liliannorman

[liliannorman]

COP26 And The Hubris Of Our Political Overlords

I can think of no other comparable activities that put on such dramatic and widely-viewed display the immeasurable foolishness and hubris of our political overlords. COP26 And The Hubris Of Our Political Overlords published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[liliannorman]

Everyday plastics can pollute, leaching thousands of chemicals

Bits of plastic litter the world. It’s become a big and growing problem from the depths of the ocean to Arctic glaciers and even European mountain peaks. Much research has lately focused on how plastic products in the environment break down into smaller pieces and where those bits wind up. But two new studies find it’s not just the plastic pieces that pose a problem. Intact plastics can release pollution — tens of thousands of chemicals. And those pollutants likely end up in water and food, those studies now conclude.

Many of these chemicals come from additives. Such additives include pigments, fire retardants and more. They make plastics stronger, more colorful or better in some way. But those additives are not chemically bonded to the plastic. That means they can move out and into the environment through a process known as leaching.

Most studies of plastic pollution have focused on pure plastic. These are types to which additives have not yet been added. Both of the new studies used plastic bags and containers as we use them, complete with additives. And through normal use, these plastics can release other chemicals as pollutants, the studies now report.

“We do not know whether there are health consequences from the plastic chemicals [pollutants] we looked at,” says Martin Wagner, one of the authors. Still, he argues, people should be concerned. “They are being sold products they use every day without knowing whether the chemicals they are exposed to are safe.”

Unsafe to eat?

Wagner is a biologist at Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. He recently teamed up with Lisa Zimmermann at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main in Germany. She’s an ecotoxicologist. That means she studies how chemicals may poison organisms in the environment. Together, they became part of a team that studied whether pollutants can leach from plastics into food.

They looked at everyday food containers. These included different types of plastic bags, bottles, fruit trays, coffee cup lids, gummi-candy packaging, shower shoes and yogurt cups. In all, these included eight different types of plastic. Each used different additives. The team extracted chemicals from each plastic sample. They also put a piece of each sample into water and kept it in the dark at 40° Celsius (104° Fahrenheit) for 10 days. Afterward, they tested the water for signs of any leaching of chemicals from these plastics.

It’s raining plastic, and here’s an explanation why — and why we should care.

They also tested the extracted chemicals and those that leached from water in toxicity tests. For instance, they looked at whether the chemicals could sicken cells. They also tested whether the chemicals might mimic or block hormones. And they used a device known as a mass spectrometer (Spek-TRAH-meh-tur) to identify the total number of different chemicals released by the plastics.

Chemicals leaching into water were toxic at concentrations we might encounter under normal use, they found. And every type of plastic leached at least some toxic chemicals. Only a few of the plastics leached chemicals that mimic or interfere with the body’s hormones. In total, some plastics leached a few hundred chemicals. Others, they found, leached tens of thousands.

The team shared its findings September 7 in Environmental Science & Technology.

Shining some light on the subject

When plastic bags and products are discarded, they can end up as litter. Massive amounts of trashed plastic wind up in our oceans. For many years, researchers thought sunlight would simply crack or otherwise break down the trash into smaller bits of the original plastic. Anna Walsh wondered if sunlight might also cause plastics to leach pollutants into the water. An environmental scientist, she works at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. It’s in Woods Hole, Mass. There, she’s part of a team that studies ocean chemistry.

When exposed to water, plastic shopping bags and more will release pollutants — some of them potentially toxic, new research shows. And sunlight boosts this leaching.Shana Novak/DigitalVision/Getty Images Plus

Her group analyzed pieces of common plastic bags. These were made from polyethylene (Pah-lee-ETH-ul-een), a plastic commonly found littering the ocean. They cut pieces and placed them in beakers of seawater. Some were left in the dark for six days at room temperature. Others were placed for five days under lights that included all the wavelengths in sunlight. These were chilled to keep the water at the same temperature as the dark samples.

Plastics leached twice as much pollution in sunlight as in darkness, they found. One bag leached 263 different chemicals in the dark but more than 13,000 when exposed to light! Others leached even more. And the longer bags were exposed to sunlight, the more chemicals they leached. “Sunlight can lead to these transformations relatively quickly,” Walsh says. In weeks to a few months, they can leach “tens of thousands of different chemicals.”

