currently, natural gas makes up much of the power generated in New York State. In 2020, only about 30 percent of the state’s power came from renewable energy, and most of that was hydroelectricity, which is an increasingly controversial renewable energy source.

Environmental advocates welcomed Hochul’s announcement but said her timeline for the transition — 2027 instead of 2023, as suggested in the bill — was too slow.

“The state should act immediately. There is no time to waste in the climate crisis and a gas ban also creates good jobs while cutting deadly air pollution,” Megan Ahearn, Program Director for the New York Public Interest Research Group, said in a statement.

Findings

Treacherous Treatment

Phthalates, a class of chemicals that are known to increase the risk of cancer, are used in everything from makeup, to food packaging, to medical supplies. New research shows that many cancer patients are being exposed to phthalates during their treatment process, leading to an increased risk of breast cancer relapse and mortality.

In a study published in December in Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, scientists looked specifically at the additive DEHP, which is used to make plastic products like IV bags and medical tubing pliable. They found that exposure to DEHP increased resistance to chemotherapy and hormonal therapy among breast cancer patients, not only increasing the chance of getting breast cancer again, but also the chance of death.

Cancer patients often receive their chemotherapy treatments through use of IV bags and tubing, meaning they are exposed to phthalates through the very treatments meant to help them.

The study built on the same team’s previous research around DEHP and two common breast cancer chemotherapy treatments. It also offered insight into some of the mechanisms by which DEHP interferes with treatment, including by switching on a gene known to support “proliferation, invasion, metastasis, and drug resistance” in breast cancer cell lines.

“Regulators have long turned a blind eye toward the serious and harmful effect that phthalates have on our health,” Pete Myers, chief scientist at Environmental Health Sciences, told Environmental Health News. “This paper shows yet again what researchers worldwide are finding: We need safer chemistry in our products. No one knows how many women with breast cancer are dying because of these effects of DEHP.”

UPWELL

No Safe Haven

Located in the far depths of the ocean, hydrothermal vents host some of the most unique underwater ecosystems, powered by the hot, nutrient-rich seawater pulsing out from cracks in the seafloor. From giant red tubeworms to iron-armored snails, these extreme habitats host a density of life that rivals that of tropical rainforests and coral reefs. Now, like their above-ground counterparts, many of these remote life forms are at risk thanks to human activity. And plans to mine seabeds for minerals portend a further threat to their existence.

A new assessment of mollusks found at hydrothermal vents has found that deep sea mining poses a great risk to remote underwater ecosystems. Photo by Dr. Chong Chen.
A new assessment of mollusks found at hydrothermal vents has found that deep sea mining poses a great risk to remote underwater ecosystems. Photo by Dr. Chong Chen.

There are only about 600 hydrothermal vents known to us and most are pretty small — only about a third of a football field in size. Now scientists at Queen’s University in Belfast are saying that nearly two-thirds of the hundreds of mollusk species found in these hotspots are at risk of extinction.

“We focused on assessing species found at hydrothermal vents, as these areas are increasingly targeted for their natural resources, and we wanted to better understand the threat this poses to the rich marine life found there,” lead researcher Elin Thomas, a PhD student at Queen’s University, said in a statement. The team further narrowed their study to mollusks as they are one of the dominant species groups at vent habitats.

Their findings, published in Frontiers in Marine Science in December, have led to 184 deep-sea mollusk species being added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. Though the team studied only mollusks, they say similar extinction risks are probable for other species endemic to vent ecosystems.

The researchers stressed the urgent need for new policies to protect these species.

“We found that seabed management and mining regulation consistently had the greatest impact on a species’ extinction risk,” Thomas said. For example, she said, “Indian Ocean vent mollusks are under the greatest extinction risk, with 100 percent of species listed in threatened categories and 60 percent as Critically Endangered. This coincides with the distribution of mining contracts granted by the International Seabed Authority, highlighting the risk that mining poses to vent species and clearly demonstrating why we need these data.”

CALL OF THE WILD

Coexistence Impossible

The war on wolves never ends, though the battleground shifts from time to time. Now it’s Finland, Norway, and Sweden that are culling wolves or considering culling them to keep their numbers down. These apex predators have only recently returned to a handful of European countries in numbers that can be deemed viable, and they remain endangered in other parts of the continent.

