Is the world being destroyed?

Call us Homo slobbus.

It took roughly four billion years for the first living bit of protoplasm, bred perhaps in an undersea volcanic vent or a warm pond, to grow and evolve into the 1.1 trillion tons of biomass that inhabit Earth today. But all of that is outweighed by the plastic, concrete and other material that humans have produced in the last century alone in the form of everything from roads and skyscrapers to cars, cellphones, paper towels and bobblehead dolls.

That was the takeaway of a meticulous global inventory of stuff, natural and unnatural, compiled in 2018 by Yinon M. Bar-On, a geophysicist at the California Institute of Technology, and his colleagues. They synthesized data from a vast number of scientific studies, from large global measurements to rough guesstimates. One figure widely quoted by pest control companies: There are 1,000 pounds of termites for every human on Earth. If you like big numbers, the 2018 report is delicious reading.

Recently, Brice Ménard, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University, and Nikita Shtarkman, a computer scientist and graphic artist, visualized Dr. Bar-On’s research. The two had previously collaborated on an online map of the universe, which has been viewed more than a million times.

https://vp.nyt.com/video/2024/12/04/130489_1_04visualUploader-48699_wg_1080p.mp4

Their new visualization represents various kinds of living matter and “technostuff” in the form of cubes, with sizes proportional to their total weight on Earth.

“This is the portrait of our planet,” Dr. Ménard wrote in an email. “I thought everyone should know about it. I decided to create a powerful visualization so everyone can see this with their own eyes and better appreciate what has happened during our own lifetime.”

https://vp.nyt.com/video/2024/12/27/131525_1_27sci-biocubes-new-19075_wg_1080p.mp4

Life started long ago and proceeded slowly at first. Ninety percent of Earth’s biomass today is plants. Another sizable chunk is in the microbes — viruses, bacteria, algae and fungi — the biochemical threads that bind us.

Humans — some eight billion people weighing 120 million tons — account for only about one one-thousandth of Earth’s current biomass, according to Dr. Bar-On’s study. Termites and their mounds account for 445 million tons, according to recent estimates.

But we humans have had a much larger impact on our planet, especially recently. There are now 1.3 trillion tons of man-made stuff on the planet, almost all of it built in the 20th century. The biggest portion of it is more than 600 billion tons of concrete, followed by about 400 billion tons of sand, gravel and other aggregate materials used in construction. Earthlings have built two billion cars, Dr. Ménard wrote in the email, and 70 billion tons of asphalt to drive them on.

https://vp.nyt.com/video/2024/12/27/131526_1_27sci-biocubes-new-29061_wg_1080p.mp4

“The website enables many comparisons that, once seen, can no longer be unseen,” he said. For instance, humans outweigh wild animals 10 to 1, a fact that surprised Dr. Ménard. (“In my experience, most people expect the opposite.”) But we weigh only half as much as the livestock herds we maintain to eat. Perhaps more ominously, humans use 100 times their own mass in plastic.

“I knew the numbers,” Dr. Ménard said. “But seeing this made me much more conscious about my plastic footprint and the need to reduce it — something everyone can attempt doing.”

https://vp.nyt.com/video/2024/12/27/131527_1_27sci-biocubes-new-79885_wg_1080p.mp4

The future looks as if it will be worse, Dr. Ménard said, as the world’s population increases and countries add more infrastructure, requiring ever more energy and fossil fuels. All that concrete absorbs heat and keeps cities from cooling off at night. The global temperature rose a full degree Celsius during the building boom of the 20th century. “Our animation showing the rise of the technomass comes with an unavoidable rise of the global temperature,” Dr. Ménard said.

Onward and upward.

Children are suffering and dying from diseases that emerging scientific research has linked to chemical exposures, findings that require urgent revamping of laws around the world, according to a new paper published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Authored by more than 20 leading public health researchers, including one from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and another from the United Nations, the paper lays out “a large body of evidence” linking multiple childhood diseases to synthetic chemicals and recommends a series of aggressive actions to try to better protect children.

The paper is a “call to arms” to forge an “actual commitment to the health of our children”, said Linda Birnbaum, a former director of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and a co-author of the paper.

In conjunction with the release of the paper, some of the study authors are helping launch an Institute for Preventive Health to support the recommendations outlined in the paper and to help fund implementation of reforms. A key player in launching the institute is Anne Robertson, vice-president of Robertson Stephens Wealth Management and a member of the family that built RJ Reynolds Tobacco.

The paper points to data showing global inventories of roughly 350,000 synthetic chemicals, chemical mixtures and plastics, most of which are derived from fossil fuels. Production has expanded 50-fold since 1950, and is currently increasing by about 3% a year – projected to triple by 2050, the paper states.

