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Environmental Issues

It is the acid rain that is going to eat through everything.
 
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California shipping juvenile Chinook Salmon to the ocean by road

Due to drought reducing river levels making them too hot for young salmon to survive.

Other portions of the west coast are also experiencing severe drought that is affecting salmon stocks.

In Oregon, biologists with the Yurok tribe found 70% of juvenile Chinook salmon caught in a rotary screw trap for assessment were dead – something they say is extremely abnormal. The cause was a lethal pathogen, C shasta, linked to low water levels and higher temperatures. In mid-May, 98% of the salmon tested by the tribe were severely infected with the pathogen.

In California, the trucking operation means about 20% more salmon from Central Valley rivers will take wheels rather than fins to travel downstream, with a total of 16.8 million fish riding on 146 temperature-controlled truck loads between April and June. Chinook’s typical life cycle takes them from rivers to the ocean and back again over the course of three years.

Two populations of Chinook salmon are considered endangered on the west coast, and seven are considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Sustained drought conditions can also spell disaster, as the fish rely on colder water to keep their eggs viable. During the 2014 and 2015 drought, because levels were so low, water released from Lake Shasta rose to a temperature that killed almost all juvenile Chinook.

California is in the midst of its fourth-driest water year in state history, with most reservoirs at less than 50% of overall capacity, and some rivers flowing at just 30% of their average rate this spring.
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Noise pollution dealt with.

A village church clock which has chimed for 121 years has been muffled after a complaint.

A resident of Kenton in Devon complained about the nightly chimes from All Saints Church. The diocese said an environmental health team had measured the sound and it was louder than legally permitted.

The clock has been fitted with pads to "try to dull the sound" and further measuring would take place, said rector, the Reverend John Williams.

The anonymous complainant drew anger from some local people after saying the clock, which chimes hourly and every 15 minutes, was too loud.

Mr Williams said: "While some residents of Kenton don't mind hearing the clock striking at night and find it comforting, we are nonetheless obliged to comply with the law." ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-57453889
 
Noise pollution dealt with.

A village church clock which has chimed for 121 years has been muffled after a complaint.

A resident of Kenton in Devon complained about the nightly chimes from All Saints Church. The diocese said an environmental health team had measured the sound and it was louder than legally permitted.

The clock has been fitted with pads to "try to dull the sound" and further measuring would take place, said rector, the Reverend John Williams.

The anonymous complainant drew anger from some local people after saying the clock, which chimes hourly and every 15 minutes, was too loud.

Mr Williams said: "While some residents of Kenton don't mind hearing the clock striking at night and find it comforting, we are nonetheless obliged to comply with the law." ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-57453889
It seems that only a single complaint is enough these days.
 
Noise pollution dealt with.

A village church clock which has chimed for 121 years has been muffled after a complaint.

A resident of Kenton in Devon complained about the nightly chimes from All Saints Church. The diocese said an environmental health team had measured the sound and it was louder than legally permitted.

The clock has been fitted with pads to "try to dull the sound" and further measuring would take place, said rector, the Reverend John Williams.

The anonymous complainant drew anger from some local people after saying the clock, which chimes hourly and every 15 minutes, was too loud.

Mr Williams said: "While some residents of Kenton don't mind hearing the clock striking at night and find it comforting, we are nonetheless obliged to comply with the law." ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-57453889
Things like this do annoy me, i.mean, whoever complained must have been aware of the clock chimes whilst viewing the property prior to purchasing it, so why move there if the chimes annoy you?
 
Things like this do annoy me, i.mean, whoever complained must have been aware of the clock chimes whilst viewing the property prior to purchasing it, so why move there if the chimes annoy you?

Shouldn't the law apply to church clocks just as much as to noisy clubs etc? The buyer likely didn't realise they would have to suffer from he chimes at 2 am.
 
It seems that only a single complaint is enough these days.

It may not have been just one complaint but i any case the noise exceeded permitted levels. A Muezzin wouldn't be allowed to Loudly call the faithful to prayer at 3 am so the same rules should apply to the church.
 
Shouldn't the law apply to church clocks just as much as to noisy clubs etc? The buyer likely didn't realise they would have to suffer from he chimes at 2 am.
Apparently it does, but the difference is the clock in question has been happily chiming the quarters for 100+ years without any complaint, when i used to go to Amsterdam regularly i always stayed in an apartment in the red light district, one street over from 'The Oude Church' which chimes the quarters and i soon got used to it.
 
