The Guardian: "‘People do not want to believe it is true’: the photographer capturing the vanishing of glaciers"

glaciers in Svalbard were melting

"Standing in blinding sunlight on an archipelago above the Arctic Circle, the photographer Christian Åslund looked in shock at a glacier he had last visited in 2002. It had almost completely disappeared.

Two decades ago Greenpeace asked Åslund to use photographs taken in the early 20th century, and photograph the same views in order to document how glaciers in Svalbard were melting due to global heating. The difference in ice density in those pictures, taken almost a century apart, was staggering.

This summer he visited those same places again, 22 years later, to find that the glaciers had visibly shrunk again.

“In 2002, climate change wasn’t as well known as it is now, so that was a compete shock when we saw it,” he says. “And then I didn’t know what to expect going back this time. But seeing all the glaciers, we really saw the difference from these last 22 years. There is a massive amount of glacier ice that has disappeared.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/05/people-do-not-want-to-believe-it-is-true-the-photographer-capturing-the-vanishing-of-glaciers

“We want to change how flood risk is communicated in this country"

"Floods affecting much of the south-east US show the destructive force of higher sea levels and warmer temperatures. Now, researchers at the non-profit Climate Central are using artificial intelligence to predict how climate-related flooding will affect US communities into the next 75 years if warming continues at its current pace.

Previous research has shown that by 2050, sea levels along the US coastline could rise as much as 12in (30cm) from 2020 levels. High-tide flooding, which can occur even in sunny weather, is projected to triple by 2050, and so-called 100-year floods may soon become annual occurrences in New England.

The scale of the threat is difficult to fathom, said Ben Strauss, CEO and chief scientist at Climate Central. He hopes new AI imagery will help.

“We want to change how flood risk is communicated in this country,” Strauss said. “When the picture [is] of a local site that you know and are familiar with, that’s when the stakes really make themselves apparent.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/03/flooding-us-cities-2100

Provincetown street view today

Provincetown street view - projected flooding view 2100

"greenwashing from oil and gas companies that has severely underestimated the emissions"

"Exported gas emits far more greenhouse gas emissions than coal, despite fossil-fuel industry claims it is a cleaner alternative, according to a major new research paper that challenges the controversial yet rapid expansion of gas exports from the US to Europe and Asia.

Coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels when combusted for energy, with oil and gas producers for years promoting cleaner-burning gas as a “bridge” fuel and even a “climate solution” amid a glut of new liquefied natural gas (or LNG) terminals, primarily in the US.

But the research, which itself has become enmeshed in a political argument in the US, has concluded that LNG is 33% worse in terms of planet-heating emissions over a 20-year period compared with coal.

“The idea that coal is worse for the climate is mistaken – LNG has a larger greenhouse gas footprint than any other fuel,” said Robert Howarth, an environmental scientist at Cornell University and author of the new paper.

“To think we should be shipping around this gas as a climate solution is just plain wrong. It’s greenwashing from oil and gas companies that has severely underestimated the emissions from this type of energy.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/04/exported-liquefied-natural-gas-coal-study

Go directly to the research paper ->   https://scijournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ese3.1934

"greenwashing from oil and gas companies that has severely underestimated the emissions"

Possible change in fluoridation practices with recent legal ruling

"For decades, drinking water fluoridation opponents were often portrayed as a fringe element and conspiracy theorists, but a federal ruling in the US may put an end to the practice and marks a pivotal point in their campaign to convince the public and policymakers of the substance’s dangers for infants’ developing brains.

Armed with a growing body of scientific evidence pointing toward fluoride’s neurotoxicity, public health advocates say the legal win shows they are overcoming “institutional inertia” and the unwillingness of federal public health agencies to admit they may have been wrong.

Possible change in fluoridation practices with recent legal ruling

The order last week requiring the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to begin the process of strengthening fluoride regulations represents a “landmark” legal win that has long been in the making, said Stuart Cooper, director of the Fluoridation Action Network advocacy group.

“After many years of them ignoring us and defending fluoridation, we had an opportunity to get a fair and balanced adjudication in courts,” Cooper said."

....

“The key takeaway for the public and public health community from this ruling is that it does not conclude with any certainty that fluoridated water is injurious to public health.” 

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/04/fluoridation-water-epa-risk-assessement

Instagram rules changes not going far enough

The Guardian: "It’s not a solution for teen girls like me’: Instagram’s new under-18 rules met with skepticism"

"Sevey Morton first got an Instagram account when she was 10 years old. She used it to keep up with friends, but also to follow pop culture trends. Now 16, the San Diego high schooler says all the airbrushed perfection and slickly edited selfies from celebrities and influencers made her hyper-focused on her appearance, causing anxiety and body image issues.