Meanwhile, noncommunicable diseases, including many that research shows can be caused by synthetic chemicals, are rising in children and have become the principal cause of death and illness for children, the authors write.

Despite the connections, which the authors say “continue to be discovered with distressing frequency”, there are very few restrictions on such chemicals and no post-market surveillance for longer-term adverse health effects.

“The evidence is so overwhelming and the effects of manufactured chemicals are so disruptive for children, that inaction is no longer an option,” said Daniele Mandrioli, a co-author of the paper and director of the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center at the Ramazzini Institute in Italy. “Our article highlights the necessity for a paradigm shift in chemical testing and regulations to safeguard children’s health.”

Such a shift would require changes in laws, restructuring of the chemical industry and redirection of financial investments similar to what has been undertaken with efforts to transition to clean energy, the paper states.

The paper identifies several disturbing data points for trend lines over the last 50 years. They include incidence of childhood cancers up 35%, male reproductive birth defects have doubled in frequency and neurodevelopmental disorders are affecting one child in six. Autism spectrum disorder is diagnosed in one in 36 children, pediatric asthma has tripled in prevalence and pediatric obesity prevalence has nearly quadrupled, driving a “sharp increase in Type 2 diabetes among children and adolescents”.

“Children’s health has been slipping away as a priority focus,” said Tracey Woodruff, a co-author of the paper and director of the University of California San Francisco’s (UCSF) program on reproductive health and the environment. “We’ve slowly just been neglecting this. The clinical and public health community and the government has failed them.”

The authors cite research documenting how “even brief, low-level exposures to toxic chemicals during early vulnerable periods” in a child’s development can cause disease and disability. Prenatal exposures are particularly hazardous, the paper states.

“Diseases caused by toxic chemical exposures in childhood can lead to massive economic losses, including health care expenditures and productivity losses resulting from reduced cognitive function, physical disabilities, and premature death,” the paper notes. “The chemical industry largely externalizes these costs and imposes them on governments and taxpayers.”

The paper takes issue with the US Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1977 and amendments, arguing that even though the law was enacted to protect public health from “unreasonable risks” posed by chemicals, it does not provide the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the authorities needed to actually meet that commitment.

Instead, the manner in which the law is implemented assumes that all manufactured chemicals are harmless and beneficial and burdens government regulators with identifying and assessing the chemicals.

“Hazards that have been recognized have typically been ignored or downplayed, and the responsible chemicals allowed to remain in use with no or limited restrictions,” the paper states. “In the nearly 50 years since TSCA’s passage, only a handful of chemicals have been banned or restricted in US markets.”

Chemical oversight is more rigorous in the European Union, the paper says, but still fails to provide adequate protections, relying heavily on testing data provided by the chemical industry and providing multiple exemptions, the paper argues.

The authors of the paper prescribe a new global “precautionary” approach that would only allow chemical products on the market if their manufacturers could establish through independent testing that the chemicals are not toxic at anticipated exposure levels.

“The core of our recommendation is that chemicals should be tested before they come to market, they should not be presumed innocent only to be found to be harmful years and decades later,” said , a co-author who directs the program for global public health and the common good at Boston College. “Each and every chemical should be tested before they come to market.”

Additionally, companies would be required to conduct post-marketing surveillance to look for long-term adverse effects of their products.

That could include bio-monitoring of the most prevalent chemical exposures to the general population, Mandrioli said. Disease registries would play another fundamental role, he said, but those approaches should be integrated with toxicological studies that can “anticipate and rapidly predict effects that might have very long latencies in humans, such as cancer”. Clusters of populations with increased cancer incidences, particularly when they are children, should trigger immediate preventive actions, he said.

Key to it all would be a legally binding global chemicals treaty that would fall under the auspices of the United Nations and would require a “permanent, independent science policy body to provide expert guidance”, the paper suggests.

The paper recommends chemical companies and consumer product companies be required to disclose information about the potential risks of the chemicals in use and report on inventory and usage of chemicals of “high concern”.

“Pollution by synthetic chemicals and plastics is a major planetary challenge that is worsening rapidly,” the paper states. “Continued, unchecked increases in production of fossil-carbon–based chemicals endangers the world’s children and threatens humanity’s capacity for reproduction. Inaction on chemicals is no longer an option.”

Landrigan said he knew the effort faces an uphill climb and could be particularly challenging given the incoming Trump administration, which is widely expected to favor deregulation policies.

“This is a tough subject. It’s an elephant,” he said. “But it is what needs to be done.”

Further longer-term studies with larger, more diverse populations are needed.