Apparently it does, but the difference is the clock in question has been happily chiming the quarters for 100+ years without any complaint, when i used to go to Amsterdam regularly i always stayed in an apartment in the red light district, one street over from 'The Oude Church' which chimes the quarters and i soon got used to it.

Oh, I probably would adjust to it as well. Some people are more sensitive regarding noise though and it was in breach of the permitted levels so it wasn't just a frivolous complaint (s).

Speaking of Amsterdam, I ate in a nice restaurant there, Bazar, a converted church. I see that it's closed.
 
Things are looking grim for indigenous tribes in Brazil.

At around midday on 11 May, Dario Kopenawa, an indigenous leader, received a desperate phone call from a remote village in the Brazilian Amazon. Palimiú has a population of about 1,000, who live in large communal houses on the banks of a river called Uraricoera. You can only reach it by plane, or after a long journey on a boat.

Kopenawa, from the Yanomami tribe, is used to hearing pleas for help from communities in the rainforest, but this one was different.
"They attacked us," a man said, "they almost killed us". They, Kopenawa was told, were garimpeiros, or illegal gold miners, who had arrived on seven motorboats, some carrying automatic weapons, and started shooting indiscriminately.
Hiding behind trees, the Yanomami fought back, using shotguns and bows. An indigenous man was grazed by a bullet in the head, Kopenawa learned, and four miners were injured. The attackers left after half an hour, but threatened to come back for revenge. Terrified, women fled into the dense jungle with their children to seek refuge. It was chaotic, and two boys, aged one and five, drowned.


Palimiú, located deep in the state of Roraima, sits on Brazil's largest indigenous reserve, which has an area similar to Portugal and 27,000 people. Mining is illegal there, but prospectors have always found ways to do their work. "Garimpeiros are all over the place," Kopenawa said. He avoids going to areas where they are because of death threats and, after the call, he alerted the authorities, saying something had to be done.
The next day, a team of federal police travelled to Palimiú on a small plane, and were joined by Junior Hekukari, who heads the local indigenous health council. As he was leaving the area, Hekukari spotted some boats drifting with their engines switched off, and he guessed they were trying to avoid being noticed. As the men in the vessels approached, they shot multiple times at the village.

"The agents screamed 'Police, police'," Hekukari told me, "but they didn't stop. They had no respect". The officers responded, and there was an intense gun fight. The group left five minutes later and nobody was injured. When Hekukari reported what had happened, Kopenawa was stunned. If even the police were being attacked, he said, none of his people was safe. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57157017
 

New York air quality among worst in world as haze from western wildfires shrouds city

Smoke from more than 80 major wildfires burning in the US west has caused hazy skies and plunging air quality in eastern American and Canadian cities including Philadelphia, Washington DC, Pittsburgh and Toronto, as well as New York, causing fiery sunrises and even bathing the moon in an unusual red tinge on Tuesday night.

On Wednesday morning, the air quality index surged to 157 in Manhattan, well above the threshold of 100 where health is considered to be threatened. Vulnerable people include pregnant women and the elderly, although even healthy people outside these groups can experience breathing difficulty, throat irritation and runny eyes when exposed to air this bad.

“I think it’s unusual to have this kind of haze, I don’t recall seeing this kind of thing,” said Greg Pope, professor of earth and environmental studies at Montclair State University, who added that he could not see Manhattan from his New Jersey office. “You can pretty much always see the skyline, at least a silhouette, if it’s a hazy day. This is, like, this is unprecedented.”

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A serious toxic leak.

A toxic leak from a massive diamond mine in Angola killed at least 12 people and left 4,500 sick, a minister in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo says.

The leak turned a tributary of the River Congo red and killed huge numbers of fish, which some people ate, said Environment Minister Eve Bazaiba. She said that DR Congo would seek damages but did not specify how much. There has been no public response so far from the Catoca mine's owners.

According to Reuters news agency, the mine produces about 75% of Angola's diamonds. After a reservoir containing toxic by-products from the mine leaked in late July, the Tshikapa river across the border in DR Congo turned red killing hippos, fish, and other animals.

Ms Bazaiba said there were "tonnes of dead fish floating on the river... and then the first reflex was to take the fish".

Officials in Kasai province banned people from drinking water and eating fish from the river but about a million people were affected.
Communities living on the river banks suffered from diarrhoea and other health problems.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58432578
 
A serious toxic leak.

A toxic leak from a massive diamond mine in Angola killed at least 12 people and left 4,500 sick, a minister in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo says.