Her team shared its findings September 21 in Environmental Science & Technology.

What that means for ocean health is still unknown, Walsh says. But scientists are working on it. “We’re making great strides towards understanding how the many different plastic types in the ocean break down, how long they last and their effects,” she says.

Chemists had long thought plastic would last forever in the environment. But the truth is much more complicated. “Plastics are extremely tough materials,” Walsh admits. “But sunlight has the power to break them into all of these chemicals that we saw in the study.”

Risks remain a mystery

“It is good to see that more and more studies use realistic circumstances for their exposure experiments,” says Susanne Kühn. She is a marine biologist at Wageningen Marine Research in the Netherlands. It’s troubling, she says, that people “are exposed to substances where we do not know how toxic they may be.”

What’s more, she adds, there’s no government regulations to ensure these chemicals are used safely. The Zimmermann study “support[s] the growing body of evidence that plastics can be harmful, not only when ingested directly but also when in contact with human food,” Kühn says.

The good news is that we “can reduce exposures to these chemicals by reducing the use of plastics,” says Wagner in Norway. He suggests eating less food that comes in plastic packaging. “This will not only be good for us,” he argues, “but also for the environment.”

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[liliannorman]

THIS WEEK: The Heartland Institute’s Climate Reality Forum from COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland

Five hours of daily presentations begin at 9 am ET on Tuesday, Nov. 2 and Wednesday, Nov. 3 THIS WEEK: The Heartland Institute’s Climate Reality Forum from COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[liliannorman]

The Tonghua landslide in Sichuan Province, China

According to a new paper in the journal Landslides (Cheng, Yang and Du 2021), the 220,000 cubic metre 2017 Tonghua landslide in Sichuan Province, China was triggered by nearby blasting during tunnel construction. The Tonghua landslide in Sichuan Province, China published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[liliannorman]

Prince Charles Calls for Global “War Like Footing” to Address the Climate Crisis

Prince Charles has described climate change as an existential threat, which requires a war like footing to address. Prince Charles Calls for Global “War Like Footing” to Address the Climate Crisis published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[liliannorman]

Important Work at COP26

Here is the Overview Schedule of the entire conference. Important Work at COP26 published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[liliannorman]

Energy Policy Advocates Files Suit Against State Department Seeking “Special Climate Envoy” Kerry’s Ethics, Recusal Records

Today, the nonprofit governmental transparency group Energy Policy Advocates (EPA) filed an open records lawsuitagainst the United States Department of State seeking records including and relating to the required ethics clearance and recusal process for Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change John Kerry, who is employed by or at minimum under the ethics supervision of the Department of State. Energy Policy Advocates Files Suit Against State Department Seeking “Special Climate Envoy” Kerry’s Ethics, Recusal Records published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[liliannorman]

The Climate Model Myth Needs to Die

Good piece here at NASA. It’s a widespread myth that climate models are not very good. In fact, they do an amazing job, and it is fairly straightforward to test them. The bad news is what they predict if our CO2 levels go to 800 ppm: Whole different planet. https://ift.tt/37W4W07 The Climate Model Myth Needs to Die published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[liliannorman]

COP26 Chaos: G20 Failure, Wild Weather, Tornado Strikes Pro-COP26 Church

Not an auspicious start to the event which Prince Charles informs us is our last chance to save the world from global warming. COP26 Chaos: G20 Failure, Wild Weather, Tornado Strikes Pro-COP26 Church published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[liliannorman]

The Sea Of Fog And The Rite Of The Trees in Genshin Impact

After the A Particularly Particular Author followed the Octave of Maushiro. And for the third installment in our investigation of Tsurumi Island is The Sea of Fog and the Rite of the Trees. Just before completing the Octave of Maushiro, Sumida commissions us again to further explore the island of Tsurumi. She also expressed interest …

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[liliannorman]

USDA tries an end-run around law to enable a climate agenda

People send me stuff. Here’s an email worth reading. Comment deadline is today. – Anthony The USDA, as expected, will likely try and use Section 5 of the Commodity Credit… USDA tries an end-run around law to enable a climate agenda published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[liliannorman]

The Sun-Wheel and Mt. Kanna – Genshin Impact

In the quest, A Sea of Fog and the Rite of the Trees, we hurriedly left the ceremonial site due to an inexplicable storm that had appeared. With lightning colored red and striking with anger at us after we had destroyed the perches. To continue with the quest: Check the map and travel to Tsurumi …

