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[space otter]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49295051

Plastic particles falling out of sky with snow in Arctic
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst
7 hours ago

lots of nice pics at the link

Even in the Arctic, microscopic particles of plastic are falling out of the sky with snow, a study has found.

The scientists said they were shocked by the sheer number of particles they found: more than 10,000 of them per litre in the Arctic.

It means that even there, people are likely to be breathing in microplastics from the air - though the health implications remain unclear.

The region is often seen as one of the world's last pristine environments.

A German-Swiss team of researchers has published the work in the journal Science Advances.

The scientists also found rubber particles and fibres in the snow.

How did the researchers carry out the study?
Researchers collected snow samples from the Svalbard islands using a low-tech method - a dessert spoon and a flask.

In the laboratory at Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven they discovered far more contaminating particles than they'd expected.

Many were so small that it was hard to ascertain where they had come from.

The majority appeared to be composed of natural materials like plant cellulose and animal fur. But there were also particles of plastic, along with fragments of rubber tyres, varnish, paint and possibly synthetic fibres.

The lead scientist, Dr Melanie Bergmann, told BBC News: "We expected to find some contamination but to find this many microplastics was a real shock."

She said: "It's readily apparent that the majority of the microplastic in the snow comes from the air."

Microplastics are defined as those particles below 5mm in size.

Addressing their potential effects on people, Dr Bergmann explained: "We don't know if the plastics will be harmful to human health or not. But we need to take much better care of the way we're treating our environment."

The scientists also analysed snow from sites in Germany and Switzerland. Samples taken from some areas of Germany showed higher concentrations than in the Arctic.

How is plastic pollution reaching the Arctic?
The researchers think microplastics are being blown about by winds and then - through mechanisms which are not fully understood - transported long distances through the atmosphere.

The particles are then "washed" out of the atmosphere through precipitation, particularly snow.

A study published in April by a British-French team showed that microplastics were falling from the sky onto the French Pyrenees, another supposedly pristine region.

Previously, research groups have found plastics in the atmospheric fallout of Dongguan, China, Tehran in Iran, and Paris, France.

As for where the pollution is coming from, here too there are uncertainties.

The presence of so many varnish particles in the Arctic was a puzzle.

The researchers assume that some of the contamination may have come from ships grinding against the ice. But they also speculate that some may have come off wind turbines.

The fibre fragments may be from people's clothing, although it's not possible to tell at the moment.

Dr Bergmann explained: "We have to ask - do we need so much plastic packaging? Do we need all the polymers in the paints we use? Can we come up with differently designed car tyres? These are important issues."

Dr Eldbjørg Sofie Heimstad, from the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Kjeller, who was not involved in the latest study, told me that some of the particle pollution was local and some had drifted from afar.

She said: "We know that most of what we are analysing up there and measuring are long-range transported pollution coming from [Europe], from Asia, coming from all over the world.

"Some of these chemicals have properties that are a threat for the ecosystem, for living animals."

What does this mean for the Arctic?
The results follow on the heels of our exclusive report last year that the highest concentrations of plastic particles in the ocean were to be found in Arctic sea-ice.

Plastic waste is also drifting for hundreds or even thousands of kilometres to land on remote Arctic beaches.

It is depressing news for people who have regarded the far north as one of the last pristine environments on Earth.

At a dog sledding centre near Tromsø in the Norwegian Arctic, one of the staff, Lili, told us: "It makes me incredibly sad. We've got plastics in the sea-ice. We've got plastics in the ocean and on the beaches. Now plastic in snow.

"Up here we see the beauty of it every day, and to see that it's changing so much and being tainted - it hurts."

[The Seeker]

This is disturbing, for it makes me wonder how much we are inhaling with each breath 

I also wonder about the % of contaminants in Antartica...

At times I think we need to be invaded by a benelovent advanced race so they can maybe stop some of this stupidity and hopefully clean up and reverse the damage wrought...



Seeker

[ArMaP]

At times I think we need to be invaded by a benelovent advanced race so they can maybe stop some of this stupidity and hopefully clean up and reverse the damage wrought...

What we need is to stop thinking that what we do doesn't have consequences.

