Plastic is a problem in a lot of ways: The fossil fuel-based material generates greenhouse gas emissions throughout its lifecycle; is rarely recycled; contributes to ocean pollution; and even accumulates in the human body. But plastic is so ubiquitous, you can’t just wake up one morning and decide to live plastic-free. Plastic-free living is hard and must be pursued incrementally. The first step is figuring out where you are by conducting a plastics inventory.

To honor 52 years of action inspired by Earth Day, Earth911 presents 52 Actions for the Earth. Each week from Earth Day 2022 to Earth Day 2023, we will share an action you can take to invest in the Earth and make your own life more sustainable.

This week, you can invest in the Earth by calculating your plastic use.

Action: Complete a Plastics Inventory

Single-Use Plastic

Completely eliminating all plastic may not be possible for individuals in today’s world – after all, most electronics and even home appliances are made with some plastic parts. Most children’s toys are made from plastic, too. But one area that individuals can control – and make a meaningful impact – is single-use and disposable plastics. From product packaging to water bottles and toothbrushes, our daily lives are filled with plastic items that are designed to be disposed of after one or only a few uses. Most people working towards plastic-free living try to eliminate single-use plastics one product type at a time. Maybe you already know you have a zip-top bag problem. But then again, you might be surprised to see where your plastic use piles up. Where do you start?

Plastic Calculator

EarthDay.org has developed a plastic calculator to help you figure out how much plastic you use and dispose of every year and to set your goals for improvement. This week, set aside some time to fill out the two charts in the calculator. The first chart examines single-use items like cling wrap and cotton swabs, while the second calculates items that are used less often or last a bit longer, like cleaning containers and period products. The tool will calculate your yearly consumption of each product type.

Once you figure out how much plastic you go through, you can identify which of your habits to change to make the most difference in your personal plastic footprint. When you’re ready to take the next step, Earth911 is full of ideas to help you replace disposable plastics. You might decide to buy a reusable water bottle, keep cloth shopping bags in your car, or carry a reusable straw and utensils when you go out. If you’re ready for even more action, EarthDay.org has an online toolkit for eliminating plastic pollution.

While researchers have speculated that the up to 50-foot-long whales choose these locations for lack of predators and warmer and calmer waters, a team of biologists from Syracuse University’s Bioacoustics and Behavioral Ecology Lab recently uncovered a new potential motive. They hypothesize that shallow, sandy, near-shore waters are a prime spot for whales to birth and raise their young because those areas have reduced acoustic propagation, meaning vocal signals don’t travel as far at these sites, allowing whale mothers to communicate with their nearby young, while not being heard by predators off in the distance.

Since questions remain about why baleen whales migrate such long distances every year, the research team says their results shed new light on their migratory behavior. Understanding habitat use and selection also allows researchers to better focus conservation and management efforts, which is critical for endangered whale species like the right whale in the North Atlantic.

Authors Julia Zeh and Julia Dombroski, both Ph.D. candidates in biology in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), and Susan Parks, associate professor of biology and principal investigator of the Bioacoustics and Behavioral Ecology Lab in A&S, gathered data at three nursery sites across three continents in the southern hemisphere (South America, Africa and Australia) where southern right whale nurseries are commonly spotted. In their paper, published in Royal Society Open Science, they found that the depth at which right whale mothers and their young are often observed has the most limited acoustic detection range for their calls.

“Animals that communicate using sound must balance the need to be heard by their intended audience and the risk of being overheard by eavesdroppers such as predators,” says Zeh.

Changes to sound production behavior to reduce detectability by eavesdroppers is known as acoustic crypsis. Southern right whales have commonly used three forms of acoustic crypsis to avoid predators: reduction in call amplitude; using signal frequencies which are difficult for eavesdroppers to detect and/or localize; and reduction or complete ceasing of acoustic signal production, effectively going silent to avoid detection.

In their paper, the team propose a fourth method of acoustic crypsis centering around southern right whales’ habitat choice.

“We found that southern right whale mothers and calves spend time in specific locations where they can hear each other, but other animals can’t hear them,” Zeh explains. “These results follow on some interesting recent papers that recorded quiet calls, or essentially whispers, from right whale mothers and calves.”

Future research will be aimed at determining how common a habitat selection approach to acoustic crypsis may be.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Syracuse University. Original written by Dan Bernardi. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

“The design of climate mitigation policies relies on economic models. Our research shows that it is possible to improve such models to represent changes in preferences,” says Linus Mattauch, lead author of the paper and researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the University of Oxford. “Preferences represent values and habits, meaning essentially what you as an individual like and not, what you prefer to consume more of and what less. Economists typically assume you are basically born with a fixed set of values and preferences that remain that way throughout your life. It makes calculations easier — but it is a simplification from reality. And, crucially, if you assume preferences will always remain the same, real change like the transition to a decarbonised economy is harder.”