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[liliannorman]

Texas State Geologist Scott Tinker: The Bad Assumptions Underpinning COP26 and the Impending Energy Train Wreck

Guest “Reality can be a harsh teacher” by David Middleton The world is already in an “energy crisis” of sorts due to the tremendous misallocation of capital from functioning energy… Texas State Geologist Scott Tinker: The Bad Assumptions Underpinning COP26 and the Impending Energy Train Wreck published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[liliannorman]

Holocene CO2 Variability and Underlying Trends

Guest Post by Renee Hannon Introduction This post compares CO2 data from Antarctic ice cores during the Holocene interglacial period with other publicly available CO2 datasets. Antarctic ice CO2 is… Holocene CO2 Variability and Underlying Trends published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[liliannorman]

Did Facebook put Instagram profits ahead of teen safety?

Maybe you use Instagram or WhatsApp to stay in touch with friends. Or, maybe you use them as entertainment. For their owner Facebook (which is changing its company name to Meta), these social-media apps are a business that brings in lots of money. Now a former employee says Facebook chose to pursue profits even when it knew some people — especially kids — could be hurt by what was being posted on its apps.

“Facebook has repeatedly misled the public about what its own research reveals about the safety of children,” Frances Haugen told U.S. senators. This former Facebook employee is a whistleblower. That’s someone who reports bad conduct by their employer or former employer. On October 5, she spoke at a senate hearing in Washington, D.C. The Wall Street Journal and the CBS TV show 60 Minutes reported on some of her claims a month earlier.

Explainer: What is an algorithm?

For starters, Facebook controls what people see on its apps. Algorithms are sets of computer rules. Facebook’s algorithms promote posts that get lots of comments and strong reactions. People spend more time on those posts. And the reward of getting reactions leads the folks who created those posts to add more material. In the end, people spend more time on the apps, so they see more money-making ads.

That kind of ranking doesn’t “care if you bullied someone or committed hate speech in the comments,” Haugen said. The algorithms also could lead people to posts that could be bad for their health, she noted. For example, an Instagram search on healthy eating can bring up links for quack diets or sites promoting disordered eating habits.

Whistleblower Frances Haugen testifies at an October 5 congressional hearing in Washington, D.C. The former Facebook employee claims the company’s drive for profits shortchanged children’s safety.Drew Angerer/Staff/Getty Images News

“Facebook’s own research says they cannot adequately identify dangerous content,” Haugen said. So the company “can’t protect us from the harms that they know exist in their own system.”

Haugen also shared information about the company’s work to create a new platform for tweens. “Facebook understands that if they want to continue to grow, they have to find new users,” Haugen said. In other words, “hooking kids.” Since Haugen’s whistleblowing comments, Facebook put its plans for Instagram Kids on hold.

Facebook also did some research on mental-health issues, Haugen noted. The company surveyed select groups of users. Were they sad or lonely? Did they have a poor body image? Did they worry how they compared to others? Did they have trouble sleeping? Was there family stress, and so on. If someone said they had a problem, the survey asked if the person thought Instagram use had an effect. If so, did the person think the the app made things better or worse?

Nearly one-third of teen girls who reported on the survey that they had body-image problems felt Instagram use had made them feel worse. So says a Facebook document first leaked by Haugen. One in every six teen girls with eating issues or sleeping issues thought using Instagram had made their problems worse. And one in every eight girls who had thought about suicide felt Instagram had made the problem worse.

Antigone Davis heads global safety for Facebook. She’s based in the greater Washington, D.C. area. A Senate committee asked her about the surveys on September 30. “It’s not causal research,” she said. For most problem issues, Davis told the senators, more surveyed teens felt Instagram had helped them, compared to those who said the app made things worse. Still, the company’s notes on a summary of some of its research say the disturbing findings “should not be ignored.”

Hear short excerpts of Frances Haugen’s October 5, 2021 testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in Washington, D.C. The subject was Facebook and Instagram’s alleged risks to the mental health of adolescents. The excerpts come from a hearing that lasted more than three hours.

What do studies show?

Facebook’s research on teens “could give researchers important clues about what to follow up on with scientific studies,” says Laurence Steinberg. He’s a psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia, Penn.