Abstract

Pesticides affect a diverse range of non-target species and may be linked to global biodiversity loss. The magnitude of this hazard remains only partially understood. We present a synthesis of pesticide (insecticide, herbicide and fungicide) impacts on multiple non-target organisms across trophic levels based on 20,212 effect sizes from 1,705 studies. For non-target plants, animals (invertebrate and vertebrates) and microorganisms (bacteria and fungi), we show negative responses of the growth, reproduction, behaviour and other physiological biomarkers within terrestrial and aquatic systems. Pesticides formulated for specific taxa negatively affected non-target groups, e.g. insecticidal neonicotinoids affecting amphibians. Negative effects were more pronounced in temperate than tropical regions but were consistent between aquatic and terrestrial environments, even after correcting for field-realistic terrestrial and environmentally relevant exposure scenarios. Our results question the sustainability of current pesticide use and support the need for enhanced risk assessments to reduce risks to biodiversity and ecosystems.

Fast fashion and drinks cans among technological-age matter most likely to endure as fossils, say scientists

As an eternal testament of humanity, plastic bags, cheap clothes and chicken bones are not a glorious legacy. But two scientists exploring which items from our technological civilisation are most likely to survive for many millions of years as fossils have reached an ironic but instructive conclusion: fast food and fast fashion will be our everlasting geological signature.

“Plastic will definitely be a signature ‘technofossil’, because it is incredibly durable, we are making massive amounts of it, and it gets around the entire globe,” says the palaeontologist Prof Sarah Gabbott, a University of Leicester expert on the way that fossils form. “So wherever those future civilisations dig, they are going to find plastic. There will be a plastic signal that will wrap around the globe.”

Fast food containers dominate ocean plastic, but aluminium drinks cans will also be part of our legacy. Pure metals are exceptionally rare in the geological record, as they readily react to form new minerals, but the cans will leave a distinct impression.

“They’re going to be around in the strata for a long time and eventually you would expect little gardens of clay minerals growing in the space where the can was. It’s going to be a distinctive, new kind of fossil,” says the geologist Prof Jan Zalasiewicz, a leading proponent of the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch that reflects the impact of modern humanity on the planet, who with Gabbott has written a book on technofossils, Discarded.

Another fast food staple, chicken, is also destined for immortality. Bones are well known as fossils, but while those of modern broiler chickens are fragile – they are bred to live fast, dying fat and young – the sheer volume will ensure many survive into the geological record.

At any moment, there are about 25 billion live chickens in the world, vastly more than the world’s most abundant wild bird, say Gabbott and Zalasiewicz, making them likely to be the most abundant bird in all of Earth’s history. The sudden appearance of vast numbers of a monstrous bird five times bigger than its wild forebear will certainly strike future palaeontologists.

Clothes will also make an abrupt entry into humanity’s fossil record. For millennia, clothes were made from natural and easily rotted materials such as cotton, linen and silk. Today, the world’s growing population often wears mass-produced synthetic garments that are rapidly dumped.

“We are making them in ridiculous amounts,” says Gabbott – about 100bn garments a year, double the number 20 years ago. “People would be surprised just how many clothes are actually out there in the environment as well. I work to clean rivers in the city of Leicester and about a quarter of the stuff that we take out is clothing. We also stick them into landfills, which are like giant mummification tombs.” As the geologists say in their book: “It is already clear that much of modern fashion will end up being, in the deepest possible sense, truly timeless.”

The last of the signature technofossils is also the most solid example: concrete. It is already essentially a rock, so it is readily preserved, and it exists in colossal quantities. Enough concrete is cast each year to provide four tonnes to every person on Earth, adding to the existing 500bn tonne stockpile.
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Abstract
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is the world's strongest ocean current and plays a disproportionate role in the climate system due to its role as a conduit for major ocean basins. This current system is linked to the ocean's vertical overturning circulation, and is thus pivotal to the uptake of heat and CO2 in the ocean. The strength of the ACC has varied substantially across warm and cold climates in Earth's past, but the exact dynamical drivers of this change remain elusive. This is in part because ocean models have historically been unable to adequately resolve the small-scale processes that control current strength. Here, we assess a global ocean model simulation which resolves such processes to diagnose the impact of changing thermal, haline and wind conditions on the strength of the ACC. Our results show that, by 2050, the strength of the ACC declines by ∼20% for a high-emissions scenario. This decline is driven by meltwater from ice shelves around Antarctica, which is exported to lower latitudes via the Antarctic Intermediate Water. This process weakens the zonal density stratification historically supported by surface temperature gradients, resulting in a slowdown of sub-surface zonal currents. Such a decline in transport, if realised, would have major implications on the global ocean circulation.

