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Tourism And Invasive Species | Earth Wise

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Tourism has experienced exponential growth during the past 70 years.  In 1950, there were 25 million international tourist arrivals.  By 1990, it had ballooned to 435 million.  Between 1990 and 2018, the numbers more than tripled reaching more than 1.4 billion.  And by 2030, the number of international tourist arrivals is expected to reach 1.8 billion.

Tourism is vital to the success of many economies around the world.  Tourism can boost revenue, provide jobs, develop infrastructure, protect wildlife, and help preserve heritage sites and cultures.  But there can also be many downsides to tourism, one of which is that it can contribute to the introduction and spread of invasive species.  Non-native organisms can cause all sorts of social, environmental, and economic damage.   

Tourists help spread invasive organisms far and wide.  These organisms hitch rides in their luggage and on their shoes and clothing.  A 2011 study in New Zealand found that for every gram of soil on the shoes of in-bound international passengers, there were 2.5 plant seeds, 41 roundworms, 0.004 insects and mites, and many microorganisms. 

A new study by researchers from the University of Melbourne in Australia and AgResearch New Zealand examined to what degree tourism plays a role in the spread of invasive species.  According to the study, which was recently published in the journal NeoBiota, the research team found that the number of nights spent in hotels significantly correlated to the incursion of invasive species during that period.

Creating effective mechanisms to prevent the introduction of invasive species in the first place is the best way to prevent this problem. 

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Unwelcome guests: International tourism and travel can be a pathway for introducing invasive species

Number of tourist arrivals

Photo, posted March 27, 2005, courtesy of John via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Drilling Rights In The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge | Earth Wise

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The battle to prevent oil and gas drilling rights from being sold in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska has been going on for 40 years.  The Trump administration spent nearly four years pushing to auction off those drilling rights and finally accomplished it in early January.

The ANWR was created in 1960 and is the largest intact wilderness in the U.S., covering nearly 30,000 square miles in Alaska.  It is an important breeding habitat for polar bears as well as the home of more than 200 other species including caribou, arctic foxes, golden eagles, and snowy owls.  Parts of it are also sacred ground for the indigenous Gwich’in people.

The auction carved out a 5% slice of the refuge for leases and proponents anticipated it would generate billions of dollars in revenues that would offset tax cuts in Alaska.

Of the 22 parcels of land offered, totaling 1.1 million acres, only 12 were bid on at all and the state of Alaska was the sole bidder on 9 of those.  In total, the auction raised a paltry $14 million. 

Whether the remarkable absence of interest was due to a lack of infrastructure or roads around the region, the decline of fossil fuel investments and use during the pandemic, or the anticipation that any leases would be the subject of endless legal battles by indigenous tribes and environmental activists, the net result was that the auction was basically a flop.

President Biden has stated that he is entirely against Arctic drilling, so the new administration is likely to try to repeal or interfere with any drilling leases or other industrial activity in the ANWR. 

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Arctic Oil Drilling Plans Suffer ‘Stunning Setback’ as Almost ‘No One Shows Up’ For the Sale

Photo, posted July 3, 2019, courtesy of Alaska Region U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Flickr. Photo Credit: Danielle Brigida/ USFWS

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Metal From Plants | Earth Wise

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Large amounts of metal in soil are generally bad for plants.  But there are about 700 species of plants that thrive in metal-rich soils.  These plants don’t just tolerate minerals from soil in their bodies but actually seem to hoard them to ridiculous levels.

In areas where soils are naturally rich in nickel, typically in the tropics and Mediterranean basin, plants have either died off or have adapted to become nickel loving.  Slicing open a tree with this adaptation produces a neon blue-green sap that is actually one-quarter nickel, which is far more concentrated than the ore that typically feeds commercial nickel smelters.

A group of researchers from the University of Melbourne and other institutions is investigating whether this phenomenon is not just interesting but might also be of real commercial value.  They established a plot of land in a rural village in Borneo and have been harvesting growth from nickel-hyper accumulating plants.  Every six to twelve months, a farmer shaves off one foot of growth from these plants and either burns or squeezes the metal out.  After a short purification, they end up with about 500 pounds of nickel citrate, potentially worth thousands of dollars on international markets.