There’s no information yet to show if Facebook actually did any of those studies. So it might have ignored the disturbing findings. And it didn’t release any data on its surveys until after Haugen shared them.

Explainer: Correlation, causation, coincidence and more

Like Davis, Steinberg says Facebook’s research does not prove that the site caused bad feelings in kids. “Just because we observe an association between two things doesn’t mean that one causes the other.” Something else might be causing the two things. Or they might be completely unrelated, he says.

And, he adds, the Facebook survey does not meet the rigorous standards for a sound scientific study.

Those points matter as regulators think about how to respond to these claims. Any recommendations about physical or mental health “should be grounded in science and not just opinion and anecdote,” he says.

Teens who answered Facebook’s questions about their mental health and Instagram were part of a larger group. Their perceptions weren’t necessarily reliable, Steinberg says. There were no data from other groups to compare with these Instagram users.

In fact, some girls felt Instagram helped them feel better, the survey found. How would any policy changes affect them, he asks? “We’re always having to balance pros and cons,” Steinberg says. There have been too few rigorous studies about social media’s impacts on teens to truly know its impacts. And what studies there are don’t paint a clear picture, he adds.

Nearly one-third of teens who said they already had problems with body image felt Instagram made things worse, Facebook’s own research shows. The company’s survey doesn’t show causation. But in comments this fall, Facebook agreed such findings “should not be ignored.”Katalin Balassa/EyeEm/Getty Images

In any case, “it’s very concerning that Facebook was kind of sitting on their own research like this,” says Rosa Li. She’s a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Research suggests, she says, that on average, there’s very little negative effect or no relationship between social media and mental health “So, for the average person, it’s probably okay.”

“However,” she adds, “if you look at individual studies, you start to see that there’s some individual differences that really seem to matter.” In other words, “there are some kids that are vulnerable,” she says. “And those are the kids we want to watch out for.” For example, kids who are not popular appear to be more vulnerable. Or, they may already not feel comfortable with the way their body looks or with comments from others about their weight.

Magazines, TV and other types of media might also help harm body image or add to other mental-health problems, Li noted. But with social media, she says, “it’s so much more intense and so much more personal than what we’ve had in the past.” Plus, as Haugen said, teens are often on social media from early morning until late at night.

Do a self-check

“The goal of social-media companies is to get you to stay on their site for as long as possible,” Li says. They don’t care how the posts make you feel, “or whether or not [they’re] best for your goals and personal well-being,” she adds. The companies aren’t out to make the world a better place. “Their motivation is to make as much money as possible.”

The more time you spend on posts, the more time you’re exposed to ads on social media apps. And the more users there are, the more people there are to spend time on the apps. No wonder, then, that Facebook was looking to add more teens and even tweens to its list of users.

For most users, Instagram and Facebook are social-media platforms they browse or post on. For people who own stock in Facebook, these sites are parts of a business meant to make money. Justin Sullivan/Staff/Getty Images News

During adolescence, kids tend to seek out stimuli that reward them, research shows. Teens and ‘tweens also care a lot about their social lives. And many of them have limited self-control. From a company’s point of view, that adds up to “this perfect social-media user,” Li says.

As a result, you might spend more time on social media than you intended. While there, you might be led to false or misleading information. Or, you might find yourself in a worse mood, even if a mental-health expert wouldn’t say that mood is bad enough to count as a disorder.

“Almost every kid could be using social media in better, healthier ways, even if they’re not having measurable negative effects,” Li says. For starters, she suggests, stay off social media for a full day. Focus on how you feel during that time. And think about what you do instead. For example, do you talk more with a friend on the phone? Or do you have a long face-to-face conversation with someone?

Then be mindful when you go back on social media. Do a mood check beforehand. Then note how you feel at the end. Some of Li’s students found they felt worse afterward than at the start. A mood change after using social media might be like a little cut, Li says. It might not cause a long-term impact. But it can make you feel worse in the moment. Beyond that, think about how and when you use social media.

If you’re feeling down, Steinberg adds, “you shouldn’t do something that’s going to make you feel even more depressed.” Similarly, “If you notice there are particular people’s postings that make you feel bad, then don’t follow those people. Just follow the people whose postings make you feel good.”