As wolves have started to stage a comeback in Europe, the war on these apex predators has returned as well. Currently, Finland, Norway, and Sweden are all planning wolf culls. Photo by Michiel van Nimwegan.
As wolves have started to stage a comeback in Europe, the war on these apex predators has returned as well. Currently, Finland, Norway, and Sweden are all planning wolf culls. Photo by Michiel van Nimwegan.

As of mid-January this year, hunters in Sweden had already shot 27 wolves, most of their annual target. Finland was poised to authorize the killing of 20 wolves as a part of its first “population management cull” in seven years. And Norway was planning on doing away with some 60 percent of its wolf population, 51 individuals.

Following legal challenges by animal rights groups and conservationists who say these Nordic nations are flouting EU laws that protect the species, Norway and Finland suspended their culls for the season. But the reprieve is likely temporary.

“The wolves are saved for this year, as the hunting season only goes on for two more weeks and then it is the breeding season, when they cannot be shot,” Siri Martinsen, CEO of Noah, an animal rights group, told The Guardian. Noah, along with WWF Norway and Association Our Predators, had challenged Norway’s cull plans in court.

In Norway, 25 of the wolves slated for slaughter live within the 5 percent of the country that is a designated wolf protection zone. While Norway is not a member of the EU, and thus not subject to EU laws, wildlife groups say its wolf cull violates the Bern Convention on the Conservation of all European Wildlife and Natural Habitats.

In Sweden, the original population estimates for 2020-21 have now come down from 395 to 300, say wildlife groups. “Sweden has promised the EU we should not go below 300 — that’s the bare minimum … We have habitat that could house more than 1,000 wolves,” said Magnus Orrebrant, chair of the Swedish wildlife group Svenska Rovdjursföreningen.

Wildlife groups in Finland and Sweden have appealed to the European Commission and the European Court of Justice to declare the wolf culls illegal, but both national governments maintain that derogations from the habitats directive allow for culls.

Meanwhile, here in the US, 20 of Yellowstone National Park’s gray wolves were shot by hunters in recent months — the most killed by hunting in a single season since the animals were reintroduced to the region more than 25 years ago.

UPWELL

Hold the Anchovies

Anchovies are no bigger than your index finger, but the fish is a critical food source for pelicans, dolphins, whales, and even humans. Some years, anchovies make up 15 percent of the global fish catch. But scientists say that climate change could be catastrophic for anchovies and the ecosystems that depend on them.

Warming waters could replace the ocean’s current abundance of anchovies with smaller, goby-like fish, which researchers say could collapse the marine food web. Photo by Gordon Shukwit.
Warming waters could replace the ocean’s current abundance of anchovies with smaller, goby-like fish, which researchers say could collapse the marine food web. Photo by Gordon Shukwit.

In a study published in January in Science, an international team of researchers theorized that warming waters could replace the ocean’s current abundance of anchovies with smaller, “goby-like fishes” that are less nutritious. As a result, the whole marine web as we know it would collapse.

To get a glimpse of this possible oceanic future, the study’s authors looked to the past. Renato Salvatteci, lead author and a fisheries biologist at Christian-Albrecht University in Kiel, Germany, analyzed a marine sediment core collected off the coast of Peru and dated it to the most recent interglacial, about 120,000 years ago, when the ocean was 2 degrees Celsius warmer than it is today. The sediments gave Salvatteci and his colleagues clues to the oceanographic conditions and fish communities during that period, and a premonition of how the ocean might look by the end of this century.

Compared to sediments from the last century, which are dominated by anchovy bones, the interglacial sediments were comprised of gobies that thrive in warmer, low-oxygen conditions. These results make sense to many biologists: According to the gill-oxygen limitation theory, smaller fish have more gill area to acquire oxygen, giving them an advantage over larger fish as the ocean warms.

Without anchovies, we’d lose other ecologically significant species. Mackerel populations could collapse, alongside various marine mammals and seabirds. Losing anchovies “will substantially increase the extinction risk,” William Cheung, marine ecologist at the University of British Columbia, told Science.

FINDINGS

More Heat. More Light.

As it warms up, the Arctic is seeing more lightning crisscross the sky. Scientists have known about the trend for a while, but last year’s events blew past all previous records, leaving researchers stunned.

