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Researchers found that perch (shown here) exposed to low levels of an antianxiety medicine were bolder, more antisocial and faster eaters. Photo courtesy: Bent Christensen via livescience.com
Drugs taken by humans can have unintended side effects — on fish, in the natural environment. Turns out, fish fed extremely low concentrations of an antianxiety drug eat more quickly, and act bolder and more antisocial than their un-medicated peers, a new study finds.
"We can see profound effects at the low levels that we find in surface water. Exposed fish are more bold," Jerker Fick, a co-author and researcher at Umea University in Sweden, said at a news conference here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
The study looked at the effect of oxazepam (also known as Serax), used to treat anxiety and panic in humans, on the widespread European perch fish. Researchers gave the fish a concentration of drugs similar to that found in rivers and streams in Sweden and elsewhere, according to a study published in the journal Science.
Here's how the drugs make their way into fishy habitats in real life: They get excreted by humans, pass through wastewater treatment facilities, which are not designed to break down such compounds, and then flow into rivers, Fick told LiveScience.
In the lab, perch were exposed to oxazepam in aquaria meant to mimic the animals' natural conditions. Once exposed, the fish became more antisocial, distancing themselves from fellow fish and likely putting themselves at greater risk of predation, said co-author Tomas Brodin, also of Umea University.
Exposed fish also ate more quickly, a trait that could have profound effects on the environment. This quick gobbling of zooplankton (tiny floating animals) could perhaps lead to blooms of algae, which zooplankton eat. If perch devour more zooplankton, more algae could survive, and their populations could explode, Brodin said.
Drug-exposed fish also left the dark enclosures in their lab homes more quickly, venturing out into open areas of the aquaria to feed, Brodin said. Fish not given drugs lingered longer in their refuges, acting more cautiously. "But the exposed fish didn't care," Brodin said.
The authors said the drug in question works by relieving stress (in both humans and animals), but a certain amount of stress is needed to prevent animals from taking unwarranted risks. Concentrations of drugs in the muscles of the laboratory fish were similar to those found in Swedish rivers, suggesting the effects seen in the study are likely happening in the environment, Fick said.
Oxazepam is a type of benzodiazepine, a very widely prescribed class of antianxiety drugs. It is the most commonly prescribed such medicine in Sweden, and is also formed when humans metabolize other benzodiazepines such as diazepam, also known as Valium, Brodin said.
These drugs are found in waterways throughout the world, and they likely affect all fish since they act on a cellular receptor found in almost all vertebrates, or animals with backbones, Brodin said.
"It's a global issue," he said. "It's probable these behavioral effects are happening around the world as we speak."
Li Feifan discusses his 40-minute documentary Future Armageddon, screened on Chinese TV via guardian.co.uk
In the news lately has been the extraordinarily bad conditions of Beijing's air, or as some are calling it, "airpocalypse". The city recently went way, way, way off the charts for air pollution and officials are now looking at how to reign in the causes of such incredible pollution.
The Guardian reports, "One week after that chart-busting Saturday, Beijing proposed new measures to combat pollution, including increased fines for excessive vehicle emissions and factory shutdowns on particularly bad days. But experts say the sheer scale and diversity of the pollution's underlying causes means that Beijing residents may not be able to breathe freely for decades."
One resident, Li Feifan, hopes to bring the issues directly to the public view with a new 40-minute documentary showing the flat-out frightening conditions of air within the city. He is hoping a visual presentation of the damage being done will spur residents to change their ways.
A baby is given nebuliser therapy at Beijing Children's Hospital as the capital is hit by record-breaking air pollution. Photograph: Li Wen/Xinhua Press/Corbis via guardian.co.uk
Record-breaking pollution in Beijing and other environmental problems in China are the result of unchecked government power, one of the country's former top environment officials has said.
