Christina Couch: Search for Eels→

Hakai Magazine

Mathieu Foulquie/Minden Pictures

“The European eel and the American eel—both considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature—make this extraordinary migration. The Sargasso is the only place on Earth where they breed. The slithery creatures, some as long as 1.5 meters, arrive from Europe, North America, including parts of the Caribbean, and North Africa, including the Mediterranean Sea. Hanel, a fish biologist and director of the Thünen Institute of Fisheries Ecology in Bremerhaven, Germany, makes his own month-long migration here alongside a rotating cast of researchers, some of whom hope to solve mysteries that have long flummoxed marine biologists, anatomists, philosophers, and conservationists: What happens when these eels spawn in the wild? And what can be done to help the species recover from the impacts of habitat loss, pollution, overfishing, and hydropower? Scientists say that the answers could improve conservation. But, thus far, eels have kept most of their secrets to themselves.”

Doug Johnson: Lakes are Heating Up→

Ars Technica

“New research identifies the interrelated challenges that the world’s lakes face. According to Sapna Sharma, co-author of the research and an associate professor of York University’s biology department, many of the climate change-related impacts that affect these watering holes remain relatively hidden despite these waters potentially facing an extensive collection of problems. “I hope that people get a sense of how widespread the effects of climate change on lakes are,” she told Ars. “If you just go look out at a lake, you might not know all the changes it’s experiencing.”

To study this, Sharma and colleagues at different universities around the world pored over hundreds of research papers about lakes. These papers came from across the globe, and some date back to the 1930s, she said. Sharma and her fellow researchers all have differing areas of expertise, allowing them to review and synthesize the existing literature...

The hundreds of papers painted a complex picture of lakes’ past, present, and future under a rapidly changing climate. On a purely mechanical level, a warmer planet means less ice cover. More and more, ice is taking longer to grow on lakes in the fall and winter, and it leaves sooner in the spring and summer. The heat also causes the waters to stratify sooner—meaning that the colder, heavier water will sink below the warmer, lighter water.”

Rachel Riederer: Talking about Nature→

Dissent Magazine - The Lost Art of Looking at Nature:

By John Cairns - The Bodleian Libraries, CC BY 4.0

“In the late 1970s, when Attenborough was working as a manager of BBC2, he produced two major series about the history of humanity: Civilisation and The Ascent of Man. Both were successful, but he wanted to make a series that would give the spotlight to natural history. In Life on Earth, he became the host and traveled the world presenting a narrative about the evolution of species. In one of the show’s most famous moments, he appears in a leafy thicket next to a giant gorilla. He goes off script and, in an ad-lib commentary, whispers, “There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than with any other animal I know.” He gives the naturalist’s explanation for why this is so: we have the same sensory apparatuses and live in comparable social groups, so these apes offer our best chance at achieving cross-species understanding. It is this aim that sets his work apart. Close observation of a gorilla offers the “possibility of escaping the human condition and living imaginatively in another creature’s world,” he says, crouched in the greenery. It’s an almost radical idea, to show humanity all the corners of the world, emphasizing that it belongs to other creatures.

Perhaps we love Attenborough because he is an advocate and practitioner of a special way of seeing and relating. His interest in the natural world begins not with the gaze of an empath, for whom another’s feelings become real because he feels them himself, but with the humility of an observer content to be an outsider.”

David Nikel: SF6 (Sulfur hexafluoride): Truths and Myths→

Norwegian University of Science and Technology:

“Several articles are pointing the finger at the growth in renewables—specifically wind turbines—as being responsible for the growth in SF6 emissions, with some going as far as saying that the gas is the energy industry’s dirty little secret. In this spirit of transparency, we asked several experts from NTNU and SINTEF to separate the truths from the myths.

Along with CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs and PFCs, SF6 is an industrial gas that doesn’t exist naturally in the atmosphere and so impacts the radiation balance, contributing to climate change.

”It is true that SF6 has between 22,000 and 23,500 times higher global warming potential than CO2 when taken over a 100-year perspective. Because it’s so stable, the gas has an estimated lifetime of up to 3,200 years. Considered together, these facts make SF6 the most potent chemically reactive greenhouse gas investigated by the IPCC,” says NTNU Professor Francesco Cherubini.

”The concentration of the gas in the atmosphere is increasing so it’s good to have some attention on this. However, it’s important to put it into context. While it’s a dangerous greenhouse gas, SF6 today contributes less than 1 percent of man made global warming,” he adds.”

Ian Rose: Restaurant Menus and Climate Change→

The Atlantic:

City of Vancouver Archives

“In a new study, a team from the University of British Columbia (UBC) shows one unexpected way that climate effects are already manifesting in our daily lives. To find it, they looked not at thermometers or ice cores, but at restaurant menus.

