Save the Ocean Life and Save Earth

A $320 Million Ice Wall Still Can’t Contain Radioactive Water Near Fukushima by  Chelsea Gohd March 8, 2018   Future Society In Brief; Seven years after the nuclear disaster, Fukushima still has a big contamination problem. In 2017, an ice wall was built in an effort to prevent water from entering the nuclear plant. Unfortunately, this wall was not as effective as many had hoped. Last year, Japan’s central government completed a 35 billion yen (approximately $320 million)  underground ice wall . Over 38 meters (100 feet) deep and nearly 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) long, the structure is meant to stop groundwater from mixing with the radioactive water leaking from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was severely damaged in 2011 by an earthquake and tsunami. While an idea seemingly plucked from a comic book, this wall of human-made permafrost was criticized for being  too complex and potentially ineffective . Negative suspicions were confirmed when an investiga...

Heat Waves Can Seriously Harm Brain Performances By  Kay Vandette ,  Earth.com  Staff Writer  on 07.10.2018 Global temperatures are on the rise. 2016 was the world’s warmest year since  record keeping began in the 1880s , 2017 was the hottest year on record for  Earth’s oceans , and this week, much of the globe has battled intense heat. Heat waves have been sweeping across Europe, the UK and North America, and exposure to long bouts of extreme heat is the leading cause of death compared to any other meteorological events in the US. During heat waves, the elderly and very young are said to be the most at  risk of suffering health problems , however as a new study found this has created a research gap in the effect of extreme heat on healthy individuals. Researchers led by the  Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health  examined the impacts of a heat wave on cognitive functioning for students who lived in non-air-conditioned dorms. The s...

Plastic-eating bacteria discovered by student could help solve global pollution crisis Exclusive:  Microbes found near plastic refinery degrade material, turning it into food Tom Embury-Dennis   @tomemburyd   Saturday 30 June 2018 20:02 A student may have found a solution to one of the  world’s most urgent environmental  crises  – breeding bacteria capable of “eating” plastic and potentially breaking it down into harmless by-products. The microbes degrade polyethylene terephthalate ( PET ) – one of the world’s most common plastics, used in clothing, drinks bottles and food packaging. It takes centuries to break down, in the meantime doing untold damage to its surroundings. Morgan Vague, who is studying biology at Reed College in Oregon, said the process, if sped up, could play a “big part” of solutions to the planet’s plastic problem, which sees  millions of tonnes  dumped in landfill and oceans every year. Arou...

Pollutants from agriculture a serious threat to world's water New report paints a worrying picture, provides recommendations on what can be done Water pollution from agriculture affects billions of people and generates annual costs exceeding billions of dollars 20 June 2018, Rome  - Water pollution from unsustainable agricultural practices poses a serious risk to human health and the planet's ecosystems, a problem often underestimated by policymakers and farmers alike, cautions a new report. In many countries the biggest source of water pollution today is agriculture — not cities or industry — while worldwide, the most common chemical contaminant found in groundwater aquifers is nitrate from farming, according to  More People, More Food, Worse Water? A Global Review of Water Pollution from Agriculture , launched by FAO and the International Water Management Institute at a conference in Tajikistan ( 19-22 June ). Modern agriculture is responsible for the discharge of ...

170 MILLION IN U.S. DRINK RADIOACTIVE TAP WATER. TRUMP NOMINEE FAKED DATA TO HIDE CANCER RISK THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 2018 By Bill Walker, Editor in Chief, and Wicitra Mahotama, Environmental Analyst Drinking water for more than 170 million Americans contains radioactive elements at levels that may increase the risk of cancer, according to an EWG analysis of 2010 to 2015 test results from public water systems nationwide. Radiation in tap water is a serious health threat, especially during pregnancy. But the Environmental Protection Agency’s legal limits for several types of radioactive elements in tap water are badly outdated. And President Trump’s nominee to be the White House environment czar rejects the need for water systems to comply even with those outdated and inadequate standards. The nominee, Kathleen Hartnett White, former chair of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, admitted in a 2011 interview that the commission falsified data to make it appear that communi...

A chemical breakthrough could eat the plastic pollution crisis Environment By   BONNIE CHRISTIAN  -  Sunday 1 July 2018 A new chemical process can liquify plastic. The next challenge? Creating a machine that can recycle the sludge on an industrial scale NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images One single-use plastic bag takes at least 450 years to degrade. Give Miranda Wang three hours and she can reduce ten of them into liquid. Wang is the first to discover a chemical process that tackles the end-of-life of plastic. She first learned the scale of the problem in eighth grade with her friend, Jeanny Yao, when they visited a city waste recycling plant in Vancouver, Canada where they grew up. “That’s when we learnt that even plastics that are put into a curbside recycling bin end up being exported overseas in developing countries where they become ocean pollution,” she says. Since the 1950s, 8.3 billion tons of plastic has been produced. It's now found in toys, car parts, in don...

13 of the dirtiest beaches in the world Zoë Miller Jun. 21, 2018, 3:19 PM Kuta Beach, Bali, becomes covered in garbage during the rainy season -  Antara Foto Agency/Reuters Wide scale  pollution  has turned some of the world's most  beautiful beaches  into trash heaps. From Hawaii's Kamilo Beach — which is so littered by man-made debris that it earned the nickname "Plastic Beach" — to Henderson Island, a remote, uninhabited island in the South Pacific whose beaches are some of the dirtiest on Earth, these former sandy paradises now resemble garbage dumps. Looking at studies from different nonprofits, organizations, and researchers, we found 13 of the dirtiest beaches in the world. Kamilo Beach, Hawaii, United States Thousands of pounds of plastic waste wash up on Kamilo Beach each year -  Justin Dolske/Wikimedia Commons Kamilo Beach, also known as " Plastic Beach ," is one of the dirtiest places on the planet. Located in a rural area of Haw...