On 12 January, Beijing's pollution hit a nauseating 755 on a US Environmental Protection Agency-designed 0-500 scale. Below 25 is considered the safe daily level by the World Health Organisation. Stores sold out of anti-pollution face masks, flights were delayed and hospital respiratory wards were overrun with coughing patients. Internet users called it the "airpocalypse".
"I have to admit that governments have done far from enough to rein in the wild pursuit of economic growth, and failed to avoid some of the worst pollution scenarios we, as policymakers, had predicted," Qu Geping, a top environmental protection administrator from 1987 to 1993, told the South China Morning Post.
Qu said that Chinese authorities could have pre-empted the crisis by adhering to a 1983 policy "stipulating that economic and urban construction should synchronise with environmental protection". Yet they haven't, and the country's air, water and soil continue to deteriorate. "Why was the strategy never properly implemented?" he said. "I think it is because there was no supervision of governments. It is because the power is still above the law."
One week after that chart-busting Saturday, Beijing proposed new measures to combat pollution, including increased fines for excessive vehicle emissions and factory shutdowns on particularly bad days. But experts say the sheer scale and diversity of the pollution's underlying causes means that Beijing residents may not be able to breathe freely for decades.
Deborah Seligsohn, an expert on China's environment at the University of California, San Diego, said that there is no silver bullet for the country's air pollution. The underlying causes are dynamic and diverse: power plants, small factories, automobile emissions, rampant construction, farmers burning coal for heat. "One of the things about the air quality in Beijing is that it varies a lot more than it used to," she said.
Beijing's air quality fluctuates with the weather – a strong wind from the north can blow the smog to sea, she said, while south-eastern winds trap the air against a nearby mountain range, drowning the city in a pea-soup haze.
The Guardian writes, "Li Feifan discusses his 40-minute documentary Future Armageddon, screened on Chinese TV this week. It features multiple images of the same city skyline submerged in different levels of smog. Li spent two months filming in the city, including earlier this month when pollution levels were 30 to 45 times above the recommended safety levels."
Air pollution isn't only bad in Beijing. A NASA chart revealing poor air quality across the middle east and Asia.
Coral reefs off the coast of China have largely died off, a study finds. Photo courtesy: Hughes et al. Current Biology
Coral reefs are under siege worldwide, and now a team of Australian and Chinese researchers has made an alarming discovery in the waters near China: The teeming coral reefs once found off the shores of the Asian giant have shrunk by an astonishing 80 percent over the last 30 years.
Biological surveys in the South China Sea and off mainland China revealed that losses of living coral reefs, especially in the past 10 to 15 years, present a "grim picture of decline, degradation and destruction," said the research report, according to AFP.
Pollution, overfishing and coastal development are blamed for the disappearance of the coral reefs. "China's ongoing economic expansion has exacerbated many wicked environmental problems," the report authors said, as quoted by AFP.
In addition to environmental causes, regional politics also plays a part in the reefs' destruction, the AFP reports. Several countries in the area, including Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, have competing claims on territorial waters in South Asia, making management of the area's resources difficult.
As a result, the immense coral reefs that once stretched across roughly 12,000 square miles (31,000 square kilometers) in the South China Sea have largely died off, AFP reported.
Efforts at preserving the area's coral reefs, such as marine parks and preserves, were too small to be meaningful, said researcher Terry Hughes. "The window of opportunity to recover the reefs of the South China Sea is closing rapidly, given the state of degradation revealed in this study," Hughes told AFP.
China's remarkable growth has been accompanied by widespread environmental destruction throughout the country, the AFP reports. The economic powerhouse suffers from some of the worst air, water and land pollution in the world, despite the government's efforts to lead the nation toward a more sustainable growth model.