“With a menu, you have a physical and digital record that you can compare over time,” explains William Cheung, a fisheries biologist at UBC and one of the study’s authors. Cheung has spent his career studying climate change and its effects on the world’s oceans. He has contributed to several of the landmark reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but along with John-Paul Ng, an undergraduate student at UBC, he wanted to find a different way to both study and communicate those changes...

Using their records, the scientists created an index called the Mean Temperature of Restaurant Seafood (MTRS), which reflects the water temperature at which the species on the menu like to live. Predictably, they found that the MTRS of Los Angeles was higher than that of Anchorage, with Vancouver falling in the middle. But by analyzing how the MTRS for Vancouver has changed over time, they found a significant trend of warmer-water species becoming more common on restaurant menus. In the 1880s, the MTRS for Vancouver was roughly 10.7 degrees Celsius. Now it is 13.8 degrees Celsius.”

Trout Lake Food Web Changes→

UW-Madison Center for Limnology:

“The story in Trout Lake played out in three acts. From 1981, when data collection began, to 2006, the Trout Lake ecosystem was humming along in a state scientists often refer to as “equilibrium” with its food web dominated by three main characters.

Tiny, free-floating crustaceans called zooplankton formed the base of the food web and ate large quantities of algae, which helped keep the water clear. A small, silvery species of prey, or “forage,” fish called cisco ate the zooplankton. And lake trout, the large, apex predator that gave the lake its name, ate the cisco.

During this “first act,” cisco dominated the food web. They were the more numerous of the two fish species, which is the common arrangement in predator/prey dynamics, and their high numbers kept zooplankton populations in check.”

Jeremy Miller: Trojan Trout→

bioGraphic:

Nick Hawkins/NPL

“How this beautiful interloper from eastern North America got to this place is unclear, beyond that it was part of a human-aided diaspora that loosed brook trout into high-altitude lakes and creeks across the West, from northwest Washington to southern New Mexico. There, brookies’ voracious appetites and rapid sexual maturation have spelled trouble not only for native trout like bull, rainbow, California golden, and cutthroat, which they outcompete, but also for a host of other aquatic organisms, including frogs and salamanders.

As Miller and Field shock and scoop their way upcreek, though, a pattern that could be the key to Leandro Creek’s salvation becomes apparent. Brook trout may greatly outnumber the Rio Grande cutthroat here, in some stretches by more than five to one, but nearly every single one of the brookies the crew captures is male.

That’s because many are a lab-produced variety known as “Trojan” brook trout. They are unique in that they carry not one, but two copies of the Y chromosome that codes maleness; they have no X chromosome to pass on. Unlike many creatures, including humans, fish can survive without an X, and seem unimpaired by the lack. And since 2018, Miller, the lead researcher on the project, and his predecessors have been carrying out a bold new experiment, stocking various streams across the Vermejo reserve with this strain in an attempt to tilt the brook trout sex ratio so far male that eventually the population will stop breeding and blink out on its own. Similar efforts are also underway in a handful of creeks in Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, and Nevada plans to embark on its own stocking program this summer.
”

Christina Larson: Bald Eagle Lead Poisoning is Sickening→

Phys.org:

Pixabay

“The blood, bones, feathers and liver tissue of 1,210 eagles sampled from 2010 to 2018 were examined to assess chronic and acute lead exposure.

”This is the first time for any wildlife species that we’ve been able to evaluate lead exposure and population level consequences at a continental scale,” said study co-author Todd Katzner, a wildlife biologist at U.S. Geological Survey in Boise, Idaho. “It’s sort of stunning that nearly 50% of them are getting repeatedly exposed to lead.”

Lead is a neurotoxin that even in low doses impairs an eagle’s balance and stamina, reducing its ability to fly, hunt and reproduce. In high doses, lead causes seizures, breathing difficulty and death.

The study estimated that lead exposure reduced the annual population growth of bald eagles by 4% and golden eagles by 1%.Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”

This does not need to happen. Many of us hunters have used copper or other non-toxic ammo for years.

Tim De Chant: Ethanol Study→

Ars Technica

For over a decade, the US has blended ethanol with gasoline in an attempt to reduce the overall carbon pollution produced by fossil fuel-powered cars and trucks. But a new study says that the practice may not be achieving its goals. In fact, burning ethanol made from corn—the major source in the US—may be worse for the climate than just burning gasoline alone.

Corn drove demand for land and fertilizer far higher than previous assessments had estimated. Together, the additional land and fertilizer drove up ethanol’s carbon footprint to the point where the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions—from seed to tank—were higher than that of gasoline. Some researchers predicted this might happen, but the new paper provides a comprehensive and retrospective look at the real-world results of the policy.

