Dr Jack Garnett on the research expedition in the Arctic. Credit: Christian Morel
Known as ‘forever’ chemicals due to the fact they do not break down in the environment, poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are used in a wide range of products and processes from fire proofing to stain resistant surfaces.
The Lancaster University study has found them in the surface seawater close to melting Arctic ice floes at concentrations of up to two times higher than levels observed in the North Sea, even though the region of the Barents Sea under investigation was thousands of kilometers from populated parts of Europe.
The research has shown these chemicals have traveled not by sea, but through the atmosphere, where they accumulate in Arctic sea ice. Because Arctic ice is melting more quickly than before, these harmful chemicals are efficiently released into surrounding seawater resulting…
Male spending – on petrol and meat – is apparently worse for the environment than women’s. But it’s the system, not individuals, that needs to change
‘The problem isn’t that certain men spend more on motoring and meat – it’s the obsession with economic growth at any cost.’Photograph: Srinrat Wuttichaikitcharoen/Getty Images/EyeEm
Tue 27 Jul 2021 11.30 EDT
Sorry, boys, but it’s all your fault.Melting ice caps,flash floods,rising sea levels: men are to blame for the lot of it. Please don’t drown the messenger, I’m just relayingthe results of a Swedish studythat found that men’s spending habits cause 16% more climate-heating emissions than women’s. The biggest difference seems to be that men spend more money on petrol. Another big difference: the men surveyed bought more meat than women. So this is the way the world ends, eh? Not with a…
Many people got pets during pandemic, but if not trained properly developed behaviour problems
CBC News · Posted: Jul 19, 2021 8:02 AM ET | Last Updated: July 20
An animal rescue group in Sudbury says they’re seeing an increase in the number of dogs surrendered to them. Many of the animals were adopted over the pandemic and small bad habits turned into big behavioural problems. (Pet Save Sudbury )
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A northern Ontario pet rescue group says it’s had to start turning away unwanted dogs that were adopted during the pandemic.
Many people got pets during the pandemic, but Jill Pessot, director of Pet Save in Sudbury, says if they weren’t properly train or socialized it likely led to anti-social behaviour in the dogs, and now their owners don’t know what to do with them.
Jill Pessot, director of Pet Save in Sudbury, says they have 8 dogs with behavioural issues, which a 20-year record. Normally that number is 1 or 2. (Jan Lakes/CBC)
Some are posting online to try to sell their unwanted dogs.
“If you’re looking for a dog this year on the net — and there’s a bunch of them on there — be careful because there’s a reason they’re on there. If every [dog] was a perfect dog, they wouldn’t be on the internet,” she said.
Other owners are surrendering their new pets to shelters or rescue groups like Pet Save
“And now they’re coming into rescues because people, number one, couldn’t even enlist trainers for a while or didn’t know when to enlist that trainer,” Pessot said.
There are eight dogs in the Pet Save kennel with behaviour issues, where they normally only have one or two.
Pessot is getting calls daily about owners wanting to surrender animals to her, and she’s having to turn them away.
Patience and proper training helps
Many pet issues could be solved with patience and a good trainer to help.
Jacqueline Preyde is founder of Canine Intuition Training and Rehabilitation, a dog training service in Sudbury that specializes in behavioural correction.
Her biggest piece of advice to new dog owners is to crate-train their pooch.
“Crate training is a very useful tool, especially in a time where dogs are very dependent on their owners,” she said. “If you create the crate as a safe space it really helps with the transition with then having to leave the home.”
Preyde also suggests giving the dog something to lick or chew before you have to leave them at home by themselves. That provides mental stimulation and a distraction.
She warns new dog owners to do proper research on the breed they’re considering and methods for correct training, adding there are lots of great resources online.
“When it comes to certain behaviours though, I’m adamant about reaching out to a professional, just because we see a lot more anxiety and reactivity nowadays than we used to,” Preyde said.
“We just see a lot of people that don’t understand the magnitude of what a certain breed or what a puppy requires anymore.”
A person uses an umbrella for shade from the sun while walking near Pike Place Market, Tuesday, June 29, 2021, in Seattle. The unprecedented Northwest U.S. heat wave that slammed Seattle and Portland, Oregon, moved inland Tuesday — prompting an electrical utility in Spokane, Washington, to resume rolling blackouts amid heavy power demand. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
No other region in the country is warming faster than the western United States when it comes to increasing daytime highs, a trend that became apparent with the unprecedented and record-shattering heat wave that took over the Pacific Northwest earlier this summer.