Researchers say problem could increase number of people at risk of starvation by 400m in next two decades

Significance

Our study presents a global assessment of microplastic pollution’s impact on food security. By analyzing a comprehensive dataset of 3,286 records, we quantify the reduction in photosynthesis caused by microplastics across various ecosystems. This reduction is estimated to cause an annual loss of 109.73 to 360.87 million metric tons (MT) for crop production and 1.05 to 24.33 MT for seafood production. By reducing current environmental microplastic levels by 13%, these losses could be mitigated by 14.26 to 46.91 MT in crops and 0.14 to 3.16 MT in seafood. These findings underscore the urgency for effective plastic mitigation strategies and provide insights for international researchers and policymakers to safeguard global food supplies in the face of the growing plastic crisis.

Abstract

Understanding how ecosystems respond to ubiquitous microplastic (MP) pollution is crucial for ensuring global food security. Here, we conduct a multiecosystem meta-analysis of 3,286 data points and reveal that MP exposure leads to a global reduction in photosynthesis of 7.05 to 12.12% in terrestrial plants, marine algae, and freshwater algae. These reductions align with those estimated by a constructed machine learning model using current MP pollution levels, showing that MP exposure reduces the chlorophyll content of photoautotrophs by 10.96 to 12.84%. Model estimates based on the identified MP-photosynthesis nexus indicate annual global losses of 4.11 to 13.52% (109.73 to 360.87 MT·y−1) for main crops and 0.31 to 7.24% (147.52 to 3415.11 MT C·y−1) for global aquatic net primary productivity induced by MPs. Under scenarios of efficient plastic mitigation, e.g., a ~13% global reduction in environmental MP levels, the MP-induced photosynthesis losses are estimated to decrease by ~30%, avoiding a global loss of 22.15 to 115.73 MT·y−1 in main crop production and 0.32 to 7.39 MT·y−1 in seafood production. These findings underscore the urgency of integrating plastic mitigation into global hunger and sustainability initiatives.

The rate at which Earth is absorbing more heat than it emits has more than doubled in recent years

Summary: "Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed?"

The report, published in Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, is authored by James E. Hansen and a team of leading climate scientists, including Pushker Kharecha, Makiko Sato, and others.

Unlike many climate studies that focus on long-term projections or incremental trends, this report delivers a stark warning: global warming is now happening faster than expected, and some of the most widely used climate models, including those from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), underestimate the severity of the crisis.

The authors argue that the pace of warming over the last decade has surpassed previous estimates, largely due to the reduction of cooling aerosols and a greater-than-expected climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases. Their work raises serious concerns about whether policymakers and the public fully grasp the scale and urgency of the situation.The 9 Sad Takeaways:

1. Global Warming Has Accelerated Dramatically

Since 2010, global warming has accelerated by more than 50% compared to the 1970-2010 warming rate of 0.18°C per decade. Earth is now warmer than at any point in the last 11,700 years and may even rival temperatures from the Eemian interglacial period 120,000 years ago.

“No combination of known mechanisms for warming has been able to reconcile our theories with what has happened.”

The study asserts that human-caused climate drivers, particularly greenhouse gases and aerosols, fully account for the observed temperature surge, including a critical jump in sea surface temperatures that has effectively pushed the world past the 1.5°C warming threshold - a milestone previously considered avoidable through emissions reductions alone.

2. Earth’s Energy Imbalance Has Grown at an Alarming Rate

The rate at which Earth is absorbing more heat than it emits has more than doubled in recent years. This is the most fundamental measure of climate change, and it signals that future warming will be even more severe than current models predict.

3. The UN's Climate Models May Be Too Conservative

The study argues that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) underestimates both aerosol cooling effects and climate sensitivity.

"We show that IPCC’s emphasis on global climate models led to a marriage of aerosol forcing and climate sensitivity, such that the underestimate of aerosol forcing led to an underestimate of climate sensitivity."

The authors claim that the “Faustian bargain” of air pollution control - where reducing aerosols has led to more rapid warming - was worse than expected.

4. Cutting Ship Emissions May Have Worsened Global Warming

The International Maritime Organization’s 2020 restriction on sulfur emissions may have inadvertently removed a significant cooling effect from the atmosphere. This change caused a sudden and sharp increase in absorbed solar radiation, leading to a 0.5°C rise in global sea surface temperatures in key shipping routes.

“Aerosols providing a cooling benefit are also inherently dangerous air pollution... Thus, as global pollution control has improved, the cooling effect of aerosols is lost: with the change of ship regulations, our first Faustian payment came due.”

5. A 2023 Temperature Spike Shocked Scientists

The 2023 global temperature leap of 0.4°C was far beyond what climate models predicted. Some scientists suggested that no existing climate models could explain the rapid rise, leading to serious concerns that current methodologies may be underestimating the speed and intensity of climate change.

“Something else important is occurring.”

The study argues that reduced aerosols, a moderate El Niño, and increasing greenhouse gas concentrations combined to create a perfect storm of warming, which could signal the beginning of a far more dangerous phase of climate change.