View of Hurricane Sandy. Photo courtesy: NASA Earth Observatory/Public Domain
Once again, we've polluted our way into dire circumstances. This time we've managed to increase Hurricane Sandy's fury with our interfering ways. Global warming is responsible for an increase in the strength of Hurricane Sandy. Brian Merchant of TreeHugger explains:
Hurricane Sandy is out in full force; I'm currently waiting for the slow-moving frankenstorm to bear down on me as I tap this out (good thing there plenty of memes to keep me distracted). As is to be expected, there's been some good discussion about how much of the storm is attributable to climate change — Lloyd (a fellow writer at TreeHugger) collected some of the best pieces exploring that link yesterday. And I've argued that humans have built a veritable frankenstorm factory by spewing CO2 into the atmosphere; now we have to figure out how to live in it.
But I thought I'd add some commentary from the horse's mouth; that is, some discussion of the climate-hurricane link directly from a climate scientist. Today, Slate published a Climate Desk interview with Dr. Kevin Trenberth, one of the nation's most esteemed climatologists, and here's how he explained the impact global warming was registering on Sandy:
Most of what is going on with Sandy is weather, and there is a large chance element to it, but it is all occurring in an environment where the ocean is a bit warmer, the air above the ocean is warmer and moister, and that is fuel for the storm and especially adds to the risk of heavy rainfalls and flooding.
The predominant thing is hybrid storms are chance events. They are a crap shoot. With hurricanes there is a very strong environmental component to it. Hurricanes are very dependent on the environment. Therefore, changes in the environment modify the hurricanes. There are higher sea temperatures now, more moisture in the atmosphere, and there is a risk that the storm will be more intense and possibly a little larger ...
The thing that the climate is doing is that the sea temperatures are higher. There is more moisture feeding into the storm. That adds to the rainfalls. The rainfalls could be 5 to 10 percent higher as a consequence of climate change. The sea level is running a little bit higher. Sea level is going up a foot a century at the current rate. Over the last 20 years sea level has gone up 2 1/4 inches ... There are a lot of other aspects feeding into Sandy.
The point is clear, and it's one we've heard many times before. Climate change didn't "create" this storm. It's not responsible for this storm. But by spewing a century's worth of greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere, we've created an environment more amenable to nasty storms. We've warmed the air and the oceans, and we've spurred the sea levels to rise — sweetening the conditions for catastrophic storms like Sandy.
The holy River Ganges. Photo courtesy: Bien Stephenson/CC BY 2.0
Some new research shows that the pollution of the River Ganga, the holiest river for Hindus and lifeline for the millions of people living along its course, is so dire that it's causing elevated rates of cancer in people residing nearby. The worst-affected areas are in eastern Uttar Pradesh, the ancient holy city of Varanasi, the flood plains of Bengal, and in Bihar.
Times of India reports that a study done by the Indian Council of Medical Research says that rates of gallbladder cancer in areas drained by the Ganga are the second highest in the world. Rates of prostate cancer in the region are the highest in all of India.
The report places the blame on improper waste disposal, often flowing entirely untreated into the river, with industrial pollutants in particular singled out. Dipankar Chakarabarty, director of the Jadavpur University School of Environmental Studies explains:
The arsenic that gets into the river doesn't flow down. Iron and oxygen in the water form ferroso ferric oxide, which in turn bonds with arsenic. This noxious mix settles on the riverbed. Lead and cadmium are equally heaving and naturally sink in the river. This killer then leeches back into the groundwater, making it poisonous. The consequences of using or drinking this poison can manifest earliest in two years and latest in 20. But by then, it's way too late.
Government plans have been in place to clean the Ganga for well over a decade — to both industrial and human waste being discharged into the river — but have yielded little to no results overall.
If you buy leather produced in Bangladesh, odds are it came from the these conditions. There comes a time when everyone has to make the decision as what they will accept and what they cannot accept. Then, they must decide whether they will act or ignore the situation. After you have finished viewing the videos and reading the blog, it is my sincere wish that each reader will refuse to buy Bangladeshi leather particularly Hazaribagh leather. Then, if the spirit is moved, letter, emails or phone calls to local leather shops letting them know that if they sell Bangladeshi leather, you will take your business elsewhere.