Preference changes are well documented in the past: When the negative health impacts of smoking were raised in education campaigns alongside price interventions and bans, more and more people quit smoking — economics rarely understands this as a change in preferences.

Climate policies can change people’s way of looking at things

“Carbon pricing is indispensable for delivering on climate targets,” says co-author Nicholas Stern, who published the famous 2006 Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. “However, if carbon pricing changes people’s preferences — and there is evidence that it does — this has implications. For example, if citizens see carbon prices as indicating purposefulness of policy in directions that they find sensible, then the response to carbon pricing could be enhanced.” They do not simply act as consumers: as citizens, they will develop low-carbon preferences, and more environmental protection could be achieved by a given tax rate.

“Another example is urban redesign,” adds Mattauch. “If a government puts in the money and makes a city’s infrastructure more bike-friendly, citizens will switch from driving to using public transport or cycling. This behaviour will stick, even in different infrastructures — bringing further benefits to the environment and their own health. Taking those benefits into account can lower the threshold for making such big investments worthwhile.”

Reducing demand-side emissions to the benefit of planet and people

One might argue that aiming for preference changes is something policies shouldn’t do. “Our short general answer to this objection is: If society does not debate how preferences are formed, they risk being shaped by and to the benefit of special interest groups rather than in a democratic way. For the enormous challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions drastically in the near-future, recognizing that climate policy instruments modify the preference formation process can produce better climate policies for everyone — and help advance the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent recommendation of using demand-side measures to curb carbon emissions,” Mattauch concludes.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have released a guide that provides resources for adapting to and mitigating impacts of climate change. The guide, Building Alliances for Climate Action, includes various perspectives, stories, insights, and resources about climate change to help individuals and organizations make informed decisions.

“NASA’s Earth observation and research supports the Biden-Harris Administration’s climate agenda, which outlines putting the climate crisis at the center of our nation’s foreign policy and national security,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA is working hand in hand with FEMA to ensure communities across the U.S. and around the world have the resources they need to adapt in the face of extreme weather – which is increasing due to climate change.”

The guide is a result of the Alliances for Climate Action, which NASA and FEMA co-hosted last year, a virtual series aimed at addressing rising demand for accurate, timely, and actionable information at a time of rapid global climate change. During the series, speakers shared their perspectives and paths to bolstering collective climate action.

“To meet this moment, we need to invest in initiatives to break the cycles of disaster, damage, and reconstruction,” said FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell. “Our actions now will directly impact the future. In the past, FEMA was criticized for insufficient action on climate change. This will not be our future.”

NASA also partners with FEMA in other ways related to climate and Earth science. Before, during, and after disasters occur, NASA’s Disasters Program coordinates with FEMA and other response agencies, decision-makers, and local governments to provide Earth-observing data and applied research results. NASA data inform choices, support decisions, and guide actions to build resilient communities. NASA’s Disasters Mapping Portal provides near-real-time data on current events.

To improve access to key information, Nelson announced a concept for NASA’s Earth Information Center, which is an opportunity for the agency to leverage its data and modeling capabilities to work with trusted government and community partners with longstanding engagement in communities most affected by climate change.

Supporting this effort are the Earth-observing missions we are flying today and building for the future. The center will complement the next generation of Earth observation satellites – NASA’s Earth System Observatory – to be launched by the end of this decade. As the next generation of missions to observe our planet, NASA’s observatory will provide a 3D, holistic view of Earth to help us better understand what our planet’s changes mean for humanity.

For more information about NASA’s Earth science programs, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/earth

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Tylar Greene

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[email protected]

The study, led by the New England Aquarium and including researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the USGS Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, the Center for Coastal Studies, UCLA, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Canadian Whale Institute was published this month in the journal Global Change Biology. The authors set out to better understand the impacts of ocean climate change on phenology, or the timing of recurring biological events such as when plants flower each year. Using more than 20 years of data, the scientists measured shifts in whale habitat use in Cape Cod Bay, evaluating trends in peak use for North Atlantic right whales, humpback whales, and fin whales. The study found that peak use of Cape Cod Bay had shifted almost three weeks later for right whales and humpback whales. Changes in the timing of whale habitat use were related to when spring starts, which has been changing as a result of climate change. The study suggested that highly migratory marine mammals can and do adapt the timing of their habitat use in response to climate-driven changes in their environment, with results showing increased habitat use by right whales in Cape Cod Bay from February to May, with greatest increases in April and May.