6. Sea Level Rise is Accelerating Due to Ice Sheet Destabilization

Antarctic ice melt is happening faster than expected, threatening multi-meter sea level rise over the coming centuries.

"The most threatening tipping point – the Point of No Return – will be passed when it becomes impossible to avoid catastrophic loss of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet."

The study warns that if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, it could result in irreversible changes that would submerge half of the world’s largest cities and force mass human displacement.

7. Earth's Albedo (Reflectivity) is Declining Rapidly

Satellite data shows that Earth is absorbing 1.7 W/m² more solar radiation than a decade ago, a change equivalent to increasing CO2 levels from 419 ppm to 557 ppm. This means that the planet is heating at an unprecedented rate, partially due to the loss of reflective aerosols and melting polar ice.

8. The Climate Crisis is Now an Intergenerational Justice Issue

The delayed response of climate systems means that today’s youth will inherit a far worse crisis than policymakers currently acknowledge.

The authors stress that fossil fuel reductions alone are not enough - active carbon removal strategies (editor note: still to be proven as feasible on a mass scale) will be necessary to prevent further climate destabilization.

9. If This Report is Correct, Climate Policy is Already Outdated

The findings challenge the UN’s climate assessments, suggesting that policymakers and the public have been misled about the pace of warming, and demand urgent, science-driven solutions. If the conclusions are correct, then many existing climate policies and emissions targets are already outdated, and far more aggressive action is needed to avoid the worst outcomes. (Editor note: Good luck with that - "Just 10 of the 195 parties signed up to the landmark Paris Agreement have published their new emissions-cutting plans, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs), by the 10 February deadline." - Carbonbrief)

In what United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin called the “most consequential day of deregulation in American history,” on Wednesday the EPA chief announced 31 deregulation actions that will roll back Biden-era environmental rules, including those concerning climate change, electric vehicles (EVs) and pollution limits for coal-fired power plants, reported The Associated Press.

If approved, Zeldin said the actions will lower prices for common expenses like home heat, purchasing a car and operating a business by eliminating trillions in “regulatory costs and hidden ‘taxes’.”

“Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen. We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more,” Zeldin said in a press release from the EPA. “Alongside President Trump, we are living up to our promises to unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, and work hand-in-hand with our state partners to advance our shared mission.”

Of the dozens of environmental regulations set to be rolled back is an EPA finding from 2009 that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health and welfare. The Clean Air Act determination is the basis for a large number of climate regulations for power plants, automobiles and other sources of pollution.

Climate scientists and environmentalists consider the Obama-era endangerment finding a cornerstone of U.S. law, saying any attempt to reverse it is not likely to succeed.

“In the face of overwhelming science, it’s impossible to think that the EPA could develop a contradictory finding that would stand up in court,” said David Doniger, senior attorney and strategist with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), in an NRDC Expert Blog post. “Indeed, the courts have repeatedly rejected attacks on the finding. Even Trump’s first-term EPA administrators understood that reversing it was ‘a fool’s errand,’ in the words of one conservative former agency official.”

Among the other regulations set to be “reconsidered” by the EPA are “regulations throttling the oil and gas industry”; mercury standards that the agency said “improperly targeted coal-fired power plants”; the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program; and regulations for wastewater from coal plants.

“From the campaign trail to Day 1 and beyond, President Trump has delivered on his promise to unleash energy dominance and lower the cost of living,” Zeldin said in a video. “We at E.P.A. will do our part to power the great American comeback.”

Zeldin spoke of the changes without mentioning the EPA’s guiding principles: to protect the environment and public health.

In an explanation of the EPA’s mission, the first Administrator of the EPA William D. Ruckelshaus said the agency has “no obligation to promote agriculture or commerce; only the critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment.”

Weeks following the creation of the EPA by former President Richard M. Nixon in 1970, Ruckelshaus said its focus would be on research, as well as five areas of standards and enforcements: air and water pollution, pesticides, waste disposal and radiation, The New York Times reported.

Zeldin said limits on smokestacks linked to respiratory issues and premature deaths would be overturned, along with the Clean Air Act’s “Good Neighbor” provision requiring states to be responsible for their own pollution when it is blown into neighboring states. The EPA would also do away with enforcement efforts prioritizing the safety of predominantly poor and minority communities.

When environmental policy is created by the agency, Zeldin said it will no longer take into consideration the societal costs of storms, wildfires, droughts and other disasters that could be worsened by pollution connected to the policy.

The EPA’s announcements are not legally binding, and in nearly every case the agency would need to undergo a lengthy public comment process, as well as formulate economic and environmental justifications for each revision.

Environmentalists and democrats accused Zeldin of deserting the responsibility of the EPA to safeguard the environment and human health.