To contact the Bangladeshi government:
Prime Minister's Office
Old Sangsad Bhaban
Address: Tejgaon, Dhaka-1215
Bangladesh
E-mail: info@pmo.gov.bd (link is on right-hand side of page)
A new report from Human Rights Watch exposes the horrific environmental, health, and social conditions under which 90% of Bangladesh's leather is produced, in the Hazaribagh area of the nation's capital Dhaka.
You can watch the short video above to get the gist of the situation — which involves child labor, the government admitting it doesn't enforce the laws that are on the books, and pretty horribly working conditions all around — but here are some of the deeper details of the report:
Leather produced in Hazaribagh goes to 70 countries, but most of it ends up in China, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany, Spain and the US. For the past ten years Bangladesh's leather industry has grown by $41 million per year, with $663 million worth of leather produced in 2011-2012.
As far as the environmental impact goes, the report summary says:
The wastewater that pours off tannery floors and into Hazaribagh’s open gutters and eventually Dhaka’s main river contains, among other substances, animal flesh, sulfuric acid, chromium, and lead. The government estimates that about 21,000 cubic meters of untreated effluent is released each day in Hazaribagh. Government officials and tannery industry representatives told Human Rights Watch that no Hazaribagh tannery has an effluent treatment plant to treat its waste, which can have many thousands of times the legally permitted concentrations of pollutants.
And the child labor/poor working conditions aspect:
Human Rights Watch interviewed children, some as young as 11, working in tanneries. They were engaged in hazardous work, such as soaking hides in chemicals, cutting tanned hides with razorblades, and operating dangerous tanning machinery. Women and girls said that they are paid comparatively less than men and that, in addition to their own work, they must also perform tasks normally performed by men.
Dharamsala India, the exiled home of the Dahlai Lama, has banned plastic bags.
The government of Dharamsala found that the followers of the Dahlai Lama were wreaking havoc on the local environment. Not intentionally, of course; but, with the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims came a mountain of garbage and plastic bags. One of the biggest problems was the non-biodegradable plastic bag pollution. To combat this problem, the government looked first at the merchants since they were the ones handing out the plastic bags in the first place. If the merchants didn't hand them out, the customer couldn't leave them behind as litter.
The government has decreed that if you go into a shop in Dharamsala and don't bring your own bag, you are given a bag made out of discarded paper that has been hand-glued by a local worker. This has created new jobs in the local economy besides tackling the plastic bag problem. Each hand-glued bag is different because there is now also a growing market for used paper; and, home collections are becoming exceedingly popular. An example of this is the bag created from the discarded physics homework of a high school student. How interesting!
Dharamsala is a small city in India; and, they are taking extremely progressive action on pollution. The USA, larger and wealthier, is sending a million plastic bags a minute to the landfills. What is wrong with this picture? Surely if a small city in India can do this; so, can we. Time, effort and a few changes to the consumers' shopping habits is all it will take to eradicate one of (if not the largest) contributor to environmental pollution.
Dharamsala may have discovered the true path due to their smaller size; thereby, reaching a quicker understanding of how their trash footprint was affecting them in particular and the environment in general.
If you think we should and could follow Dharamsala, contact your local representatives and ask them to ban the bag today.
Frogs are considered to be the “canaries in the coal mine” of the environment. Before instruments were made that could detect lethal or explosive gases, coal miners used to take a canary in a cage down into the tunnels with them. Birds have very sensitive respiratory systems and respond to toxins and gases before humans even know there is a problem. If the canary collapsed, the men left the mine immediately and management then had to deal with the problem.
Frogs have a thin, permeable skin that is not waterproof making frogs and tadpoles sensitive creatures – a living barometer of the health of the environment. Due to the porous nature of the skin (all frogs breathe partially and some completely through the skin), they absorb chemicals from both the air and the water. With their skin constantly exposed to the environment, their bodies are much more vulnerable and sensitive to factors such as disease, pollution toxic chemical, radiation and habitat destruction.
