pollution
Clark (Philippines) (AFP) - NASA has kicked off a series of marathon flights in Asia with the world's biggest flying laboratory, in an ambitious mission to improve the models that help to forecast and fight air pollution. Millions of deaths each year are linked to air pollution, and improving the ability to identify its sources and behaviour can lead to more accurate warning systems for the public. Starting this week in the Philippines, the US agency's DC-8 is flying for up to eight hours at a time -- sometimes just 15 metres (50 feet) from the ground -- to swoop up air particles for study. "W...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - Certain plants have flowers that open only in the evening, and depend on nocturnal pollinators such as moths to thrive. But a new paper published in Science on Thursday finds an atmospheric pollutant that is much more prevalent at night drastically reduces the fluttering creatures' ability to track floral scents. It adds to a growing understanding of how human activities, including not just air but also light and noise pollution, are negatively impacting the natural world. "Our impacts on the environment are affecting human health, etc, that we tend to concentrate on, but th...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - President Joe Biden's administration on Wednesday announced tough new air quality standards it said were sorely needed to protect the health of vulnerable communities, though industry groups have said the move would harm domestic manufacturing. It comes as the Democratic incumbent faces a tough election rematch against the likely Republican candidate Donald Trump, who rolled back dozens of air pollution rules when he was in office. The new rule by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concerns fine particulate matter, commonly known as soot: a widespread, deadly pollutan...
AFP
Point Township (United States) (AFP) - On the banks of the Susquehanna river in rural Pennsylvania, a quiet, unassuming plot of land is the unlikely backdrop for a simmering debate over chemical recycling, a controversial process for dealing with plastic waste. The technology promises to transform hard-to-recycle containers, food packaging, lids, mailers and endless other items into usable petrochemicals and is championed in particular by the plastic-producing fossil fuel industry. But environmentalists call it a diversion endorsed by those with a vested interest in promoting plastic's continu...
AFP
Los Angeles (AFP) - Children in California are suing the US government over its failure to curb pollution, the latest in a series of legal actions by young people around the world worried about climate change. The youngsters, aged between eight and 17, say the Environmental Protection Agency -- the federal regulator -- "intentionally allows life-threatening climate pollution to be emitted by the fossil fuel sources of greenhouse gases it regulates, harming children's health and welfare," according to Our Children's Trust, a non-profit law firm. "Plaintiffs also claim the EPA has discriminated ...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - More than 15 train cars have derailed in the southern US state of Kentucky, spilling molten sulfur, sparking a fire, and prompting authorities to encourage nearby communities to evacuate on the eve of a major national holiday. CSX, the transport company operating the train, said two of the at least 16 cars affected were carrying molten sulfur. Specialized equipment was being deployed to monitor the air for sulfur dioxide, a toxic gas that is released when molten sulfur burns, the company said. It was not immediately clear what caused the derailment. Governor Andy Beshear dec...
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New York (AFP) - New York state sued PepsiCo on Wednesday, pointing to the soda giant's plastic waste as a scourge of waterways and blasting the company's "misleading" statements on the environment. The civil suit, filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James in the state Supreme Court, seeks a finding that PepsiCo contributed to a "public nuisance" in the Buffalo River; the imposition of financial penalties and compensatory damages on the company; and an order that PepsiCo cease the sale of single-use plastic on goods that do not warn of the environmental ills. "All New Yorkers have a bas...
AFP
Paris (AFP) - Invasive species that wreck crops, ravage forests, spread disease, and upend ecosystems are spreading ever faster across the globe, and humanity has not been able to stem the tide, a major scientific assessment said Monday. The failure is costing well over $400 billion dollars a year in damages and lost income -- the equivalent to the GDP of Denmark or Thailand -- and that is likely a "gross underestimation", according to the intergovernmental science advisory panel for the UN Convention on Biodiversity (IPBES). From water hyacinth choking Lake Victoria in East Africa, to rats an...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - From Quebec to British Columbia to Hawaii, North America is facing an extraordinary wildfire season -- and regions both near and far have found themselves increasingly blighted by smoke exposure. Here's what you should know about air pollution from these blazes. What we knowOne of the defining aspects of smoke from wildfires is "particulate matter" -- toxins that, in their numbers, can make smoke visible. Particulate matter of 2.5 micron diameter, PM2.5, is "particularly dangerous for human health and emitted in really large quantities," Rebecca Hornbrook, an atmospheric che...
AFP
East Rutherford (United States) (AFP) - He is not a lawyer, finance guy or a politician, but activist Bill Sheehan has moved mountains to clean up the Hackensack River in New Jersey just outside Manhattan, which for decades has been a dumping ground for industrial chemicals. Even still, the former taxi driver says, there is still so much to do to protect the waterway. "The North Jersey area here, just across from New York, is like the cradle of the Industrial Revolution," says Sheehan, sporting his signature cap. "For over 200 years, people were doing everything they could to lay waste to this...
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