Heat has been building all across the west this year. In June, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California all had record heat statewide. Salt Lake City had its warmest June in 74 years of records with an average temperature of 80.2 F, which is 8.6 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.
Seattle finished the month of June more than 5 degrees above average, while Portland, Oregon, closed out the month an astonishing 7 degrees above average, with the heat killing hundreds in the United States and Canada.
AccuWeather meteorologists explained five reasons for the heat across the West this summer.
Ongoing drought
Much of the Southwest, central Rockies and northern Plains were facing a severe drought, while pockets of drought also existed in the Pacific Northwest. The Southwest, in fact, has been in “decadal, long-term drought,” according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Paul Pastelok.
Drought conditions across the United States in mid-April, with severe to exceptional drought encompassing much of the Southwest. (U.S. Drought Monitor)
Drought in the spring helps to enhance the risk of extreme heat and drought in the summer due to a positive feedback mechanism. Since there is little moisture in the ground, more of the sun’s energy goes directly to heating the surface, drying out the surface even more.
Lack of monsoonal rain last summer
Monsoonal moisture provides key rainfall for the Southwest, and that moisture was greatly lacking in both 2020 and 2021. In the summer of 2020, the position of the upper high-pressure area over the Southwest was nearly stationary, causing prolonged heat and high evaporation rates that led to expanding drought conditions.https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=ADL1374184317
In a typical La Niña pattern, storms during the western wet season, which runs from October to April, tend to shift farther north, allowing points to the south to dry out. These impacts took hold in the latter part of the wet season, with dry conditions causing higher evaporation and creating higher pressure aloft, resulting in a stronger heat dome.
This year, though, the high pressure that typically builds over the Southwest was stronger in the West and helped to send record heat into the Northwest, northern Rockies and western Canada.
Above-normal water temps in the northeastern Pacific
Water temperatures may have also helped to play a role in causing intense heat in the West. A large area of above-normal sea-surface temperature anomalies has stretched across the northeastern Pacific near the West Coast this summer.
Map showing unusually warm sea-surface temperature anomalies (temperatures compared to normal in degrees Celsius) as of July 24, 2021. (NOAA)(NOAA)
“What this may have done is pulled the upper high pressure farther west most of the time (during the extreme heat in late June over the Northwest), which led to the intense heat in the western U.S. and western Canada,” Pastelok explained, describing the formation of a heat dome which helped to trap heat in the western U.S. and western Canada.
Climate change
Over the last 30 years, the greatest warming in terms of maximum temperatures in the months of June and July has occurred in the western United States, meaning that the record warmth these past few months is not terribly surprising.
The average summer temperature in Portland, Oregon has increased by 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 50 years. (Climate Central)
Increased warming in the region will help make a typical heat wave in the Pacific Northwest even worse. One recent study found that June’s heat wave would have been “virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.”
Car pollution(photo credit: REUTERS)Advertisementhttps://a787e037d6243c0c04ba899d111a4413.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.htmlA recent study based on computational models claims that within the next decade, global human welfare will begin to decline.The study was written by Gaya Herrington, a sustainability and dynamic system analysis researcher at the consulting firm KPMG, and published in the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology. According to the study, simple supply and demand raises the following problem: If the world’s economy and population continues at its current growth rate, the world’s natural resources will eventually run out. Then, the economy and population will begin to shrink in order to match its supply. A groundbreaking MIT study in 1972 titled “Limits to Growth” (LtG) was the first to try to solve the problem based on empirical data and computational analysis. The 1972 study created a computer model that analyzed global resource consumption and production based on used data from many fields, including population, fertility rates, pollution levels, food production, and industrial output.
Top ArticlesREAD MOREREAD MOREFlurry of Israeli Palestinian phone calls doesn’t spell peace ‑ 8 takeshttps://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.472.0_en.html#goog_736838594https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.472.0_en.html#goog_1019506851https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.472.0_en.html#goog_1141435868javascript:falseThe study then presented 12 possible scenarios for the future, based on different forecasts of human behavior. In most of the scenarios, incessant economic growth eventually overshoots the world’s natural resources, rendering further economic growth impossible. Personal welfare would then begin to decline as a result.”Business as Usual” (BaU) was one of the most famous of the 1972 scenarios. BaU predicted that global economic growth would continue as it had done before. When BaU was feeded into the computational models, the outcome was that around the 2040s the world’s economy will begin to lose ground, and the world’s population, food availability, and other resources would drop as a result.The 2020 study looked at today’s data and compared it to the 1972 predictions. The computer analysis showed that two of the 1972 predictions were very close to the current state of the global economy. One of them was BaU.According to the study: “The two scenarios aligning most closely with observed data indicate a halt in welfare, food, and industrial production over the next decade or so, which puts into question the suitability of continuous economic growth as humanity’s goal in the twenty-first century.”BaU does not necessary end in a total collapse of human society. the researchers explained in the study. But, it will still create a sharp economic downturn that could destabilize the world as we know it.However, according to the study, there is still another model within reach, if human behavior changes drastically.While this scenario is least aligned with the 2020 data, humans may decide to deliberately limit their own economic output before the dearth of natural resources forces them to. This includes, among others, having smaller families and limiting industrial pollution and consumption of natural resources.