Toads and frogs are part of the amphibian family. The word “amphibian” means “double life” in Greek. This refers to the two stages in every amphibian’s life – life in the water and on land. Frogs can be found everywhere on earth with the exception of the Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland. So, is it surprising that these changes are happening world-wide?
Herpetologists (scientists who study amphibians and reptiles) have reported finding frogs with missing legs, extra legs, misshapen legs, paralyzed legs that stuck out from the body at odd places, legs that were webbed together with extra skin, legs that were fused to the body, and legs that split into two half-way down. They have also found frogs with missing eyes. One one-eyed frog had a second eye growing inside its throat.
The world's frogs, toads and newts and other amphibians are dying out, with populations falling each year, according to research.
One of the biggest studies of its kind reveals that amphibian numbers have declined dramatically over the past 40 years. The findings were compiled using Internet contacts with some 200 scientists around the world. “Pollution, intensive farming, disease and climate change are all likely to have played a role,” said Jeff Houlahan, a PhD candidate in biology from the University of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada.
Data on 936 populations of amphibians and 157 species came in from 37 countries and eight regions of the world.
Using data covering the last four decades, the analysis concluded the world's amphibian population has likely decreased by more than 50 per cent since the 1950s. Decline was steepest in the 1960s -- as much as 15 per cent a year -- but continued at a slower rate, roughly two per cent, in the 1980s and '90s. North America has shown the greatest fall in amphibian populations in recent years.
Limited research findings and anecdotal information suggest several possible causes, for this decline including habitat loss; introduction of non-native predators such as fishes and bullfrogs; disease; and, possibly airborne contaminants. Where does this leave us? If we don’t change; we may be the last generation to hear frogs in the wild.
I grew up not many miles from where I live now. Thirty-five years ago, I was lulled to sleep every night by a chorus of frogs. I loved the sound and lay awake for hours just listening and imagining. Thirty-five years ago, was the last time I heard frogs in the wild. I haven’t heard a frog in 35 years unless it was on television. I, for one, miss them!
Once again, I have been to one of my favourite sites “Guardian.co.uk” (www.guardian.co.uk) and have decided to share three of the stories that are making headlines in Europe. Our world is indeed a global village and what happens in one corner of the planet will soon find its way to the other corners eventually. No one is safe from what their global neighbours are doing – good or bad. And that brings me to the first story.
Europe’s Pine May Be Wiped Out, say Experts.
Europe’s pine forests are at risk from the nematode bug. This bugs literally swarms through a pine tree’s pulpy interior interfering with and; eventually, cutting off the tree's sap supply. Two species of pine are known to be susceptible: the Maritime pine (which makes up almost a quarter of Portugal’s forests) and Scots pine (the most widespread pine species in Europe often used as Christmas trees). Frighteningly, here in North American, it has been reported on Austrian and White pines also.
Tens of thousands of trees have already died in Portugal and experts fear that this disease could spread further. “Pine Wilt Disease” has become out of control in the south-west portion of Europe. Pine Wilt was first detected in the Setúbal region, south of Lisbon, in 1999, when 340,000 trees died in two years. In the 1970’s, Japan’s enormous pine forests were totally destroyed by the pine nematode bug.
The symptoms of Pine Wilt are: trees wilt and die rapidly usually within a short period of time although trees may occasionally survive for more than a year; needles turn yellow/brown and remain attached to the tree; needles initially show a light grayish-green discolouration before turning yellow/brown; foliage decreases and resin production is reduced. The disease may or may not progress uniformly through a tree.
Pine Wilt disease has been described as “out of control” in Europe. Strict restrictions on the export of Portuguese pine have been laid down. Roddie Burgess, head of the Plant Health Service for the British government’s Forestry Commission says: “Given the scale of the problem…it’s going to be very difficult to get on top of this”.