“Today is the day Trump’s Big Oil megadonors paid for,” said Democratic Senator from Rhode Island Sheldon Whitehouse, as reported by The New York Times. “Administrator Zeldin clearly lied when he told us that he would respect the science and listen to the experts.”

Jackie Wong, NRDC’s senior vice president for climate change and energy, said weakening the rules would result in increases in health problems like heart attacks and asthma.

“At a time when millions of Americans are trying to rebuild after horrific wildfires and climate-fueled hurricanes, it’s nonsensical to try to deny that climate change harms our health and welfare,” Wong said.

Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator during the Obama administration, called it “the most disastrous day in EPA history. Rolling these rules back is not just a disgrace, it’s a threat to all of us. The agency has fully abdicated its mission to protect Americans’ health and well being.”

KITWE, Zambia (AP) — Authorities and environmentalists in Zambia fear the long-term impact of an acid spill at a Chinese-owned mine that contaminated a major river and could potentially affect millions of people after signs of pollution were detected at least 100 kilometers (60 miles) downstream.

The spill happened on Feb. 18 when a tailings dam that holds acidic waste from a copper mine in the north of the country collapsed, according to investigators from the Engineering Institution of Zambia.

The collapse allowed some 50 million liters of waste containing concentrated acid, dissolved solids and heavy metals to flow into a stream that links to the Kafue River, Zambia’s most important waterway, the engineering institution said.

“It is an environmental disaster really of catastrophic consequences,” said Chilekwa Mumba, an environmental activist who works in Zambia’s Copperbelt Province.

China is the dominant player in copper mining in Zambia, a southern African nation which is among the world’s top 10 producers of copper, a key component in smartphones and other technology.

Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema called for help from experts and said the leak is a crisis that threatens people and wildlife along the Kafue, which runs for more than 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) through the heart of Zambia.

Authorities are still investigating the extent of the environmental damage.
A river died overnight

An Associated Press reporter visited parts of the Kafue River, where dead fish could be seen washing up on the banks about 100 kilometers (60 miles) downstream from the mine run by Sino-Metals Leach Zambia, which is majority owned by the state-run China Nonferrous Metals Industry Group.

The Ministry of Water Development and Sanitation said the “devastating consequences” also included the destruction of crops along the river’s banks. Authorities are concerned that ground water will be contaminated as the mining waste seeps into the earth or is carried to other areas.

“Prior to the 18th of February this was a vibrant and alive river,” said Sean Cornelius, who lives near the Kafue and said fish died and birdlife near him disappeared almost immediately. “Now everything is dead, it’s like a totally dead river. Unbelievable. Overnight, this river died.”

About 60% of Zambia’s 20 million people live in the Kafue River basin and depend on it in some way as a source of fishing, irrigation for agriculture and water for industry. The river supplies drinking water to about five million people, including in the capital, Lusaka.

The acid leak at the mine caused a complete shutdown of the water supply to the nearby city of Kitwe, home to an estimated 700,000 people.
Attempts to roll back the damage

The Zambian government has deployed the air force to drop hundreds of tons of lime into the river in an attempt to counteract the acid and roll back the damage. Speed boats have also been used to ride up and down the river, applying lime.

Government spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa said the situation was very serious and Sino-Metals Leach Zambia would bear the costs of the cleanup operation.

Zhang Peiwen, the chairman of Sino-Metals Leach Zambia, met with government ministers this week and apologized for the acid spill, according to a transcript of his speech at the meeting released by his company.

“This disaster has rung a big alarm for Sino-Metals Leach and the mining industry,” he said. He said it “will go all out to restore the affected environment as quickly as possible.”
Discontent with Chinese presence

The environmental impact of China’s large mining interests in mineral-rich parts of Africa, which include Zambia’s neighbors Congo and Zimbabwe, has often been criticized, even as the minerals are crucial to the countries’ economies.

Chinese-owned copper mines have been accused of ignoring safety, labor and other regulations in Zambia as they strive to control its supply of the critical mineral, leading to some discontent with their presence. Zambia is also burdened with more than $4 billion in debt to China and had to restructure some of its loans from China and other nations after defaulting on repayments in 2020.

A smaller acid waste leak from another Chinese-owned mine in Zambia’s copper belt was discovered days after the Sino-Metals accident, and authorities have accused the smaller mine of attempting to hide it.

Local police said a mine worker died at that second mine after falling into acid and alleged that the mine continued to operate after being instructed to stop its operations by authorities. Two Chinese mine managers have been arrested, police said.

Both mines have now halted their operations after orders from Zambian authorities, while many Zambians are angry.