Enjoy the video, below, of darling rescued river otter pups, but, care, go beyond, and please, if you haven’t already done so,we need you to submit comment, against Montana’s proposal to allow trappers to kill ~ 50% more River Otters in Western and Northwestern Montana.
Why is Fish, Wildlife, and Parks even proposing this? FWP writes, because they met with the Montana Trappers Association and Montana Fur Harvesters, and that they want to trap and kill more river otters. FWP goes on to state that from harvest reports and anecdotal information they believe the otter can handle it.
Comment Deadline Monday, 7/26, 5pm MST.
Submitpublic commentin opposition via email: fwpwld@mt.gov or FWcomm@mt.gov Subject line: River Otter proposals Montanans, be sure to let them know which town you are from, especially if in Region 1 or Region 2. Montanans can choose tosubmit public comment online. By clicking on…
Total animal deaths at rodeo and chuckwagon races have topped 100 since 1986
David Bell · CBC News · Posted: Jul 15, 2019 3:29 PM MT | Last Updated: July 15, 2019
Chuckwagon driver Chad Harden was disqualified from the Calgary Stampede after causing an accident on July 11, 2019, that led to a horse being put down. Chuckwagon horses make up more than two-thirds of the animal deaths at the Stampede. (CBC Sports)
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The 2019 Calgary Stampede is now tied for second place as the deadliest year for chuckwagon horses in more than three decades — with the total tally of animal deaths surpassing 100.
The latest deaths bring the total number of animals that have died during the rodeo and chuckwagon races at the Stampede since 1986 — when the most detailed records are available — to 102.
The Calgary Stampede declined requests to provide the organization’s own details on deaths through the years.
The most complete records available publicly are from the Vancouver Humane Society, which has added up the tally since 1986 using data from the Calgary Humane Society and media reports.
That gives it the unfortunate honour of tying with 2010 as having the second highest toll on chuckwagon horses. Chuckwagon horses make up more than two-thirds of the animal deaths at the Stampede.
The top of the list is 1986, when 12 horses died.
Two humans have also died in the competition since 1986: outrider Eugene Jackson in 1996 and wagon driver Bill McEwen in 1999. Both died of head injuries.
The Vancouver Humane Society says the total tally includes:
72 chuckwagon horses.
Nine calves.
Five steers.
Four bucking horses.
One wild ride horse.
One show horse.
One bull.
Outside of the Stampede itself, nine horses died in 2005 while being herded over a bridge on their way to the grounds.
The latest deaths prompted renewed calls from animal rights advocates and others for the Stampede to end chuckwagon races and the rodeo.
This graph tallies animal deaths, by year, at the Stampede. Use the drop-down menu to see the data by animal type:https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/TLADr/2/
The Calgary Stampede has launched a review in response to Sunday’s deaths. Last week, a chuckwagon driver who caused an accident that led to a horse being put down was fined $10,000 and banned from competing at future Stampedes.
The Stampede says it has made many changes over the years to increase the safety of animals and humans.
The Stampede’s roots can be traced to 1886, when the Calgary and District Agricultural Society held its first fair.
The 2019 Calgary Stampede ran July 5-July 14.
A tarp covers the scene of the accident that led to three horses being euthanized after a chuckwagon race at the Calgary Stampede on June 14, 2019. (Anis Heydari/CBC)
TORONTO — Reported methane emissions from animal agriculture underestimate the actual level of emissions in the atmosphere, a new environmental study finds.
A joint study by New York University and Johns Hopkins University found that the bottom-up method of methane emission testing used in Canada and the United States does not properly reflect emissions in the atmosphere, meaning they could be between 30 per cent to 90 per cent higher than what is reported.
“Government agencies, like Environment and Climate Change Canada or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, typically use what we call a bottom-up approach or an inventory approach in order to estimate emission of greenhouse gases,” says Scot Miller, secondary author of the study and professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins University, in an interview with CTV News.
The bottom-up approach to estimating methane gas emission involves tallying up populations of animals and determining, on average, how much methane a typical animal is producing, Miller says.