“The time of year when we are most likely to see right and humpback whales in Cape Cod Bay has changed considerably, and right whales are using the habitat much more heavily than they did 20 years ago,” said lead author Dr. Dan Pendleton, Research Scientist in the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life.

The research team gathered data from aerial surveys conducted by the Center for Coastal Studies from 1998 to 2018 and analyzed environmental data such as sea surface temperatures and the dates that signify the start of spring each year. The team used a novel statistical technique to study changes in whale habitat use within and across years, which provided insights into long-term effects of climate change on whale habitat.

Scientists conducted the study in the Gulf of Maine because it is one of the most rapidly warming regions of the ocean, making it a unique ecosystem to study phenological and biological responses to climate change, such as animal migrations, peaks in productivity, and breeding. Sea surface and bottom temperatures in the Gulf of Maine have increased at a rate three times faster than the global average over recent decades. Changing ocean circulation and temperature — including earlier spring, later fall, longer summer and shorter winter — have led to changes in whales’ food supply throughout the Gulf of Maine.

“One of the biggest gaps in our understanding of how climate change is shifting the yearly cycles of life in the oceans involves the largest migrating animals — whales,” said Michelle Staudinger, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, science coordinator at the Northeast Climate Adaption Science Center and professor of environmental conservation at UMass Amherst. “Even though they’re the largest mammals on earth, we have an incomplete understanding of where some whales go and when. This new research helps us understand how seasonal whale migration is changing, which is critical for their protection and conservation in our region.”

The scientists also theorized that right whales may be using Cape Cod Bay for a longer period of time because climate change has reduced the amount of food available in other Gulf of Maine habitats. These changes may have turned the bay into a sort of “waiting room” for right whales as richer prey resources develop in new habitats, such as the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

North Atlantic right whales are a critically endangered species with 336 individuals estimated to be alive. The whales’ population has declined over the past decade due to human activities, such as vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglements. When large whales visit Cape Cod Bay is of high concern because the region is heavily used by vessel operators and fishermen. Vessel speed limits and fishing restrictions in Cape Cod Bay were designed to coincide with the historical peak in North Atlantic right whale habitat use. The research illustrates the continued need for government agencies to alter protective measures for threatened and endangered whales, as those animals adapt to their feeding and migration patterns in response to climate change.

“Changes in whenwhales use their traditional habitats has important implications for the design of protected areas. This issue is especially important as climate change continues to alter animal migrations,” Pendleton said.

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Massachusetts Amherst. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Somewhere around the turn of the century, people began to realize that new car smell is actually an unhealthy combination of 50-60 VOCs off-gassing from plastics, vinyl, and glues. For a while, environmentalists paid a lot of attention to avoiding VOCs, but it’s hard to maintain attention these days.

The Federal Trade Commission is responsible for handling false advertising claims, but they have filed only two to five environmental marketing cases per year since 2015, which means that very few greenwashers are ever held accountable. Unfortunately, some companies have taken advantage of the lack of scrutiny to greenwash their products, as evidenced by one of those rare FTC legal actions. The FTC took action against YOLO Colorhouse for advertising their paints as no-VOC when that wasn’t true at all. Here’s why that’s a bigger problem than just false advertising.

What Are VOCs

VOC stands for “volatile organic compound.” Volatile organic compounds include a wide variety of chemicals that share two key characteristics. First, they are all emitted as gases from solids or liquids that contain them in a process called “off-gassing.” Second, they are all organic. In environmental circles, “organic” is usually a positive term that implies natural origin. But in chemistry, “organic” is a neutral term that refers to carbon-based compounds.

Organic chemicals include most of the compounds that make up living matter. Relatively few of them are volatile, but some such as methane and benzene are naturally occurring. But many other VOCs are manufactured chemicals that are rare in nature if they exist there at all. Regardless of their origin, VOCs work as industrial solvents, fuels, paint thinners, and dry-cleaning agents. They are also present in thousands of commercial products, from paints and paint strippers to cleaning supplies, pesticides, glues and permanent markers.

What’s Wrong With VOCs

VOCs, including formaldehyde, a variety of compounds found in paints and finishes, and some flame retardants, are on the Red List of materials green builders try to avoid. When released outdoors, VOCs react with nitrogen oxides in the air to form ozone pollution. Organic compounds in myriad chemical products become pollutants in groundwater, and volatile organics in many home products contribute significantly to indoor air pollution.