“It really just brings out the negligence that some investors actually have when it comes to environmental protection,” said Mweene Himwinga, an environmental engineer who attended the meeting involving Zhang, government ministers, and others. “They don’t seem to have any concern at all, any regard at all. And I think it’s really worrying because at the end of the day, we as Zambian people, (it’s) the only land we have.”

Sweeping synthesis of 2,000 global studies leaves no doubt about scale of problem and role of humans, say experts

The amount of water stored on lands across Earth’s continents has declined at such staggering levels that changes are likely irreversible while humans are alive, a study published Thursday found.

The losses in soil moisture — a result of the planet’s climate conditions and prolonged droughts — already pose issues for farming, irrigation systems and critical water resources for humans. But it also affects sea-level rise and Earth’s rotation — datasets the research team used to better track water storage for decades longer than previous studies.

“What we were looking for was evidence of changing hydrology around the world,” said Jay Famiglietti, co-author of the study published in Science. “What we found was this unprecedented decrease in soil moisture in the early part of the 21st century, which took us by surprise.”

The team found that from 1979 to 2016, the biggest soil moisture losses occurred between 2000 and 2002 — losing around 1,614 gigatons of water from land. The team estimated that it added to global mean sea-level rise at a rate of about 1.95 millimeters a year.

The startling contribution to rising sea levels was larger than Greenland’s ice loss around that time. Greenland contributed about 0.8 millimeters a year in recent decades. From 2002 to 2006, it lost about 900 gigatons.

“The rate of water dumping into the oceans was bigger from terrestrial water storage than from what we normally think of as the biggest source, which was the melting of Greenland,” said Clark Wilson, a co-author and geophysicist at University of Texas at Austin.

Famiglietti agreed that “soil moisture depletion is playing a bigger role in sea level rise than we previously thought.”

The biggest drops in soil moisture during that period occurred in large regions in East and Central Asia, Central Africa, and North and South America. The study showed the decline was primarily driven by changes in precipitation patterns and more drying power from the atmosphere because of rising temperatures.

“Remarkably, the global-scale drought that occurred between 2000 and 2002 was largely unnoticed at the time,” said Ki-Weon Seo, lead author and geophysicist at Seoul National University. “This study suggests that greater attention should be paid to drought events.”

The drop in soil moisture from 2000 to 2002 is interesting because it’s not well depicted in computer models depicting Earth’s past water storage, Wilson said. One well-known computer model indicated a global drought, but it was unclear if it was accurate. The study’s findings though, he said, confirm the observation and will help better refine models.

Soil moisture continued to decrease following 2002, although not at that same intense rate. Satellite observations from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment showed about another 1,287 gigatons of water on land depleted from 2005 to 2015, which is about the equivalent of 3.52 millimeters of global mean sea-level rise.

“There is continuing loss of moisture of water stored on land,” Wilson said. “In our perspective of human timescales, we may not have seen the kind of rainfall events that would be important in recharging the land.”

Evidence of a global shift in water storage

Tracking Earth’s global water storage on land is not an easy feat.

Scientists were long restricted to regional measurements and models, but then the launch of GRACE allowed for new global views of water storage from the surface to below ground. But it only launched in 2002 — leaving scientists in the dark on what it looked like in prior decades.

In the new study, Seo and his colleagues extend this record back to 1979 — and provided the first “evidence of a permanent shift in Earth’s hydrological cycle due to climate change,” said hydrologist Luis Samaniego, who was not involved in the study and wrote a review article on the research.

Since direct observations of global water storage on land were scarce before 2002, the team looked at two other longer datasets as indicators: global sea-level rise and Earth’s tilt.

Global sea-level rise is largely fed by the melting of glaciers and ice sheets, but it is also affected by changing the amount of water on land. When water leaves the continents, it ends up in the oceans, Famiglietti said.

At the same time, moving water from one part of Earth to another can affect the planet’s rotation around its axis. Earth spins on an imaginary line between the North and South poles, but the exact position of the line isn’t fixed. The points where Earth’s axis of rotation meets Earth’s surface wobbles and drifts a few meters each year — called polar motion. (These changes aren’t noticeable to people but is perceptible by GPS systems on phones.)

Previously, Famiglietti and his same colleagues found removing groundwater shifted Earth’s tilt 31.5 inches eastward. In the new study, the team also found polar motion underwent observable changes from global groundwater loss from 1993 to 2010.

Samaniego said the new study validates a long-term trend of Earth’s water cycle seen in models with not just one, but three completely independent global datasets — “an impressive scientific feat.”

These declines have been seen on a regional level, but he said this is the first “conclusive” evidence of a global shift in water storage.

As of 2021, the team said soil moisture still has not recovered and likely won’t under the current climate conditions. Prolonged droughts, which are increasing in a warming world, will prevent soil moisture from bouncing back on the given course — at least in our lifetimes.