A UN Report States That Millions World Wide Are Eating Food Grown With Contaminated Water.
A major study was done in 53 world cities looking into the quality of water used in the agricultural fields of the world. Urban farms in 80% of cities survey were found to be using untreated waste water. That’s at least 200 million people globally who daily risk their health by eating food grown using untreated waste water, some of which may be contaminated with heavy metals and raw sewage.
However the report goes on to state that by using waste water, farmers provided vital food for quickly-growing cities at a time of unprecedented water shortages and the worst food crisis in 30 years. The UN study which was backed by the IMWI (International Water Management Institute) said that surprisingly the use of waste water to grow foods was not confined to the poorest countries. It is prevalent in many mid-income countries as well.
A report launched at World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden found the practice “widespread and practically inevitable”.
"As long as developing countries lack suitable transport to deliver large quantities of perishable produce to urban areas, urban agriculture will remain important. In the face of water scarcity generally and a lack of access to clean water, urban farmers will have no alternative except to use … polluted water", write the authors. Few third-world countries have official guidelines regarding agriculture and the use of waste water. For those that do have some guidelines, monitoring and enforcement may not be realistic and; therefore, very rarely enforced. Officials in these countries tend to turn a “blind eye” making it “unofficially tolerated.”
Earlier this year (2008) WHO (the World Health Organization) stated that both a global environmental and health crisis were waiting to happen with more than 200 million tonnes of human waste a year being dumped untreated into water systems. This will expose hundreds of millions of people to disease.
Nepalese Guides May Lose Jobs Due To Commercial Development I have always thought of Tibet and Nepal as two pristine cultures that would never change. How wrong I was!! It seems that the powerful sound of a dollar to be made can be heard even in the Himalayas.
There is very real risk that one of the world’s classic mountain-trekking routes is at risk of obliteration from plans to bring golf and skiing package tourism to the mountain range.
The Annapurna circuit, which was only opened to backpackers in 1977, will be competing with a new road running through the heart of the Himalayas. This road will allow free movement of buses, taxis, motorbikes and tractors into areas they were previously unable to reach.
This desecration of the landscape is to connect the mountain resort of Manang to Nepal’s national transport network. Manang is currently reachable by foot or air only. Wildlife and plants will be destroyed. The air will become more polluted as will the water and other natural resources. There will also be a human price to pay – many of the native guides and porters will lose their jobs and be unable to support their families.
However, tourism chiefs in Nepal are eager to replace their traditional “trekker with no money” with a new generation of tourist. They will be actively wooing the wealthier clientele seeking adventure holidays that include such things as heli-skiing and paragliding.
Aditya Baral, Nepal's senior foreign affairs adviser, has been quoted as saying: "After the construction of the road ... the number of trekkers will be reduced. We have a trade-off here between economic development and infrastructure and the effect on tourism and the environment. We need to create alternative attractions to just trekking."
Baral, who is also a former public relations director at the Nepal tourism board, went on to say "We are trying to create man-made tourism attractions, like theme parks, adrenaline sports like bungee jumping and rafting."
The Annapurna Conservation Area Project group has legitimate fears. They state that benefits from such activities as heli-skiing and golf "will mainly go to a few specialized tour operators and some more expensive hotels.” It further stated “Although there will be some trick-down (of profits), for the majority of the local people these activities will have little effect on alleviating poverty”.
I'm fortunate to have several passions in my life. I am absolutely an eco-nut. I am always trying to find new ways to reduce, reuse, recycle. We, as a species, have done more harm to this planet in the short time we have been here, than any other catastrophe or happening ever has. It's up to us to fix it.
I care about the environment whether it is as small as a single cell or as large as the universe.
I adore creativity and think we can all do more with much less. This earth has enough resources for us all to live comfortably if we all learn to share. Wasn't that a lesson we were supposed to learn in kindergarten?
I also love the bizarre, unusual, the weird and the strange. Be prepared for the odd "different" blog.
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