When we started producing too much garbage we started piling it up on specific places, thinking nothing bad would happen, until those places started to get too big and affecting water sources. Then we started throwing our garbage to the oceans. After all, they are so huge, nothing wrong can happen. Now we are seeing that the oceans are also getting too full of garbage, so we are left with no other place to send our garbage to except space, but that is too expensive right now, so I suppose that's the only reason we haven't done it yet (except for a useless car sent by an idiot with too much money).

[The Seeker]

What we need is to stop thinking that what we do doesn't have consequences.

We are in total agreement on that, ArMaP, but unfortunately nobody listens to us...

When we started producing too much garbage we started piling it up on specific places, thinking nothing bad would happen, until those places started to get too big and affecting water sources. Then we started throwing our garbage to the oceans. After all, they are so huge, nothing wrong can happen. Now we are seeing that the oceans are also getting too full of garbage, so we are left with no other place to send our garbage to except space

I worked for a recycling company for 5 years, and there are only 2 things I am aware of that cannot be readily recycled and re-purposed; styro-foam and that gelatinous glob they put in baby diapers to absorb water; it's just getting anyone interested in setting up the facilities to do it... I tried to, but there are those who do not wish it to become reality, and it was not worth dying for...

,

but that is too expensive right now, so I suppose that's the only reason we haven't done it yet (except for a useless car sent by an idiot with too much money).

hehehe, now ArMaP, you know Elon Musk just had to put that car in outer space, just to show the world that he could just because he wanted to...



Seeker

[ArMaP]

, hehehe, now ArMaP, you know Elon Musk just had to put that car in outer space, just to show the world that he could just because he wanted to...

That's what I said, an idiot.

[The Seeker]

That's what I said, an idiot.

he needs to donate all those funds he wasted to us for research 

[Sgt.Rocknroll]

We are in total agreement on that, ArMaP, but unfortunately nobody listens to us...
I worked for a recycling company for 5 years, and there are only 2 things I am aware of that cannot be readily recycled and re-purposed; styro-foam and that gelatinous glob they put in baby diapers to absorb water; it's just getting anyone interested in setting up the facilities to do it... I tried to, but there are those who do not wish it to become reality, and it was not worth dying for...

I saw a show on tv sometime ago, one of those documentaries about landfills...
Everyone cries about garbage and the waste and the harm it does to the environment. How the US is a great polluter of the environment.

Well researchers took every landfill in the US in mileage and put them all together in a computer estimate.
Do you know how much space every landfill in the US takes up? 35 Sq. Miles!...That's it. It's minuscule in the great picture of everything.

Now it doesn't take into consideration where each and every landfill is located nor each ones effect on the local environment, but it is telling. 

edit:

Zorgon and I had a plan to design and market a garbage recycling plant. We drew up a rough sketch on my visit back in 2015 to Casa Zorgon.
But life got in the way of either of us doing much with it.
I still have the sketch that Zorgon drew somewhere. Maybe I'll scan it and post it....(just some history)(Ron always said we could make a lot of money if we got a patent.)

[space otter]

Maybe I'll scan it and post it....(just some history)(Ron always said we could make a lot of money if we got a patent.)

well hell sarge patent it before you post the damn thing 

[Sgt.Rocknroll]

well hell sarge patent it before you post the damn thing 

Well it was Ron's baby and maybe I will in his honor....

[The Seeker]

I saw a show on tv sometime ago, one of those documentaries about landfills...
Everyone cries about garbage and the waste and the harm it does to the environment. How the US is a great polluter of the environment.

Well researchers took every landfill in the US in mileage and put them all together in a computer estimate.
Do you know how much space every landfill in the US takes up? 35 Sq. Miles!...That's it. It's minuscule in the great picture of everything.

Now it doesn't take into consideration where each and every landfill is located nor each ones effect on the local environment, but it is telling. 

what it doesn't take into consideration is the barge loads of garbage that come out of the NE, new Jersey, new york, that is constantly dumped at sea and has been for decades...

edit:

Zorgon and I had a plan to design and market a garbage recycling plant. We drew up a rough sketch on my visit back in 2015 to Casa Zorgon.
But life got in the way of either of us doing much with it.
I still have the sketch that Zorgon drew somewhere. Maybe I'll scan it and post it....(just some history)(Ron always said we could make a lot of money if we got a patent.)

