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Toxic Nanoplastics Found at North and South Poles

There is increasing alarm about the extent of microplastic pollution, which has been found everywhere from Everest to the Arctic.

However, it turns out there’s an even smaller and more toxic form of plastic pollution infiltrating remote reaches of the globe. A new study published in Environmental Research found significant quantities of nanoplastics in ice samples from both the North and South Poles.

“Now we know that nanoplastics are transported to these corners of the Earth in these quantities. This indicates that nanoplastics is really a bigger pollution problem than we thought,” study lead author Dušan Materić of the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric research Utrecht (IMAU) said in a press release.

December 29, 2021 Climate Change / Environment / Failed Policies / International / News & Updates / Oceans / Science & Society

‘The Fuse Has Been Blown,’ and the Doomsday Glacier Is Coming for Us All

But in the long run, it is not clear that the dynamics of ice sheet collapse that are underway at Thwaites can be stopped. As glaciologist Eric Rignot put it in 2015, in Antarctica, “the fuse has been blown.” Even if we cut carbon emissions to zero tomorrow, warm water will continue to flow beneath the ice sheet for decades, destabilizing the ice and further pushing the glacier toward eventual collapse. This doesn’t means that cutting carbon pollution to zero isn’t an important goal — nothing, in fact, is more important or more urgent. “We may have a small safety margin in Antarctica, but not a large one,” says Alley. Even if the fuse is blown, cutting emissions fast could slow it all down to a millennium-long crack-up that will give us more time to adapt. One way or another, our future is written in ice.

December 14, 2021 Climate Change / News & Updates / Oceans / Science & Society

Crucial Antarctic ice shelf could fail within five years, scientists say

“It’s upwardly mobile in terms of how much ice it could put into the ocean in the future as these processes continue,” said Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, and a leader of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC). He spoke to reporters via Zoom from McMurdo Station on the coast of Antarctica, where he is awaiting a flight to his field site atop the crumbling ice shelf.

“Things are evolving really rapidly here,” Scambos added. “It’s daunting.”

November 25, 2021 Climate Change / Environment / Failed Policies / Future Costs / International / Legislation / News & Updates

Epic Storms on Two Coasts Have Parliament Talking Climate Action, Adaptation

“If the last year has shown us anything, it’s the impacts of climate change are here sooner than expected and they’re devastating,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the House, promising to throw “the full power of government and the entire force of our commitment behind real, meaningful climate action.” That promise will include increased funding to municipalities through the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund, the Toronto Star reports.

“This is not about bad weather. This is about whether human civilization can survive,” said Saanich-Gulf Islands MP and former Green Party leader Elizabeth May, adding that her husband’s farm was sheltering climate refugees for the second time this year.

“No issue could be more riveting,” May said. “The stakes could not be higher.”

“The government speaks a lot about addressing climate change,” added Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon MP Brad Vis. “Here is the opportunity to back those words with action through resilient infrastructure, climate change adaptation, and mitigation for the 21st century. I call on the government to work with partners to rebuild Lytton, to fund critical infrastructure, and to empower First Nations to have more control over disaster management, because the current way of doing things is failing.”

November 14, 2021 Climate Change / Environment / Environmental justice / Future Costs / International / News & Updates / Policies / Social Justice / Time for Action is Now

After the failure of Cop26, there’s only one last hope for our survival

What we needed at the Cop26 climate conference was a decision to burn no more fossil fuels after 2030. Instead, powerful governments sought a compromise between our prospects of survival and the interests of the fossil fuel industry. But there was no room for compromise. Without massive and immediate change, we face the possibility of cascading environmental collapse, as Earth systems pass critical thresholds and flip into new and hostile states.

So does this mean we might as well give up? It does not. For just as the complex natural systems on which our lives depend can flip suddenly from one state to another, so can the systems that humans have created. Our social and economic structures share characteristics with the Earth systems on which we depend. They have self-reinforcing properties – that stabilise them within a particular range of stress, but destabilise them when external pressure becomes too great. Like natural systems, if they are driven past their tipping points, they can flip with astonishing speed. Our last, best hope is to use those dynamics to our advantage, triggering what scientists call “cascading regime shifts”.

Tag: Climate Change

©Ashley Cooper

Toxic Nanoplastics Found at North and South Poles

‘The Fuse Has Been Blown,’ and the Doomsday Glacier Is Coming for Us All

Crucial Antarctic ice shelf could fail within five years, scientists say

Epic Storms on Two Coasts Have Parliament Talking Climate Action, Adaptation