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Rising seas are destroying buildings

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Alexandria is the second largest city in Egypt and is the largest city on the Mediterranean coast.  Its history goes back over 2,300 years and it was once home to a lighthouse that was among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and a Great Library that was the largest in the ancient world.  The modern city has more than 6 million residents but still has many historic buildings and ancient monuments.  But perhaps not for long.

Rising seas and intensifying storms are taking a toll on the ancient port city.  For centuries, Alexandria’s historic structures have endured earthquakes, storm surges, tsunamis, and more.  They are truly marvels of resilient engineering.  But now, climate change is undoing in decades what took millennia for humans to create.

Over the past two decades, the number of buildings collapsing in Alexandria has risen tenfold.   Buildings are collapsing from the bottom up as a rising water table weakens soil and erodes foundations.  Since 2001, Alexandria has seen 290 buildings collapse.  Comparing present-day satellite imagery with decades-old maps, the authors of a study by the Technical University of Munich have tracked the retreat of Alexandria’s shorelines to determine where seas have intruded into groundwater. The authors say that more than 7,000 buildings in Alexandria are at risk.  They call for building sand dunes and planting trees along the coast to block encroaching seawater.

The true cost of this gradual destruction goes far beyond bricks and mortar.  This is the gradual disappearance of historic coastal cities.  Alexandria is a warning for such cities around the world.

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In This Storied Egyptian City, Rising Seas are Causing Buildings to Crumble

Photo, posted September 11, 2012, courtesy of Sowr via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Approaching critical global temperature thresholds

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The Paris Climate Agreement is a global treaty adopted in 2015 to combat climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, while striving to keep it below 1.5°C.  But according to recent research, the planet is quickly approaching these critical thresholds. 

An international research team led by scientists from Colorado State University, Stanford University, and ETH-Zurich in Switzerland combined insights from 10 global climate models, and – with the help of artificial intelligence – found that regional warming thresholds are likely to be reached faster than previously thought.

In fact, the researchers found that most land regions will likely surpass the critical 1.5°C threshold by 2040 or even earlier.  Additionally, several regions are on track to exceed the 3.0°C threshold by 2060.  Regions including Central Europe, the Mediterranean, South Asia, and parts of sub-Saharan Africa are expected to reach these thresholds faster. 

The research team relied on transfer learning, a cutting-edge machine learning technique that leverages pre-trained models to tackle new, related tasks.

The research, which was recently published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, found that 34 regions are likely to exceed 1.5°C of warming by 2040.  Of those 34 regions, 31 of them are expected to reach 2°C of warming by 2040, and 26 of these 34 regions are projected to surpass 3°C of warming by 2060.

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AI predicts that most of the world will see temperatures rise to 3C much faster than previously expected

Photo, posted February 23, 2011, courtesy of 2011 CIAT / Neil Palmer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

PPE Pollution | Earth Wise

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While the COVID-19 pandemic and its shutdown of so many human activities has reduced many kinds of pollution, it has also managed to create a new source of pollution:  face masks and sanitary gloves.

Divers from a French non-profit organization called Operation Clean Sea are already finding gloves, masks, and hand sanitizer bottles beneath the waves of the Mediterranean, along with the usual litter of disposable cups and aluminum cans. In France, authorities have ordered 2 billion disposable masks. Given that, there may soon be the risk of having more masks in the Mediterranean than jellyfish.  In Hong Kong, face masks have been piling up on beaches and nature trails.  Even in Hong Kong’s isolated and uninhabited Soko Islands, dozens of masks are showing up on a small stretch of beach.

Disposable masks may feel like soft cotton, but almost all of them are made from non-biodegradable material such as polypropylene.  When such masks are discarded into storm drains, they end up in rivers and seas.  With a lifespan of hundreds of years, these masks are an ecological timebomb.  Land-based activity accounts for 80% of ocean pollution, and half of that is a direct result of single-use plastics.  Many of the CDC’s recent recommendations for reopening offices and businesses actually recommend the increased use of them, and for sensible reasons.

The best we can all do is to wear reusable masks and to try to wash our hands more often rather than putting on another pair of latex gloves.  Given that there are alternatives, we don’t need to make plastic the solution to protect us from Covid-19.

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COVID-19 Masks Are Polluting Beaches and Oceans

Photo, posted March 28, 2020, courtesy of Michael Swan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Getting Rid Of Plastic Here And Abroad

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Efforts in the fight against plastic pollution are really stepping up these days. 

New York State lawmakers have agreed to impose a statewide ban on most types of single-use plastic bags from retail sales.  The ban would be the second statewide ban after California, which banned the bags in 2016.  Hawaii effectively also has such a ban since all of the state’s counties have their own bans.

The New York ban would begin next March and would forbid stores from providing customers with single-use plastic bags.  There are a number of exceptions, including food takeout bags in restaurants, bags used to wrap deli or meat counter products, and newspaper bags.  New York counties could opt into a plan to charge a 5-cent fee on paper bags, with proceeds going to the state’s Environmental Protection Fund.  Some environmentalists point out, however, that paper bags have their own issues.  While they do decompose in landfills, they have a substantial carbon footprint since they are made from wood and being heavier, they are more costly to ship.  Business groups are concerned about the forthcoming ban based on increased costs.

Meanwhile, European Union member states have reached a provisional agreement to introduce restrictions on single-use plastic products.  In 2021. European citizens will say goodbye to plastic cutlery, plastic plates and plastic straws among other products.

According to the European Commission, plastics make up 85% of beach litter in the Mediterranean.  Large plastic pieces injure, suffocate, and often kill marine animals but microplastics have reached record levels of concentration – over a million fragments per square kilometer – in the Mediterranean.

Both here and abroad, the war on plastics is heating up.

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Plastic Bags to Be Banned in New York; Second Statewide Ban, After California

The End Of Plastic Cutlery, Plates And Straws: EU Market Says Goodbye To Single-Use Plastic Products

Photo, posted March 20, 2007, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Threat From Nurdles

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Just when we thought we knew all about the environmental threats caused by plastics, environmentalists have identified yet another problem.  It is called a nurdle.

Nurdles are tiny pellets of plastic resin no bigger than a pencil eraser that manufacturers transform into packaging, plastic straws, water bottles and all the other things that are wreaking havoc on the environment.

It turns out that nurdles themselves are a problem because billions of them are lost from production and supply chains during handling, shipping and production every year, spilling or washing into waterways.  There is limited information on the extent of this kind of plastic pollution and global researchers are still struggling to make an accurate assessment.  A study last year estimated that 3 million to 36 million pellets escape every year from just one small industrial area in Sweden.

Eunomia, a British environmental consultancy, contends that nurdles are the second-largest source of microplastic pollution and estimated that the U.K. could be unwittingly losing billions of pellets into the environment every year.

New research is revealing the ubiquity of plastic pellets, from the bellies of fish caught in the South Pacific, to the digestive tracks of short-tailed albatross in the north and on the beaches of the Mediterranean.

A shareholder advocacy group called As You Sow has filed resolutions with Chevron, DowDupont, Exxon Mobil, and Phillips 66 asking them to disclose how many nurdles escape their production process each year and how they plan to address the issue.  Several of the companies have responded with statements saying they are working to develop solutions that keep plastic out of our environment.

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There’s a Tiny Plastic Enemy Threatening the Planet’s Oceans

Photo, posted January 15, 2014, courtesy of Hillary Daniels via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

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