Post it, Sarge; My partner and I were in the process of getting a grant to set up a large MURF{municipal urban recycling facility) had a site picked out, prices on the equipment, and were going full steam ahead until we got a visit from the "group" that actually controls most of the garbage business on the east coast, and they basically told us to go ahead and get it off the ground and running, but also be prepared to either sell it or endure a takeover of the business 

I won't call any names but their initials were M-O-B...

so we walked away from it

[space otter]

i put this article

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-west-is-trading-water-for-cash-the-water-is-running-out/ar-AAFQ183?li=BBnb7Kz

The West Is Trading Water for Cash. The Water Is Running Out
Luke McGrath  6 hrs ago

here

http://www.thelivingmoon.com/forum/index.php?topic=11372.msg149201;topicseen#new


when it fits better here...sorry

[space otter]

yep it's me the gloom and doom  porn poster..read 'em and weep
president-there-is-no climate-change -it's all -a-chinese hoax is making the changes for global warming all by hisself

09/10/2019 06:00 am ET
Trump Admin Leading 'Brazen' Public Land Liquidation In Alaska, Analysis Finds
A Center for American Progress review shows nearly 30 million acres of federal land in the state are at risk of being developed or transferred.

By Chris D'Angelo


If the Trump administration gets its way, approximately 28.3 million acres of federal land across Alaska could be transferred, sold or opened up to extractive development, according to a new Center for American Progress analysis of the federal government's land management actions in the state.

The administration's agenda in Alaska amounts to "one of the most brazen public land liquidation efforts in U.S. history," the left-leaning think tank writes in its report.

The analysis highlights nine separate actions that put protected public land on the chopping block. Those include President Donald Trump's well-documented rush to open the 1.5 million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling and his directive last month to allow logging and other potential development in more than 9 million acres of Tongass National Forest, the largest remaining intact temperate rainforest on the planet.

It also includes several lesser-known initiatives, including revoking a pair of land withdrawals, a move that could ultimately open 1.3 million acres to future development; a land exchange that would allow for a road to be built through the 417,000-acre Izembek National Wildlife Refuge; and an ongoing rewrite of an Obama-era management plan that protected more than 13 million acres of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve from oil exploration.

Kate Kelly, CAP's public lands director and a co-author of the report, said public lands in Alaska are facing a "perfect storm" as the state's Republican delegation and the Trump administration have partnered to push pro-extraction policies.

"The size and scope is simply staggering," said Kelly, who also served as a senior adviser at the Interior Department during the Obama administration. "We are talking about nearly 30 million acres, [an area] approximately the size of Georgia, that are at risk of being sold out or transferred. These are lands that belong to all Americans."

The Interior Department did not respond to HuffPost's request for comment.

CAP's analysis comes as the Trump administration faces backlash over the recent appointment of William Perry Pendley, a conservative lawyer who has spent decades campaigning for the sale and transfer of federal lands, as acting director of the federal Bureau of Land Management, an agency of the Interior Department. In that role he now oversees 245 million acres of public land.

Pendley, who once wrote that the "Founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold," spent his first few weeks on the job trying to repair his image, as E&E News reported. In an op-ed in The Denver Post, he swung back at what he described as "attacks on my character and misrepresentations of my past."

Pendley's appointment added to conservationists' fears that it is only a matter of time before the Trump administration embraces transferring control of federal lands to states, as the Republican platform calls for. The administration maintains that it "adamantly opposes the wholesale sale or transfer of public lands," an Interior Department spokesperson recently told The Washington Post.

Yet it continues to slash environmental protections and open up millions of additional acres of land and offshore waters to logging, mining and drilling.

Nowhere is more emblematic of Trump's exploitation-first mindset for America's public lands than Alaska, Kelly said. And she sees the administration's efforts there as "doubly problematic" because of their potential to further drive global climate change.

"This plan would log America's largest old-growth forest and at the same time lock our nation into fossil fuel emissions that we can't afford," she said.