“Being exposed to that at a very young age impacted the way I grew into myself,” Morton said. “There is a huge part of me that wishes social media did not exist.”

Morton’s struggles inspired her film-maker mother, Laura, to direct Anxious Nation, a documentary on America’s so-called anxiety epidemic among adolescents. When Morton heard last week that Meta set new rules for teen accounts, she thought it was a good start – but not a solution.

Meta, which owns Instagram, rolled out changes that give parents the ability to set daily time limits on the app and block teens from using Instagram at night. Parents can also see the accounts their children message, along with the content categories they view. Teen accounts are now private by default, and Meta said “sensitive content” – which could range from violence to influencers hawking plastic surgery – will be “limited”.

Shared from (subscription may be required) ->   https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/sep/23/meta-instagram-teen-account-rules

Meta’s new rules for Instagram come amid a so-called anxiety epidemic among young people, which is found to be exacerbated by prolonged social media use. Photograph: miljko/Getty Images

The Guardian: "Earth may have breached seven of nine planetary boundaries, health check shows"

"Industrial civilisation is close to breaching a seventh planetary boundary, and may already have crossed it, according to scientists who have compiled the latest report on the state of the world’s life-support systems.

“Ocean acidification is approaching a critical threshold”, particularly in higher-latitude regions, says the latest report on planetary boundaries. “The growing acidification poses an increasing threat to marine ecosystems.”

The report, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), builds on years of research showing there are nine systems and processes – the planetary boundaries – that contribute to the stability of the planet’s life-support functions.

Thresholds beyond which they can no longer properly function have already been breached in six. Climate change, the introduction of novel entities, change in biosphere integrity and modification of biogeochemical flows are judged to be in high-risk zones, while planetary boundaries are also transgressed in land system change and freshwater change but to a lesser extent. All have worsened, according to the data.

Stratospheric ozone depletion has remained stable, however, and there has been a slight improvement in atmospheric aerosol loading, the research says."

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/23/earth-breach-planetary-boundaries-health-check-oceans

The full press release can be found -> https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/earth-exceed-safe-limits-first-planetary-health-check-issues-red-alert

Planetary Health Check 2024. Design: Globaïa

Three US states call on environmental agency to regulate PFAS air emissions | US news | The Guardian

"Three US states are formally demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) begin regulating PFAS “forever chemical” air emissions, as the toxic threat that the pollution poses to the environment and human health comes into sharper focus.

So far, federal regulators have focused on water pollution, but state environmental agencies in North Carolina, New Mexico and New Jersey last week filed a petition calling for the EPA to categorize four types of PFAS compounds as hazardous air pollutants and to begin regulating them under the Clean Air Act.

The petition comes after a Guardian investigation earlier this year found a Fayetteville, North Carolina, Chemours PFAS production plant is likely emitting much higher levels of the chemicals into the air than regulators and the company claimed. The air pollution is thought to be a driver of PFAS contamination in soil, water and food supplies across hundreds of square miles in the region.

However, a lack of federal rules makes it difficult for states to rein in air pollution, which is a “tremendous concern in our states and across the US”, the states wrote in their petition to Michael Regan, the EPA administrator."

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/16/epa-pfas-emissions

Three US states call on environmental agency to regulate PFAS air emissions | US news | The Guardian

Six high school football players have died in recent weeks. It’s time to take action | US sports | The Guardian

"Six teenagers have now died while playing school football in less than three weeks. This astonishing rash of football-related school deaths should be understood as nothing less than a public health emergency. It is also a clarion call to question why we are exposing our young people to such a dangerous activity at all, much less in institutions designed to care for and nurture them.

The first four of these recent deaths were due to apparently heat-related causes and the latest two due to head trauma. Five of the athletes were high schoolers, the eldest only 16, and one was a 13-year-old eighth-grade student. The young athletes who died were Ovet Gomez-Regalado, age 15, in Kansas City; Semaj Wilkins, age 14, in Alabama; Jayvion Taylor, age 15, in Virginia; Leslie Noble, age 16, in Maryland; Caden Tellier, age 16, in Alabama; and Cohen Craddock, age 13, in West Virginia.

This is in addition to the death of 18-year-old college freshman Calvin Dickey Jr, who died on 12 July, two days after passing out at a Bucknell University practice from sickle cell-related rhabdomyolysis.