The leak turned a tributary of the River Congo red and killed huge numbers of fish, which some people ate, said Environment Minister Eve Bazaiba. She said that DR Congo would seek damages but did not specify how much. There has been no public response so far from the Catoca mine's owners.

According to Reuters news agency, the mine produces about 75% of Angola's diamonds. After a reservoir containing toxic by-products from the mine leaked in late July, the Tshikapa river across the border in DR Congo turned red killing hippos, fish, and other animals.

Ms Bazaiba said there were "tonnes of dead fish floating on the river... and then the first reflex was to take the fish".

Officials in Kasai province banned people from drinking water and eating fish from the river but about a million people were affected.
Communities living on the river banks suffered from diarrhoea and other health problems.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58432578
Toxic? What is toxic in a diamond mine?
OK, maybe if there was a lot of arsenic in the soil...
 
Here are some additional details from a 20 August Reuters report. The toxic material is characterized as heavy metals.
Angola mine leak causes 'unprecedented' pollution in Congo rivers, researchers say

A suspected leak of heavy metals from a mine in northern Angola is causing an "unprecedented environmental catastrophe", affecting some 2 million people in Democratic Republic of Congo, researchers at Kinshasa University said on Friday.

Analysis of satellite imagery and interviews indicate a reservoir used to store mining pollutants was breached on July 15 in a diamond-mining area straddling Lunda Sul and Lunda Norte provinces in Angola, said Raphael Tshimanga, director of The Congo Basin Water Resources Research Centre (CRREBaC). ...

"We have never seen such huge pollution in the Congo river," Tshimanga said by phone. "It is still increasing, the consequences are beyond what we could imagine. This is a catastrophe. It's an unprecedented environmental catastrophe." ...

The discolouration of the waterways appears to have been caused by a toxic substance spill at an industrial diamond mine in Angola, Congo's environment minister Eve Bazaiba said in a statement on Aug. 9. ...

"We can confidently say that this pollution is from heavy metals that have surged into the river and our worry is that it should get into the food chain," CRREBaC's Tshimanga said. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.reuters.com/world/afric...tion-congo-rivers-researchers-say-2021-08-20/
 
Here are some additional background details from Reuters on 23 August.
Waste from Angola's Catoca diamond mine leaked into waterways last month

Waste material from Angola's biggest diamond mine leaked into a river last month, filling waterways with sediment before the breach was sealed, Sociedade Mineira de Catoca (Catoca Mining Company) said in a statement seen by Reuters on Monday. ...

Catoca said in a statement, dated Aug. 9 and seen by Reuters on Monday, that tailings were seen to have leaked into the Lova river on July 27 following a rupture in a spillway for the mine waste dam.

The company said it immediately sought to repair it, built two dykes to filter sediment out of the water and by Aug. 9 the breach was sealed. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.reuters.com/business/en...-leaked-into-waterways-last-month-2021-08-23/

Here's the latest update from Reuters on 2 September.
Congo says Angola tailings pollution kills 12, to seek compensation

The Democratic Republic of Congo will seek compensation from the owners of an Angolan diamond mine after a tailings dam leak polluted drinking water, causing 12 deaths and making thousands of people ill, the country's environment minister said on Thursday.

The late-July leak from Angola's biggest diamond mine turned a tributary of the Congo River red following a rupture in a spillway for the mine's tailings dam, which stores mining industry waste meant to stay undisturbed. ...

Congo ... will seek compensation in line with the "polluter pays" principle, where those who produce pollution should bear the cost of mitigating it, Eve Bazaiba told a media conference after visiting the country's southern Kasai province.

Bazaiba said she could not yet say how much in damages the country could seek. She said 4,400 people had fallen ill. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.reuters.com/world/afric...llowing-angola-mine-tailings-leak-2021-09-02/
 
Northward Bound Dragonflies.

Dragonflies are moving northwards across Britain and Ireland as temperatures rise.

More than 40% of species have increased their distribution since 1970, while only about 10% have declined, according to a new report. Experts from the British Dragonfly Society say it's an indicator of the effects of climate change. There is concern over the loss of populations of insects due to factors such as pollution and habitat loss.

Conservation officer Eleanor Colver said while their data can determine where dragonflies are, it cannot determine exactly how many there are - and whether numbers have increased overall.

"Factors such as the use of pesticides (reducing their flying insect prey), water pollution and habitat loss continue to threaten the health of dragonfly populations within species' existing ranges," she said.

