Biology
Breach
October 29, 2009, from San Diego Reader
In spring of 2008, scientists from Cal Poly discovered that about 10 percent of goby fish collected in Morro Bay were plagued by bulbous liver tumors. At the time they hypothesized the gobies were being poisoned by sewage runoff and a common chemical found in everything from detergents to spermicides. After some preliminary research, it looks as though their first guess was right and, perhaps, not broad enough in scope.
The chemical in question is called nonylphenol (pronounced “non-il-fe-NALL”). It results from chemical breakdowns, most commonly during sewage treatment processes. In fact, beyond being a suspected goby carcinogen, nonylphenol has been linked elsewhere as causing gender changes in gobies. The European Union all but banned the chemical in most uses and Canada officials labeled it as toxic. In the United States, however, nonylphenol is considered an inert ingredient...
October 29, 2009, from Environmental Health News
...Idling longer than one minute in a school zone is illegal in New York City for all vehicles, but the laws are rarely enforced. Before dismissal, around the corner on Madison Avenue, a produce delivery truck idled for several minutes, double-parked—all while a traffic enforcement cop stood two cars down.
Idling buses, cars and trucks may not seem like a big deal, but in New York City they spew out as much pollution as nine million diesel trucks driving from the Bronx to Staten Island, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. That’s roughly 130,000 tons of carbon dioxide, 940 tons of nitrogen oxide, 24 tons of soot particles, and 6,400 tons of carbon monoxide each year.
Vehicles running on diesel fuel release fine particulate matter and elemental carbon—also known as black carbon. In studies around the world, particulates have been linked to deaths from respiratory disease and heart attacks. Diesel exhaust also contains several carcinogens and other toxic substances.
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Climate
Chaos
October 29, 2009, from University of Pennsylvania via ScienceDaily
An international team of environmental scientists led by the University of Pennsylvania has shown that sea-level rise, at least in North Carolina, is accelerating. Researchers found 20th-century sea-level rise to be three times higher than the rate of sea-level rise during the last 500 years. In addition, this jump appears to occur between 1879 and 1915, a time of industrial change that may provide a direct link to human-induced climate change....the acceleration appears consistent with other studies from the Atlantic coast, though the magnitude of the acceleration in North Carolina is larger than at sites farther north along the U.S. and Canadian Atlantic coast and may be indicative of a latitudinal trend related to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
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Resource
Depletion
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Recovery
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