The United Nations warned in a report last month that deforestation and other unsustainable land use has helped drive atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to their highest levels in human history. And scientists the world over agree that preventing cataclysmic warming requires world governments to rapidly phase out fossil fuels.

[Sgt.Rocknroll]

The previous post cites CENTER for AMERICAN PROGRESS. Just so you know who these people really are: 

The Center for American Progress is a public policy research and advocacy organization which presents a liberal viewpoint on economic and social issues. It has its headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Board of Directors

Sen. Tom Daschle, Chair (Former Democrate Senator)

Neera Tanden, President  a top aide on Hillary Clinton's first presidential campaign


Stacey Abrams A member of the Democratic Party, she was the party's nominee in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, but lost to Brian Kemp


Steve Daetz a Berkeley lawyer (executive VP of the Sandler Foundation a liberal advocate foundation)


Glenn Hutchins  on Bill Clinton presidential transition team as a Senior Adviser focusing on economic policy

Eric Mindich  a former hedge fund executive who helped raise money for Barack Obama's White House runs, plans to help former Joe Biden raise cash for the 2020 campaign

Kristin Mugford Kristin Mugford is a former director at Bain Capital, who now teaches courses on finance at Harvard Business School. She is involved in left-of-center politics as a contributor to Democratic politicians and left-of-center interest groups, most prominently serving on the board of directors of the Democratic establishment-aligned think tank the Center for American Progress, where she is also a donor. She has contributed large amounts of money to left-wing candidates and groups, especially in the 2016 election cycle, for which she spent over $177,000.

John Podesta  White House Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton from October 20, 1998 until January 20, 2001 and as Counselor to President Barack Obama See Wikileaks

Donald Sussman donated $22.8M to the 2016 campaign of Hillary Clinton for President of the United States

Hansjörg Wyss Wyss Foundation (Swiss philanthropist) Wyss supports center-left candidates and organizations. The Federal Commission Records show contributions to left-leaning PAC groups such as the Wild PAC, White Cloud PAC, and League of Conservation Voters Action Fund. Wyss has also supported candidates such as former U.S. Senator Mark Udall (D-Colorado), former U.S. Representative Brian Baird (D-Washington), former Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), Governor Jay Inslee (D-Washington), and former Rep. James Matheson (D-Utah)

Please go to https://www.americanprogress.org/ for more on this group 

[space otter]

yep that is one group reporting and recording  the rape and pillage of public lands by those currently in power

who benefits?..rich friends of t rump..not you and me

i find it so very interesting that instead of addressing WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW  folks reporting the wrongs are attacked
smoke and mirrors


https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=aCV4Xd3hHuuyggf266qYCg&q=speaking+out+about+what++trump+is+doing+to+public+lands&oq=speaking+out+about+what++trump+is+doing+to+public+lands&gs_l=psy-ab.3...3133.14018..14580...0.0..1.258.6478.17j35j3......0....1..gws-wiz.......0j0i22i30j33i22i29i30j33i299j33i160.EkNH7yx6FEg&ved=0ahUKEwjdtbfGqMfkAhVrmeAKHfa1CqMQ4dUDCAc&uact=5

[Sgt.Rocknroll]

yep that is one group reporting and recording  the rape and pillage of public lands by those currently in power

Your Opinion

who benefits?..rich friends of t rump..not you and me

Once again Your Opinion

i find it so very interesting that instead of addressing WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW  folks reporting the wrongs are attacked
smoke and mirrors

Folks that have there own agenda, as you obviously do

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=aCV4Xd3hHuuyggf266qYCg&q=speaking+out+about+what++trump+is+doing+to+public+lands&oq=speaking+out+about+what++trump+is+doing+to+public+lands&gs_l=psy-ab.3...3133.14018..14580...0.0..1.258.6478.17j35j3......0....1..gws-wiz.......0j0i22i30j33i22i29i30j33i299j33i160.EkNH7yx6FEg&ved=0ahUKEwjdtbfGqMfkAhVrmeAKHfa1CqMQ4dUDCAc&uact=5

The only thing I pointed out were who the people were in the article. Sorry if the truth of these peoples agenda bothers you.