Proponents have long argued that corn-based ethanol bolsters farm incomes while providing a domestic source of renewable liquid fuel, while critics have said that its status as a carbon-reducing gasoline additive relies on questionable accounting. Based on the new study, both sides may be right.

Kieran Lindsey: The Great Pumpkinseed

Center for Humans and Nature:

August Rode

This colorful Centrarchidae with scarlet-lipped ear flaps is sheathed in seedy speckles of colors that range from Caramel orange to Lemon Drop yellow, Red Hots red to Starburst blue-raspberry blue and Lifesavers lime green. The “official” origin story is that the common name for this mid-sized fish (4-11″ or 10-28 cm, tipping the scales at a maximum of 1.5 lbs or 680 g) derives from the oval contour of the body rather than the coloration pattern.

Bob Timmons: Tribute to Darby Nelson→

Star Tribune:

“Whether they knew him or knew of him, Minnesotans across the state’s vast conservation landscape are mourning and paying tribute to a man whose advocacy for state waters ran as deep as his interests.

Darby Nelson, schooled in aquatic ecology and by a life outdoors, was a passionate mentor and teacher at Anoka-Ramsey Community College for 35 years. That career overlapped with his service as a DFL legislator from 1983-1988, where he carried on his environmentalism, writing bills that created the state’s Board of Water and Soils Resources, protected public lands, and even created a funding mechanism for cross-country ski trails.”

Obituary

Hannah Ritchie: How We Fixed the Ozone Layer→

Works in Progress

Ozone levels stabilized in the 1990s following the Montreal Protocol, and have started to recover. They are projected to reach pre-1980 levels before 2075.

“When it comes to stories of progress, there aren’t many environmental successes to learn from. We’ve seen massive improvements in many human dimensions in recent decades – declines in extreme poverty; reductions in child mortality; increases in life expectancy. But most metrics that relate to the environment are moving in the wrong direction. Although there are some local and national successes – such as the large reductions in local air pollution in rich countries – there are almost none at the global level.

Yet there is one exception: the ozone layer. Humanity’s ability to heal the depleted ozone layer is not only our biggest environmental success, it is the most impressive example of international cooperation on any challenge in history...

Our efforts to tackle other environmental problems have not been quite so successful. Can we extrapolate any of the lessons from the task of fixing the ozone layer to other challenges, such as climate change?

There are of course many similarities: ozone depletion and climate change are shared, global problems. Unlike air pollution where local residents are impacted by local emissions, it is the entire global population that is impacted by ozone depleting substances and greenhouse gas emissions. This is because these gases disperse easily across the globe; they are known as ‘well-mixed’ gases. The need for international coordination on both issues is therefore obvious.

We can also learn from the ramping up of efforts over time. The ambition of the first Montreal Protocol in the 1980s was far too weak to solve the problem. Although it was better than ‘business as usual’, the target would have meant that the ozone hole would have continued to expand. Our efforts were only successful because we continued to raise the standards of regulation over time. Climate policy is in a similar position today, and has been for a long time.”

Jeff Renaud: Predicting Fish Recovery from Mercury Pollution

University of Western Ontario:

“Reducing mercury pollution entering lakes lowers how much harmful mercury is found in freshwater fish destined for consumers’ plates. This is according to a new paper, published today in Nature. During the study, conducted over 15 years, scientists intentionally added a traceable form of mercury to an experimental lake and its watershed.

The interdisciplinary research team, including Western University’s Brian Branfireun, discovered that the new mercury they added quickly built up in fish populations, and then declined almost as quickly once they stopped additions.

Notably, the fish populations were able to recover from mercury much quicker than previously understood, which suggests that curbing mercury pollution through policy initiatives now will have a rapid and tangible benefit on the quality of fish we consume.”

More information: Paul Blanchfield, Experimental evidence for recovery of mercury-contaminated fish populations, Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04222-7. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04222-7

Northern Lakes Warming 6x faster

York University:

“Lakes in the Northern Hemisphere are warming six times faster since 1992 than any other time period in the last 100 years, research led by York University has found.

Lake Superior, the most northern of the Great Lakes which straddles the Canada/United States border, is one of the fastest warming lakes, losing more than two months of ice cover since ice conditions started being recorded in 1857. In Lake Suwa, in Japan, ice formed close to 26 days later per century since 1897 and is now only freezing twice every decade, while Grand Traverse Bay in Lake Michigan had one of the fastest ice-off trends, melting about 16 days earlier per century.

”We found that lakes are losing on average 17 days of ice cover per century. Alarmingly, what we found is that warming in the past 25 years, from 1992 to 2016, was six times faster than any other period in the last 100 years,” says Associate Professor Sapna Sharma of the Faculty of Science at York University, who led the study with Professor David Richardson at the State University of New York at New Paltz and climate scientist Iestyn Woolway, Ph.D., of the European Space Agency Climate Office, United Kingdom.”