Phytomining – extracting minerals from hyper-accumulating plants – cannot fully replace traditional mining techniques.  But the technology could enable areas with toxic soils to be made productive and might allow mining companies to use plants to clean up their former mines and waste while actually collecting some revenue.

There are other plants that suck up cobalt, zinc, and similarly crucial metals.  With growing demand for metals, perhaps it is time to harvest them on the farm.

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Down on the Farm That Harvests Metal From Plants

Photo courtesy of the University of Queensland.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Detecting Methane

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Natural gas has become a huge industry in the United States, increasingly replacing coal in power plants, and otherwise contributing to energy independence.  Unfortunately, it also contributes to climate change.  Methane – the primary component of natural gas – is a powerful greenhouse gas that is estimated to be responsible for as much as a quarter of atmospheric warming.

Not all of the emissions from natural gas come from its use.  In the United States, so-called fugitive emissions from the oil and gas industry total an estimated 13 million metric tons per year.  These emissions basically consist of leakage of various types from the extraction, transportation, and processing of natural gas and cost the industry $2 billion in lost revenue each year.  Globally, that figure is estimated to be $30 billion.

Research labs and startup companies are working on developing and deploying novel technologies to address the growing issue of methane leaks across the fossil fuel supply chain.

One company called LongPath Technologies – a spinout from the University of Colorado – uses frequency comb laser technology that can pinpoint a leak to about a 50 square-foot area from half a mile away.  Other companies use different variations on laser absorption technology to be able to measure methane concentrations from a distance. 

Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but it stays in the atmosphere for much less time.  As a result, reducing methane emissions can pay off much more quickly than reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

The current EPA is trying to eliminate emissions regulations on the natural gas industry, but it is in the industry’s economic interest to curb those emissions even if they were unconcerned about the environment.

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Methane Detectives: Can a Wave of New Technology Slash Natural Gas Leaks?

Photo, posted October 22, 2016, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Smarter Prospecting

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The global demand for copper and gold continues to grow.  Copper is widely used in building materials, plumbing, and electronics.  Gold is still highly valued for jewelry and coinage, but nearly a third of the world’s gold is now used in electronics. 

Both of these metals are getting increasingly difficult to find as many of the known sources have been exhausted.  Companies spend millions of dollars drilling deeper and deeper in search of new deposits.

It costs about $400 to drill one meter into rock and it is not uncommon to drill to depths of one to two kilometers.  So, it can cost nearly a million dollars to drill a hole that has no guarantee of success.  Given that ore deposits are tiny compared with the totality of the search space, prospecting for these metals is very much like looking for a needle in a haystack.

A researcher at the University of South Australia has developed a suite of geochemical tools to more accurately target valuable mineral deposits and thereby save drilling companies millions of dollars.  The goal is to have drilling for valuable minerals be faster, cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

By mapping out where key chemical elements are found in greater concentrations, the new suite of tools greatly increases the chances of finding an ore deposit at a target site and thereby greatly improve the return on investment for exploration companies.  The tools have been successfully tested at an iron oxide-copper-gold deposit in the north of South Australia, leading to a four-fold increase in the known footprint of their ore body.  Finding economically viable enriched ore sites can generate both revenues and jobs.

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Prospecting for gold just got a lot easier (and cheaper)

Photo, posted April 21, 2005, courtesy of Adam via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Fossil Fuel Companies And Renewables

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There is a tendency to think of the changes in the energy industry as a pitched battle between fossil fuel companies and renewable energy.  There is some truth to this, but only to a certain extent.   The multi-trillion-dollar fossil fuel industry is made up of businesses dedicated to growth and increased profits.  And like businesses in other industries when major changes occur, fossil fuel companies may read the tea leaves and change with the times.

[Read more…] about Fossil Fuel Companies And Renewables

Small Forests And Climate

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Trees are the number one way in which carbon can be removed from the atmosphere and stored in vegetation over the long term.  A single tree can absorb CO2 at a rate of 48 pounds per year.  Because of this, the carbon footprints of 18 average Americans can be neutralized by one acre of hardwood trees.  And it has been found that managed forests accumulate more carbon per acre than unmanaged forests.

[Read more…] about Small Forests And Climate

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