EVOLUTIONS Environmental Leaders 2018

With climate change still on the rise, the Arctic permafrost continues to thaw. And as the permafrost thaws, they release their carbon reserves which then contributes back to climate change, creating a vicious cycle that worsens with every repeat of the cycle. What a study published in Geophysical Research Letters found was that alongside the carbon the thawing of the permafrost releases, mercury is being released as well. According to Paul Schuster, a research geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey and one of the study authors, “[The] Arctic permafrost holds about 793 gigagrams of mercury—more than 15 million gallons, or the equivalent of about 23 Olympic swimming pools.” He then goes on to say that combined with the layer of soil above it, “[they] together contain nearly twice as much [mercury] as all the other soils, the ocean and the atmosphere combined.” The study predicts that by the year 2100, between 30 and 99 percent of the Arctic's permafrost will have thawed, ...

China, the largest global emitter of greenhouse gases contributing largely to global rising temperatures, is now trying to make progress toward decreasing this. Where they have begun an emissions trading system that for now covers gas and coal power production. That will include 11 different emissions baselines for plants based on whether power they run on, their size, and other factors.Having this cap on fossil fuels will allow them to take steps toward helping them with their smog epidemic.Other countries should also follow China in their effort to help remedy their emission output. China's plan is a little similar to the EPA's Clean Power Plan that is now planned to be made ineffective.Which could be detrimental to the environment by being able to output more greenhouse gases. In order to go forward, we need more acts put in place for cleaner power and more baseline on emissions that plants are able to put out. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-set-to-debu...

As many know, climate change can have an effect on how polar bears thrive on the Arctic ice in a negative manner. But surely, polar bears can't be the only animals that are affected, which is proven by the beluga whales that live near the Arctic. Studies from the University of Washington show that the whales are forced to dive deeper into waters to look for prey during the summers in the Arctic. The researchers tracked the Chukchi sea beluga population during two different periods of times. One period of time was from 1993-2002, which was called the early stage. The other period was from 2004-2012, which was called the late stage. The sea ice loss was also documented and they had found that the ice cover had declined overtime. The results found that the whales were traveling 50m deeper into the sea in the late stage than the early stage. The belugas were also diving for food three times per day in the late stages compared to the once-per-day diving in the early stage. This may be ...

The last couple hundred Przewalski horses surviving off the Mongolian Grasslands. Humans take up around 70% of the earth's land surface area. This causes animals that roam freely throughout their habitat to move significantly less than they would in an unaltered landscape. An article in ScienceDaily says that mammals living in areas inhabited by humans move tow to three times less than those who live in areas untouched by man. When animals move they help important ecological processes such as transporting seeds and other nutrients throughout different areas which supports biodiversity. Additionally, mammalian movement reinforces the food chain by bringing different organisms to an area by way of hunting or being hunted. Thereof, if these animals are not moving as much as they should, biodiversity will plummet leading to the extinction of many plant and animal lives. In order to prevent this we have to make a conscious effort to stop taking more land and begin using the sp...

According to a study done by the University of California, Riverside (UCR), recycled wastewater tastes very similar to bottled water and is in fact more preferred over the mineral-rich tap water used in the experiment. Many studies were already done before ensuring the public that drinking recycled wastewater was safe, with 6 California water agencies already having introduced it into California's drinking water system with a process called Indirect Potable Reuse (IDR). However, this marks the first study to test the taste of said recycled wastewater. The researchers behind the study hope that the results can help dispel the notion that recycled  wastewater and recycled water in general is disgusting. The study had 143 participants who were asked to compare the wastewater treated through IDR, conventional groundwater-based tap water, and commercially available bottled water. All were given to participants in similar cups and were unmarked, making the participants blind ...

There are multiple climate findings that happened last year. The top seven findings are the ones that affected us the most in my opinion. For example, "Temperatures and climate concentrations are breaking records"(Harvey). This affects people because with climate changes, things (i.e plants or animals) won't be able to exist in the climates that we have now. In 2016 we had the warmest summer ever recorded. If climates continue to get warm, some of the plants and animals we have now will not be able to prosper. Another finding is that sea levels are rising. With sea levels rising, we risk some coastal cities being underwater in the upcoming years.  Some  other climate findings are, that there are record low sea ice in the  Arctic  and  Antarctic, glaciers are calving, there are major discoveries about carbon (for example, with forests being cut down, carbon is being released back into the air which is detrimental to people's health), and global emissions are on t...

The article explains that when northern fur seals are born in the Bering Sea they have to go on an eight-month journey to the North Atlantic. There have been declining seal births and seal pup death during their first migration. Researchers have found when comparing the movements of seal pups during that initial migration with surface ocean winds show that they travel downwind not against it.Doing so will cause them to travel off course for hundreds of miles. Noel Pelland and his other colleagues have placed tags on  150 seals to track their movements in comparison to the wind since 1997 to 2015, and  differences in the winds with where the pups ended up. It is currently unknown if this is beneficial or detrimental to seal survival, but it confirms a previous belief by native Alaskans. This is important research to know because we need to be able to study if changing climates, come with changing winds that could affect the reproduction of other animals.