More information: Sapna Sharma et al, Loss of Ice Cover, Shifting Phenology, and More Extreme Events in Northern Hemisphere Lakes, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (2021). DOI: 10.1029/2021JG006348

Common Insecticide Kills Valuable Freshwater Insects

Leiden University:

“The widely used pesticide thiacloprid can cause a large-scale decline in freshwater insects. This was discovered by researchers from the Living Lab in Leiden. For three months they counted the flying insects in the 36 ditches of the lab. Their research appeared in PNAS.”

More information: S. Henrik Barmentlo et al, Experimental evidence for neonicotinoid driven decline in aquatic emerging insects, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2105692118

Emma Bryce: Fish for Food with Low Impact→

Anthropocene Magazine

“First, the major source of emissions in aquaculture is the production of feed for the farmed fish. In fact this accounted for a striking 70% of emissions for most farmed fish, most notably flatfish and crustaceans, the researchers found. The footprint is attributable to the land conversion and fertilizers that are needed to produce the feed, which are typically soybeans. This land-based food production also gives farmed fish a relatively high footprint where water use is concerned.

In wild-caught fisheries meanwhile, the primary emissions culprit is fuel-use for boats, especially true for high-seas industrial fleets that may travel long distances to capture fish.

This assessment also revealed which are the ‘greenest’ blue foods to consume. The researchers found that across all fish – farmed and wild-caught—the lowest-impact were farmed bivalves and seaweeds, mainly because they don’t need to be fed. In fact, their self-sufficiency gives them an ecosystem benefit, because shellfish and seaweed can remove nitrogen and phosphorus pollution—usually originating from terrestrial agriculture—from the water. What’s more, bivalves especially have some of the highest nutritional value of all available blue foods, presenting a clear win on all fronts.”

Jennifer Bojorhus: Minnesota's Environmental Review to Include Air Pollution→

Star Tribune:

GLEN STUBBE • STAR TRIBUNE

“As Minnesota ramps up the fight on climate change it will soon require developers to measure the greenhouse gases from large new projects.

The calculations will start in January as part of a nine-month pilot program to phase in detailed climate change questions into the state’s environmental reviews. The Minnesota Environmental Quality Board (EQB) approved the pilot approach Wednesday, after years of work. It plans to collect feedback and make improvements on the revised form, called an environmental assessment worksheet, by the end of 2022 and then set final changes.
”

Ceres: Risks to Banks from Climate Change→

Ceres:

“The report analyzes $2.2 trillion of exposure for syndicated loans. It finds that the annual value-at-risk from physical climate impacts on just the syndicated loan portfolios of major U.S. banks could approach 10 percent, and that two-thirds of banks’ physical risk comes from the indirect economic impacts of climate change, such as supply chain disruptions and lower productivity, with coastal flooding (driven by sea level rise and stronger storms) representing the largest source of direct risk.”

Ceres’s recommendations to banks can be found here.

Lauren Summer: Fossil Fuels Should Stay in the Ground to Reduce Disaster→

NPR:

Scott Heins

“With tens of thousands of people displaced by floods, wildfires and hurricanes this summer, researchers warn that the majority of untapped fossil fuels must remain in the ground to avoid even more extreme weather.

Fossil fuel producers should avoid extracting at least 90% of coal reserves and 60% of oil and gas reserves by 2050, according to a study published in Nature, to limit global temperature rise to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Even then, that gives the planet only a 50% chance of avoiding a climate hotter than that.

Global temperatures have already warmed about 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, due in large part to the burning of fossil fuels, which releases gases that trap heat in the atmosphere. As a result of the warming, droughts, storms and heat waves are becoming more extreme, causing a cascade of disasters.

The study finds that global coal and oil use would need to peak almost immediately and begin declining 3% annually until 2050. Even that rate is likely an underestimate of what’s needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, the study’s authors say.”

James Temple: How the World Already Addressed Climate Change→

MIT Technology Review

“In 1987, dozens of nations adopted the Montreal Protocol, agreeing to phase out the use of chlorofluorocarbons and other chemicals used in refrigerants, solvents, and other industrial products that were breaking down Earth’s protective ozone layer.

It was a landmark achievement, the most successful example of nations pulling together in the face of a complex, collective threat to the environment. Three decades later, the atmospheric ozone layer is slowly recovering, preventing additional levels of ultraviolet radiation that cause cancer, eye damage, and other health problems.

But the virtues of the agreement, ultimately ratified by every country, are more widespread than its impact on the ozone hole. Many of those chemicals are also powerful greenhouse gases. So as a major side benefit, their reduction over the last three decades has already eased warming and could cut as much as 1 ˚C off worldwide average temperatures by 2050.”