There should be no sugar-coating what has transpired here, nor any claims of coincidence. We already know that football can cause life-altering harm. Between 2018 and 2022, at least 11 amateur or professional football players have died in the US from heat-related causes. We also know that every 2.6 years of participation in tackle football – a sport many American kids are enrolled in as young as five – doubles the chances of contracting the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). We also now know that football players have a 61% greater chance compared to athletes in other organized sports to develop Parkinson’s disease, a risk that is 2.93 times higher for college and professional players."

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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/aug/29/high-school-football-deaths-public-health-crisis

WHO to scrap weak PFAS drinking water guidelines after alleged corruption | US news | The Guardian

"Many independent scientists charged that the proposed WHO drinking water guidelines for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) were weak, did not fully protect human health, ignored credible research, and were far above limits set by regulators in the US and EU. The guidelines would have allowed far more PFAS in drinking water than what is allowed by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Though the earlier guidelines were drafts, and proposed rules all go through a revision process, the WHO is conducting an entirely new review of scientific literature and disbanded the panel of scientists who developed the draft guidelines. It established a new panel with fewer industry-linked scientists and more regulatory officials, moves that have not happened in other revisions, said Betsy Southerland, a former EPA manager in the agency’s water division.

“This is unprecedented, but the WHO got unprecedented criticism,” Southerland said."

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/13/world-health-organization-pfas-drinking-water-health-guidelines

WHO to scrap weak PFAS drinking water guidelines after alleged corruption | US news | The Guardian

The Guardian: "Peel those apples: washing produce doesn’t remove pesticides, study finds"

"A new scientific report lends weight to consumer concerns about pesticide residues on food, presenting fresh evidence that washing fruit before eating does not remove various toxic chemicals commonly used in agriculture.

The paper, published on Wednesday in the American Chemical Society’s journal Nano Letters, comes amid ongoing debate over the extent of pesticide contamination of food, and the potential health risks associated with a steady diet that includes pesticide residues.

In May, Consumer Reports said it had determined that 20% of 59 different fruit and vegetable categories carried pesticide residues at levels that posed “significant risks” to consumers, based on an analysis of data gathered by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The central aim of the new paper is to share the technical details of a process the authors developed for enhanced trace detection of pesticides in foods. But the underlying finding about the ineffectiveness of washing fruit is important for consumers who may be relying on food safety practices that are insufficient, the authors said.

Traditional “fruit-cleaning operations cannot wholly remove pesticides”, the paper states."

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/08/clean-fruit-vegetables-pesticides

Direct link to the report -> https://www.thenewlede.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/080724VisualizingPesticides.pdf

Figure 1. Preparation of the NWCM-Ag membrane. (a) Preparation of NWCM-Ag through confined air-drying of the aligned cellulose hydrogel.The schematic was created by author Zewan Lin through 3D Studio Max software. (b, c) Surface morphologies of NWCM-Ag using SEM andAFM characterizations. (d) Large-scale demonstration of NWCM-Ag. (e) Comparison of light transmittance and flexibility between differentmembranes. (f) Comprehensive performance analysis of NWCM-Ag based on comparison with representative SERS substrates.

Follow the money

"For-profit colleges fund lawmakers who led attack on top universities over campus protests" 

As antisemitism hearings on college campuses ignited late last year, US representatives Elise Stefanik and Virginia Foxx seized the spotlight, relentlessly attacking Harvard, Columbia and other top universities, portraying them as unsafe and incompetent.

“We must DEFUND the rot in America’s higher education,” Stefanik insisted in December, while co-authoring a bill that would withdraw federal funding from universities that do not participate in plans to curb campus protests. Foxx made similar calls.

A little-considered group of Stefanik and Foxx political allies and donors quietly benefited: the “for-profit” college industry.

The industry, which includes schools such as Keiser University, has drawn intense congressional and administrative scrutiny for predatory practices that frequently leave students with worthless degrees while enriching shareholders in recent decades. The industry is composed of schools that either are for-profit and have shareholders, or are formerly for-profit schools that became non-profits to evade regulations, but which still maintain relationships with for-profit entities.

Continue reading the article at The Guardian ->

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/02/elise-stefanik-virginia-foxx-funding

Utah’s Great Salt Lake rings climate alarm bells over release of 4.1m tons of carbon dioxide | Climate crisis | The Guardian

Via The Guardian: 

For years, scientists and environmental leaders have been raising alarm that the Great Salt Lake is headed toward a catastrophic decline.

Now, new research points to the lake’s desiccating shores also becoming an increasingly significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists have calculated that dried out portions of the lakebed released about 4.1m tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in 2020, based on samples collected over seven months that year.

Their study, published last month in the journal One Earth, suggests that the Great Salt Lake – which is the largest saltwater lake in the western hemisphere – and other shrinking saline lakes across the world could become major contributors of climate-warming emissions. The research also adds to a dire list of environmental consequences brought on by the lake’s precipitous decline.