Vaisala, a Finnish environmental monitoring company, reported that 7,278 lightning events occurred north of 80 degrees latitude in 2021. That is nearly twice as many as the previous nine years combined. Even farther north — north of 85 degrees — the company recorded a record-high 634 events. (Areas of the Arctic farther south, where lightning is a little more common, didn’t see such dramatic increases.)

The spike was linked to “a series of low pressure systems exiting northern Siberia and crossing the Arctic Ocean,” the company’s lightning applications manager, Chris Vagasky, told Gizmodo. High temperatures and humidity combine to create conditions more like those “seen over the Great Plains of the United States during severe weather outbreaks,” he said.

Because the thunderstorms that generate them require warm, moist air, lightning strikes are one variable scientists use to track climate change. The phenomena signals warming temperatures in what once used to be a mostly frozen region.

“Climate is changing faster in the Arctic than elsewhere on the planet,” Vagasky said. “Lightning indicates very specific changes that are occurring — specifically intrusions of warm, moist air into the region.”

AROUND THE WORLD

Fecal Matter

When it comes to the threats facing coastal ecosystems, our poop may not be the first to come to mind. There’s coastal development, after all, and rising water temperatures, and agricultural runoff. But new modeling by researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara puts the environmental footprint of human waste in perspective — and it’s not insignificant.

Apparently, human waste contributes an estimated 6.2 tons of nitrogen to coastal waters every year, which can cause eutrophication, algal blooms, and marine habitat degradation. That’s about 45 percent of the total contributed by agriculture, a well-recognized source of nitrogen pollution.

Examining 135,000 watersheds around the world, the researchers estimated nitrogen inputs based on data about population, diet, and sewage-treatment systems. Their results, published in PlosOne, indicate that just 25 watersheds contribute about 46 percent of all wastewater-related nitrogen pollution in the ocean. These watersheds are found on every continent except Australia and Antarctica, but are concentrated in densely populated parts of India, Korea, and China. Nearly two-thirds of wastewater nitrogen pollution comes from sewage systems, about a third comes from direct output, and 5 percent from septic systems.

This pollution poses real risks to local ecosystems: The research team estimated that 58 percent of all coral reefs and 88 percent of all seagrass beds are exposed to nitrogen from wastewater.

“The sheer scale of how much wastewater is impacting coastal ecosystems worldwide is staggering,” the researchers said in a statement. “Our results identify target priority areas to help marine conservation groups and public health officials to work together and reduce the impacts of wastewater on coastal waters across the planet.”

Here are a few of the countries struggling with nitrogen pollution from human waste.

graphic map of the world

Sources: BBC, Mongabay, Nature Conservancy, PlosOne, The Rivers Trust

1 China

China is the number one contributor to coastal nitrogen from human waste. A single watershed in the country, the Yangtze River in northern China, is responsible for 11 percent of all wastewater nitrogen pollution globally. Nine of the top 25 polluting watersheds are located in China. One reason for the high nitrogen load in these watersheds? Increased meat consumption among local populations. The high nitrogen inputs in China’s waters led the researchers to identify the country as a hotspot for seagrass nitrogen exposure. Nitrogen pollution spurs algae growth, blocking the sunlight the grasses require to survive.

2 Brazil

Human waste is contributing to significantly higher nitrogen inputs along South American coastlines than previously thought, and Brazil accounts for the lion’s share of those inputs. The nation ranks fourth globally when it comes to nitrogen pollution from human poop. As in China, researchers identified increased protein consumption as a significant source of nitrogen pollution there. Despite its heavy nitrogen load, none of the top 25 polluting watersheds are located in Brazil. The only South American watershed to make the top offenders list is Argentina’s Parana River.

3 India

India has the second-highest nitrogen pollution globally and was identified as a hotspot for both seagrass and coral nitrogen exposure from human waste. As in many parts of the world, the ecosystem threat posed by nitrogen along India’s coastlines is compounded by other stressors like overfishing, habitat loss, and climate change.

4 United States

The United States is among the top nitrogen contributors in the world, behind only China and India, with the Mississippi River ranking as one of the top human-waste related nitrogen sources globally. Nitrogen from the Mississippi drains into the Gulf of Mexico, where it contributes to a massive “dead zone” with oxygen levels so low it’s nearly impossible for marine life to survive.