Those two quantities are then multiplied to produce estimates for total methane emissions from animal agriculture.
“An upside of this approach is that you get a really detailed process-based understanding of what processes are involved in greenhouse gas emissions,” Miller says. “People will, for example, go out and measure emissions from individual cows and understand how food sources impact emissions from cows.”
However, the study published in Environmental Research Letters, found that emission estimates produced using the bottom-up approach do not accurately record the amount of methane in the atmosphere.
“You can imagine, on the flip side of this, as you take these individual measurements and then extrapolate them to larger and larger scales, that there is a process or something that you might have missed,” says Miller.
The study found that when emission estimates from bottom-up approaches were compared to estimates produced using the more expensive top-down method of testing, there were significant discrepancies in the level of emissions reported.
A top-down approach to estimating the level of methane in the atmosphere involves measuring greenhouse gas emissions in the sky using planes, telecommunication towers and satellites, and then tracking the sources back to the ground.
“An upside of that approach is that if we can fly a plane over a landscape and measure methane across that landscape,” says Miller. “If there are emissions over that landscape there really isn’t anywhere [for it] to hide.”
However, Miller explains that the top-down approach also has some disadvantages.
“A downside of that approach is that if we use observations from an airplane that flew a kilometre above the Earth’s surface, we can’t necessarily determine whether those emissions came from a cow, or a pool of manure next door,” says Miller. “We kind of only get a board-scale view of the landscape.”
Matthew Hayek, lead author of the study and professor of environmental studies at New York University, says that the most accurate estimates will use aspects of both approaches.
“It’s a combination of the two,” says Hayek. “Improving both until they hone in on the same answer. We leave room in the study that the bottom-up estimates need to come up or that the top-down emissions might also have some bias in them that needs to come down.”
Hayek says that these underestimated reports of methane emissions have international implications, as the intensive farming found in Canada and the United States has slowly become the global standard, with countries like China and others in Southeast Asia looking to adopt North American farming practices.
“The reporting of this mismatch was not available outside of specific atmospheric chemistry and physics journals,” says Hayek.
“It was not being discussed by anyone who had a hand in the international development of taking our methods of animal agriculture production, that are predominantly used in the United States, where these mismatches occur, to countries where these technologies are currently being exported, including China, much of East and Southeast Asia.”
Miller says that the next step for researchers is to get a better understanding of why these two models differ and how scientists can produce more accurate readings of methane in the atmosphere.
“I think a potentially important first step is to take more intensive observations across multiple scales in order to get a better sense of why the top-down and bottom-up estimates disagree,” says Miller. “If this disagreement is due to how we estimate emissions from manure management or how we estimate emissions from animals themselves, those different sources would imply very different things about trying to mitigate emissions.”
Hayek says that it is important for governments to acknowledge this discrepancy and work to produce a more accurate reading of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
“Our role as scientists here is not to condemn or support but to warn,” says Hayek, “and this was a warning and a flagging of an issue that has not received a proportionate amount of attention.”RELATED IMAGES
This file photo shows cows in a dairy farm, Tuesday, September 25, 2018 in Saint-Henri-de-Taillon, Que. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Jacques Boissinot)
More heatwaves even worse than those seen recently in north-west of America forecast in research
Firefighters tackle the Bootleg fire, near Klamath Falls, Oregon on 17 July. Scientists say the world has yet to see the worst impacts possible from global heating.Photograph: US Forest Service/AFP/Getty Images
“Record-shattering” heatwaves, even worse than the one that recently hit north-west America, are set to become much more likely in future, according to research. The study is a stark new warning on the rapidly escalating risks the climate emergency poses to lives.
The shockingtemperature extremes suffered in the Pacific north-westand in Australia 2019-2020 were “exactly what we are talking about”, said the scientists. But they said the world had yet to see anything close to the worst impacts possible, even under the global heating that had already happened.
The study then presented 12 possible scenarios for the future, based on different forecasts of human behavior. In most of the scenarios, incessant economic growth eventually overshoots the world’s natural resources, rendering further economic growth impossible. Personal welfare would then begin to decline as a result.”Business as Usual” (BaU) was one of the most famous of the 1972 scenarios. BaU predicted that global economic growth would continue as it had done before. When BaU was feeded into the computational models, the outcome was that around the 2040s the world’s economy will begin to lose ground, and the world’s population, food availability, and other resources would drop as a result.The 2020 study looked at today’s data and compared it to the 1972 predictions. The computer analysis showed that two of the 1972 predictions were very close to the current state of the global economy.