Last year, environmental and community groups sued Utah officials over failures to save the famous lake from irreversible collapse. In recent decades, as more and more water has been diverted away from the lake to irrigate farmland, feed industry and water lawns, a report last year estimated that the lake had lost 73% of its water and 60% of its surface area. Its decline was accelerated by global heating and a mega-drought in the US south-west.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/02/great-salt-lake-shrinking-greenhouse-gas-emissions

The Great Salt Lake, near Salt Lake City, Utah, has lost more than 70% of its water. Photograph: Rick Bowmer/AP

The Guardian: ‘This used to be a beautiful place’: how the US became the world’s biggest fossil fuel state

"To witness how the United States has become the world’s unchallenged oil and gas behemoth is to contemplate the scene from John Allaire’s home, situated on a small spit of coastal land on the fraying, pancake-flat western flank of Louisiana.

Allaire’s looming neighbor, barely a mile east across a ship channel that has been pushed into the Gulf of Mexico, is a hulking liquified natural gas (or LNG) plant, served by leviathan ships shuttling its chilled cargo overseas. Another such terminal lies a few miles to the west, yet another to the north. The theme continues even in Allaire’s seaward vista – alongside a boneyard of old oil rigs, a new floating offshore LNG platform is in the works.

“I’m pretty much surrounded,” said Allaire, a retired oil industry engineer who has a trailer, a couple of friendly dogs, and a patch of marshland and beach in Cameron parish. Yet another gas export plant is planned just a few hundred yards from Allaire’s property, while his existing imposing neighbor, which Allaire compares to Las Vegas due to its incandescent flaring of gas into the night’s sky, is on track to expand to become one of the largest such facilities in the world.

“We don’t really have a Gulf coast in the US,” said Allaire. “We have the east coast, the west coast and the carbon coast. This is simply a sacrifice zone for the oil and gas industry.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/24/fossil-fuel-liquified-natural-gas-louisiana

No country has ever in history produced as much oil and gas as the US does now and Louisiana is ground zero

Your food is more expensive – are US corporate profits to blame? | Inflation | The Guardian

"As inflation shot to its peak around mid-2022, Chipotle’s prices also rose, pushing up what customers paid for burritos and bowls by as much as several dollars. Since then, the fast casual restaurant’s costs have broadly fallen. Prices have not.

Chipotle’s decision to maintain high prices helped boost profits 110% in recent years, while its executives boasted to investors that they raised prices higher than inflationary costs.

Chipotle’s sparkling financials are representative of much of the food industry, according to a Guardian analysis of financial documents and earning calls transcripts from 36 top US food corporations.

It reveals that while you may be feeling the pain from high prices at restaurants and supermarkets, many companies making and selling the products are doing remarkably well. Most have seen their profits jump as they continue raising prices on customers, the analysis found.

Some companies say they have no choice but to pass inflationary pain on to consumers. Others, however, acknowledge they are exploiting the inflationary atmosphere to raise prices, or to shrink product sizes, a strategy dubbed “shrinkflation”.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/26/food-price-inflation-corporate-profit

Your food is more expensive – are US corporate profits to blame? | Inflation | The Guardian

PFAS widely added to US pesticides despite EPA denial, study finds | PFAS | The Guardian

"Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” are widely added to pesticides, and are increasingly used in the products in recent years, new research finds, a practice that creates a health threat by spreading the dangerous compounds directly into the US’s food and water supply.

The analysis of active and inert ingredients that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved for use in pesticides proves recent agency claims that the chemicals aren’t used in pesticides are false.

The researchers also obtained documents that suggest the EPA hid some findings that show PFAS in pesticides.

About 14% of all active ingredients in the country’s pesticides are PFAS, a figure that has doubled to more than 30% of all ingredients approved during the last 10 years."

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/23/pfas-pesticides-epa-research

A person sprays pesticide in Miami Beach, Florida, in 2016. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

‘You can’t have barriers’: is pay-to-play having a corrosive effect on US soccer? | USA | The Guardian

"The term ‘pay-to-play’ essentially refers to the often exorbitant fees required of the parents and carers of young people participating in organized youth sports. In soccer, youth clubs can typically cost families thousands of dollars a year with coaching costs, administration fees and travel expenses. Clubs in California have a sticker price ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 a year.

It has long been suggested by those who oppose pay-to-play that the system is too restrictive; that to breed a healthy soccer culture within the US and, ultimately, capture the best talent for the national teams, more children need to have access to the sport.