The report, State of Dragonflies 2021, incorporates 1.4 million records from 17,000 recorders gathered from 1970 onwards.
It assesses the fortunes of 46 species of dragonflies and their close relative - the damselflies - across Britain and Ireland.

Since 1995, several species have reached Britain from southern Europe for the first time - and at least two more have reappeared after long absences.

Species expanding their range include the emperor dragonfly, migrant hawker, ruddy darter, black-tailed skimmer and small red-eyed damselfly.

In contrast, some upland and northern dragonflies are in retreat, including the common hawker and black darter, perhaps because of the loss of peatbogs or extreme droughts.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58462181
 

Animals ‘shapeshifting’ in response to climate crisis, research finds​


"Animals are increasingly “shapeshifting” because of the climate crisis, researchers have said.

Warm-blooded animals are changing their physiology to adapt to a hotter climate, the scientists found. This includes getting larger beaks, legs and ears to better regulate their body temperature."



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-in-response-to-climate-crisis-research-finds
 

The world’s biggest carbon-sucking machine is switching on in Iceland​

"The largest DAC plant in the world will open Sept. 8 in Iceland. Operated by the Swiss engineering startup Climeworks, the plant, known as Orca, will annually draw down a volume of emissions equivalent to about 870 cars. Orca will boost total global DAC capacity by about 50%, adding to the dozen or so smaller plants that are already operational in Europe, Canada, and the US.

The plant is composed of eight boxes about the size of shipping containers, each fitted with a dozen fans that pull in air. CO2 is filtered out, mixed with water, and pumped into deep underground wells, where over the course of a few years it turns to stone, effectively removing it from circulation in the atmosphere."

https://qz.com/2055951/climeworks-is-opening-the-worlds-biggest-carbon-removal-machine/
 
The real heroes fight and die unsung but Greta grabs the headlines and the prizes.

A record number of activists working to protect the environment and land rights were murdered last year, according to a report by a campaign group.

227 people were killed around the world in 2020, the highest number recorded for a second consecutive year, the report from Global Witness said. Almost a third of the murders were reportedly linked to resource exploitation - logging, mining, large-scale agribusiness, hydroelectric dams and other infrastructure.

The report called the victims "environmental defenders" killed for protecting natural resources that need to be preserved, including forests, water supplies and oceans.

Since the Paris Agreement on climate change was signed in 2015, the organisation says on average four activists have been killed each week.
It said this "shocking figure" was likely to be an underestimate because of growing restrictions on journalists and other civic freedoms.

Logging was the industry linked to the most murders with 23 cases - with attacks in Brazil, Nicaragua, Peru and the Philippines. Indigenous peoples, most often on the frontline of climate change, accounted for a further one third of cases. Colombia had the highest recorded attacks, with 65 people killed last year.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58508001
 
Eels could be suffering from drug overdoses at Glastonbury.

"Environmentally damaging levels of drugs have been found in the river running through the Glastonbury Festival site.

Scientists have warned there are "dangerous" levels of MDMA and cocaine in the Whitelake River in Somerset.

They suspect public urination has caused the increase and urged festival goers to use the toilets provided.

Researchers fear it could derail the conservation efforts of rare European eels in the area.

Measurements both upstream and downstream of the site were taken before, during and after the festival in 2019."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-58710377
 
Sewage pumped into the sea

Drone footage from Langstone Harbour in Hampshire - they’re apparently currently allowed to at high rainfall/high tide times, but it happens all over the country.

Last year there were 400,000 incidents of sewage dumped into rivers & sea.
 
Sewage pumped into the sea

Drone footage from Langstone Harbour in Hampshire - they’re apparently currently allowed to at high rainfall/high tide times, but it happens all over the country.

Last year there were 400,000 incidents of sewage dumped into rivers & sea.
I saw that on the local news, according the the witness it was pumping the sewage for 49 hours non-stop :(
 
Genuine Activist Gets Death Threats.

COP26: Indigenous Amazon activist 'got death threats' after speech​

"I think I said the right words because they attacked me."

This is how Txai Suruí feels looking back on the speech she made to open the United Nations climate change conference, COP26. As a climate activist who grew up as part of an indigenous community in the Amazon rainforest, she spoke to world leaders about the direct impacts of climate change that her tribe is already experiencing.

But after the speech she was publicly criticised by Brazilian President Jair Bolsanaro, for "attacking Brazil". This prompted many people to send her abuse on social media.

She spoke to BBC health, science and environment reporter Laura Foster.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-latin-america-59166607
 
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