When normalizing results for the watershed size — larger watersheds would be expected to carry higher nitrogen loads — four of the top 25 nitrogen-contributing watersheds were located in New York State. The Mississippi River Basin — the fourth largest in the world — did not make this adjusted list.

5 United Kingdom

While the UC Santa Barbara researchers focused on coastal nitrogen pollution, human waste also pollutes rivers around the world. A recent report by The Rivers Trust found, for example, that treated sewage discharges impacted more than 1,600 English rivers in 2020, and that raw sewage spills impacted hundreds more.

Scotland, too, struggles with this issue. Like many countries, including the US and the UK, Scotland relies on combined sewer overflow systems – in other words, pipe systems that carry both human waste and storm water. When rains are heavy, combined storm and waste water that would typically be transported to treatment facilities is directly deposited into rivers or the ocean. As a result, Scotland released millions of cubic meters of sewage into rivers and coastal areas between 2016 and 2021. The number of spill events increased over this time period and could increase further as climate change increases the intensity of rainfall.

CALL OF THE WILD

Ancient Fliers At Risk

They were some of the first winged insects to evolve some 300 million years ago and are among the fastest ones around, but sadly, dragonflies may not be able to outlast human interference. According to a recent report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), these tiny yet fierce predators are losing serious ground as we continue to destroy their wetland habitats.

dragonfly photo
Some 16 percent of dragonfly and damselfly species are at risk of extinction, according to the IUCN. Photo by André Karwath.

In its first global assessment of dragonfly species, IUCN estimated that 16 percent of more than 6,000 dragonfly and damselfly species are at risk of extinction. Their decline stems from the widespread loss of marshes, swamps, and free flowing rivers where they breed — mostly due to urbanization and large-scale agriculture.

The sensitivity of dragonflies to ecological changes makes them good indicators for the status of global wetlands, says the report. As wetlands start to fail, these species will be among the first to disappear, signaling the advent of larger problems. Three years ago, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands reported that 35 percent of the world’s wetlands were lost between 1970 and 2015.

“We hope that by showcasing these beautiful insects, and highlighting that we’re in danger of losing them, we can [spread the message] that we need to do more to protect the world’s wetlands,” Red List head Craig Hilton-Taylor told BBC News.

The IUCN dragonfly report is just the latest evidence of what scientists are calling the “insect apocalypse.” Last year, a team of researchers published a series of studies outlining how human impact is causing the fall of insect species, and “tearing apart the tapestry of life,” as entomologist David Wagner told The Guardian.

CALL OF THE WILD

No Showing Off Kills

Over the past decade, hunters imported some 2,000 animal trophies — including heads, skins, and horns — into Great Britain following hunting trips abroad. Under a recently proposed law, that practice would end.

photo of a lion
The British government is poised to enact a ban on importing hunting trophies of nearly 7,000 species, including big game species like lions and elephants.Photo by Vince O’Sullivan.

In December, the British government proposed a ban on importing trophies of nearly 7,000 endangered, threatened, and near-threatened species, including well-known big game species like elephants, lions, and polar bears. The ban would apply to trophies of wild animals, as well as those bred and raised in captivity specifically for the purpose of hunting.

“More animal species are now threatened with extinction than ever before in human history and we are appalled at the thought of hunters bringing back trophies and placing more pressure on some of our most iconic and endangered animals,” Environment Secretary George Eustice said in a statement. “This would be one of the toughest bans in the world.”

The idea for the ban can be traced back to the 2015 killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe, which was met with worldwide outrage. The British public showed overwhelming support for the idea during a 2019 consultation, but the legislation must still be passed by Parliament before becoming law. Advocates are calling for speedy implementation.

The ban, unfortunately, won’t put an end to plummeting biodiversity or trophy hunting. Habitat loss is the number-one threat to animal populations worldwide, and the UK is far from the world’s largest trophy importer. The US Humane Society estimates, for example, that some 126,000 animal trophies are imported into the United States every year.

Still, it serves an important purpose. As Mark Jones, head of policy with Born Free, said in a statement: “The proposed ban will send a clear signal that the UK does not condone the brutal killing of threatened wild animals for this so-called ‘sport’ by UK citizens.”

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