“Unfortunately the model, I believe, is getting worse in soccer than when I played competitive soccer [growing up],” Alex Morgan said in 2019. “It’s a very inexpensive sport and the fact that we’ve made youth soccer a business is, I think, detrimental to the sport.”

A study by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association in 2018 found that more than 70% of children within the pay-to-play system came from households who earned more than $50,000 a year; 33% came from households making more than $100,000 a year."

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https://www.theguardian.com/football/article/2024/jul/23/you-cant-have-barriers-is-pay-to-play-having-a-corrosive-affect-on-us-soccer

Young players have been priced out of expensive private clubs. Photograph: Washington Post/Getty Images

The Guardian: "Rising sea levels will disrupt millions of Americans’ lives by 2050, study finds"

"Floods could leave coastal communities in states like Florida and California unlivable in two decades

Sea level rise driven by global heating will disrupt the daily life of millions of Americans, as hundreds of homes, schools and government buildings face frequent and repeated flooding by 2050, a new study has found.

Almost 1,100 critical infrastructure assets that sustain coastal communities will be at risk of monthly flooding by 2050, according to the new research by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The vast majority of the assets – 934 of them – face the risk of flood disruption every other week, which could make some coastal neighborhoods unlivable within two to three decades.

Almost 3 million people currently live in the 703 US coastal communities with critical infrastructure at risk of monthly disruptive flooding by 2050, including affordable and subsidized housing, wastewater treatment facilities, toxic industrial sites, power plants, fire stations, schools, kindergartens and hospitals."

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/25/rising-sea-levels-flooding

The map that is part of this report ->  https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/6ca511bc6cd14ce8a4a6e18b769fb802

The Guardian: "Rising sea levels will disrupt millions of Americans’ lives by 2050, study finds"

The Guardian: Beware QR code scams

"Look before you scan – the QR code scammers are phishing for business"

Here’s a familiar scenario. You’re going to a meeting in an unfamiliar part of town. You’re running late and it’s raining. And there isn’t a car park in sight. Ah, but here’s some on-street parking and you gratefully pull into the empty bay. Now all you have to do is pay for a couple of hours and then scuttle along to your meeting. But the parking meter (of course) no longer takes coins. This is the 21st century, after all.

No worries – you can pay by phone. There are notices plastered all over the meter on how to pay using an app that – of course – you have not yet downloaded. The rain is getting heavier and there’s no mobile signal. You’re getting increasingly flustered. And then you spot that there’s a Quick Response (QR) code – a nice (if incomprehensible) square with lots of funny squares and spaces – on one side of the meter. Phew! All you have to do is scan it and you’ll be through to a website in no time. So you do and you are. Job done. Relax.

Continue reading the article online ->  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/08/qr-code-scammers-phishing-quick-response-cybersecurity

The Guardian: Beware QR code scams

Teens who discovered new way to prove Pythagoras’s theorem uncover even more proofs | US news | The Guardian

"Two college freshmen who, during their final year of high school, found a new way to prove Pythagoras’s theorem by using trigonometry – which mathematicians for generations thought was impossible – have since uncovered multiple more such proofs, they revealed in a national interview on Sunday.

“We found five, and then we found a general format that could potentially produce at least five additional proofs,” Calcea Johnson said on CBS’s 60 Minutes, a little more than a year after she and Ne’Kiya Jackson collaborated on an accomplishment that earned them international recognition.

Nonetheless, in comments that stunned their interviewer, Bill Whitaker, the two graduates of St Mary’s Academy in New Orleans denied seeing themselves as math geniuses and dismissed any interest in pursuing careers in mathematics." 

Continue reading the article online -> 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/06/pythagoras-theorem-proof-new-orleans-teens

Link to video on 60 Minutes ->    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/high-school-students-pythagorean-theorem-trigonometry-proof-60-minutes/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7d&linkId=419385763

Teens who discovered new way to prove Pythagoras’s theorem uncover even more proofs | US news | The Guardian

The Guardian: gas stove articles

Gas stoves increase nitrogen dioxide exposure above WHO standards – study

Science Advances report also finds people of color and low-income residents in US disproportionately affected

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/03/gas-stoves-nitrogen-dioxide-pollution

Gas stoves emit benzene levels above secondhand smoke, US study finds

Even low doses of airborne benzene raise the risk of a variety of cancers, including lymphomas and leukemia

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/20/gas-stoves-benzene-levels-study

Gas stove pollution: will air purifiers or even plants make your home safer?

Air quality experts weigh in on different methods to keep air pollution out of the home and refute commonly held beliefs

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/11/gas-stove-pollution-air-purifiers-plants-air-quality

The Guardian: gas stove articles