Soil moisture “that has left the soil layers and hasn’t been replenished for decades is unlikely to return to its original levels,” said Samaniego, a researcher at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research.

The conclusion, researchers say, is that societies must learn to practice smarter and sustainable water resource management.

“Climate change is not only about rising temperatures, but also about long-term impacts on water availability — affecting agriculture, ecosystems and societies alike,” Samaniego said.

The Trump administration is quietly carrying out a plan that aims to kill hundreds of bans on highly toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” and other dangerous compounds in consumer goods.

The bans, largely at the state level, touch most facets of daily life, prohibiting everything from bisphenol in children’s products to mercury in personal care products to PFAS in food packaging and clothing.

If successful, the public would almost certainly be exposed to much higher levels of chemicals linked to a range of serious health issues such s cancer, hormone disruption, liver disease, birth defects, and reproductive system damage, the plan’s opponents say.

The Trump Environmental Protection Agency move involves changing the way the agency carries out chemical risk evaluations, which would also pre-empt state laws that offer the one of few meaningful checks on toxic chemicals in consumer products.

The plan could also largely undo California’s effective Proposition 65 law, and could spell the end of meager federal prohibitions, including an early 2024 ban on asbestos.

“This will increase health risks to consumers by exposing them to toxic chemicals,” said an EPA employee who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

“It also allows the market for toxic chemicals to continue, because it maintains the financial incentive for them to be made for all these consumer products.”

Although the risk presented by most chemicals in individual consumer products is often low, the public is typically exposed to a wide range of toxic substances throughout the day, and those combined daily exposures over the long term present a serious health risk.

Industry has largely succeeded in heading off federal limits on chemicals in consumer products, in part because, public health advocates say, it has captured parts of the EPA. Still, under Joe Biden, the agency began putting in place some bans, such as on the use of formaldehyde in consumer goods, including leather.

PFAS are among the most widely used and toxic chemicals in consumer products, and many states have zeroed in on the chemical class. Maine in 2021 passed a ban on PFAS for all non-essential uses, while across the country about 15 states have enacted a patchwork of prohibitions for clothing, menstruation products, cookware, food packaging, playground equipment, and cosmetics, among other goods.

Massachusetts and Connecticut banned PFAS in firefighting turnout gear after firefighters demanded action in response to high cancer rates likely connected to the chemicals.

Beyond PFAS, Washington prohibited lead in cookware; Nevada banned flame retardants in children’s toys; and Maryland prohibited some phthalates in cosmetics, among other actions.

“The states are on the front lines and they’ve been stepping up because communities want these laws,” said Sarah Doll, the national director of Safer States, which pushes for state level restrictions on toxic chemicals. “People don’t want toxic chemicals in their homes. Firefighters don’t want to be exposed to PFAS in firefighting foam.”

The state laws are also effective because they create pressure on industry to stop using dangerous chemicals. PFAS is banned for use in clothing in California, Colorado and other states, so it makes logistical sense for producers to stop using the chemicals instead of producing some clothing treated with it and some untreated.

Chemical giant 3M announced it would stop making PFAS in part because state laws banning the chemicals complicates their use.

The laws’ effectiveness and pressure have put them on industry’s hit list, and the Trump EPA submitted a rule that reworks how risk evaluations are performed.

The Biden EPA approach stated that if any specific use of a chemical – clothing, cosmetics, or food packaging, for example – presents an “unreasonable risk”, the entire chemical should be considered a risk. States can regulate chemicals that are considered an unreasonable risk.

The Trump EPA’s new rule would require the agency to evaluate whether a chemical presents a risk for each intended use. Formaldehyde, for example, has 63 uses. The agency plans to claim most chemicals do not present an “unreasonable risk” in consumer goods because they make up such a small part of products, the EPA employee said.

Industry scored a major victory in a 2016 rewrite of the nation’s laws around toxic chemicals by working in a provision that says if the EPA finds that a substance does not present an “unreasonable risk” then states cannot write laws banning or limiting its use.

“They are going to exclude a huge number of consumer products from being considered for risk management,” the EPA employee said.

They added that an individual television may contain a small amount of PFAS, “but when you produce 50m televisions, it adds up” – especially for the environment, or for workers producing them.

However, the laws will not go into effect overnight. The EPA, with its limited staff, has to regulate one chemical at a time, and the process for each could take as much as three years. In the meantime, more state laws will be passed, and pressure on goods producers to move away from toxic chemicals will continue to mount, Doll said.

“The market is moving, adapting and innovating … and in three years it will to great effect have already shifted,” Doll added. “It’s a potential threat, but I don’t think it’s going to have a chilling effect on states responding to demands from communities on the ground who are saying, ‘We are dealing with this challenge.’”