In any case, if you feel really bad, “talk to somebody about it,” Steinberg says. Turn to your parents, a counselor or a mentor. Don’t try to just tough it out on your own. No matter what their cause, mental-health problems can be dangerous. But there’s good news: Mental-health problems also can be treated.

“You shouldn’t worry about trying to figure out why [you’re feeling bad],” Steinberg says. “You should worry about how you’re feeling. And you should talk to somebody about your feelings.”

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young adults ages 15 to 29. If you or someone you know is suffering from suicidal thoughts, please seek help. In the United States, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Or you can Text 741-741. Please do not suffer in silence.

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[liliannorman]

Scientists Say: Phloem

Phloem (noun, “FLOH-em)

Phloem is a type of plant tissue. This tissue distributes sugars that leaves make during photosynthesis to the rest of the plant. These sugars are the plant’s food. And just like people can overeat, plants can make more sugars than they need at a certain time. When this happens, plants can stash excess food in storage organs, such as roots or bulbs. Carrots (roots) and onions (bulbs) are both examples of plant storage organs. Phloem can also carry sugars from storage organs to parts of a plant that need energy to grow.

The process of moving food around through phloem is known as translocation. Phloem’s partner in crime is xylem. Xylem is plant tissue that brings water and nutrients up from the roots to the rest of the plant. Together, phloem and xylem make up a plant’s vascular system. You can see this system at work in the veins on plant leaves.

In a sentence

Extra phloem tissue that carries lots of food allows some pumpkins to grow to enormous sizes.

Check out the full list of Scientists Say.

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[liliannorman]

NASA’s Perseverance rover grabbed its first Martian rocks

The Perseverance rover has captured its first two slices of Mars.

NASA’s latest rover, it arrived on the Red Planet in February. On September 1, it drilled into a flat rock nicknamed Rochette. That allowed the rover to fill a roughly finger-sized tube with stone. This sample is the first ever intended to be brought to Earth for study. On September 8, the rover snagged a second sample from the same rock. Both are now stored in airtight tubes inside the rover.

Let’s learn about space robots

The rover is supposed to get two samples from every rock it drills. This is “a little bit of an insurance policy,” explains Katie Stack Morgan. It means the rover can drop identical sets of samples in two different places on Mars. That boosts the chances that a future mission will be able to retrieve at least one set. Stack Morgan is the deputy project scientist for the Perseverance mission. She works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif.

The successful drilling is a comeback story for Perseverance. The rover’s first attempt to take a bit of Mars failed. The sample crumbled to dust, leaving an empty tube. Scientists think that rock was too soft to withstand the drill.

Nevertheless, the rover persevered.

Rochette is a hard rock. It appears to be less severely eroded by millennia of Martian weather than are other rocks. Rover measurements of its texture and chemistry suggest the rock is made of basalt. This is a type that forms when lava cools. So Rochette may have once been part of an ancient lava flow.

Sampling volcanic rock is useful because these rocks preserve their ages well, Stack Morgan says. Measuring the concentrations of the isotopes of certain elements reveals exactly how old a piece of basalt is. Scientists have to do those measurements with equipment here on Earth, though. So this type of study has never been done on a pristine Martian rock.

Let’s learn about Mars

Rochette is also interesting because it contains salt minerals. These salts probably formed when the rock interacted with water over long periods. That hints that groundwater once moving below Mars’ surface. Perhaps that groundwater means the region the rock came from was once habitable.

“It really feels like this rich treasure trove of information for when we get this sample back,” Stack Morgan says.

Scientists on Earth could someday search for tiny fluid bubbles trapped inside Rochette’s salts. The fluid would be left over from when Jezero crater — where Perseverance is exploring — was an ancient lake. Back then, the area may have been able to support life, said Yulia Goreva at a news briefing on September 10. Goreva is a planetary scientist. She also works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.

Explainer: What is a planet?

Scientists will have to be patient to analyze the newly collected rocks. The earliest any samples could make it to Earth is 2031. But it’s still a historic milestone, says Meenakshi Wadhwa. She’s a planetary scientist at Arizona State University. That’s in Tempe. “These represent the beginning of Mars sample return,” Wadhwa said at the news briefing. “I’ve dreamed of having samples back from Mars to analyze in my lab since I was a graduate student. We’ve talked about Mars sample return for decades. Now it’s starting to actually feel real.”

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