Organic pollutants can have short- and long-term adverse health effects. Because VOCs comprise such a widely varied group of compounds, their health impacts are also varied, but can include irritation of eyes, nose, and throat; difficulty breathing and nausea; central nervous system and other organ damage; and even cancer. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry Toxic Substances Portal identifies specific health effects from different kinds of VOCs.

Indoor air quality can be two to five times worse than outside air quality. Concentrations of many harmful VOCs are up to 10 times higher indoors than outdoors. There are several remedies for indoor air quality at home, but one of the most important is source control.

Avoiding VOCs

Choose cleaning products, solvents, glues, and paints that are labeled low-VOC or no-VOC. To avoid the kind of greenwashing revealed in the Colorhouse case, look for third-party certification. Unfortunately, there is no single certification system for VOCs. Paints and finishes may have one of several types of certification, including GreenGuard, Green Seal, and Indoor airPLUS. Green Seal also looks at the safety of cleaning products. Numerous other certification systems, such as MADESAFE, consider the safety or toxicity of ingredients in a wide variety of consumer products.

You can also avoid VOCs by choosing different types of products. Avoid anything made from vinyl (also known as PVC). Choose solid wood furnishings instead of upholstered ones and bare wood or tile floors instead of carpet to avoid the VOCs in foams.

Most off-gassing takes place when products are new and decreases over time. Buying second-hand is one way to avoid VOCs in soft furnishings and other products where VOCs may be unavoidable. When you must buy new products – for example, engineered woods bound with adhesives that contain VOCs – let the materials off-gas outdoors or in the garage before bringing them into the home.

Time remodeling and craft projects for summer so that you can keep doors and windows open while working. Completely avoiding VOCs in products is impossible when even computers and mattresses contain them. So, try to maintain good ventilation in your home at all times to remove any VOCs released. Off-gassing is more severe in high temperatures and high humidity, so keeping your home cool and dry is also helpful. Finally, communicate with the manufacturers of the products you buy and encourage them to offer low and no-VOC products.

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Penn State University have created a new type of fiber that can perform like a muscle actuator, in many ways better than other options that exist today. And, most importantly, these muscle-like fibers are simple to make and recycle.

In a new paper published in Nature Nano, the researchers showed that these fibers, which they initially discovered while working on another project, are more efficient, flexible and able to handle increased strain compared to what’s out there today. These fibers could be used in a variety of ways, including medicine and robotics.

“You can basically build a limb from these fibers in a robot that responds to stimuli and returns power, instead of using a mechanical motor to do this, and that’s good because then it will have a softer touch,” said Manish Kumar, an associate professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering’s Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering and one of the lead authors of the paper.

This kind of robotic arm could be used in an assistive exoskeleton to help people with weak arms regain movement and strength. Another potential application, the researchers say, could be a sort of “self-closing bandage” that could be used in surgical procedures and naturally degrade inside the body once the wound heals.

“Actuators are any material that will change or deform under any external stimuli, like parts of a machine that will contract, bend, or expand,” said Robert Hickey, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Penn State and corresponding author on the paper. “And for technologies like robotics, we need to develop soft, lightweight versions of these materials that can basically act as artificial muscles. Our work is really about finding a new way to do this.”

The fiber material is known as a block co-polymer. Creating it only requires putting the polymer in a solvent and then adding water. One part of the polymer is hydrophilic (attracted to water), while the other part is hydrophobic (resistant to water). The hydrophobic parts of the polymer group together to shield themselves from the water, creating the structure of the fiber.

Similar existing fibers require an electric current to stimulate the reactions that bond parts together. This chemical cross-linking is harder to make happen, compared to the researchers’ new fiber, which is a mechanical reaction, meaning the parts take care of most of the work themselves. Another added bonus is it is simple to reverse the process and return the pieces of the fiber to their original states.

“The ease of making these fibers from the polymer and their recyclability are very important, and it’s an aspect that much of the other complicated artificial muscle research doesn’t cover,” Kumar said.

The researchers found their fibers were 75% more efficient in terms of converting energy to movement, able to handle 80% more strain and could rotate with more speed and force than current actuators. And it can stretch to more than 900% of its length before it breaks.

The discovery came while the researchers were working on something else. They were trying to use these polymers to make membranes for water filtration. However, the structures they made were too long for membranes. They stretched out to five times their original length and held that length. The researchers noticed that these characteristics were similar to muscle tissue, so they decided to shift the focus.

The researchers are early on in the project, and they next plan to learn more about the structural changes of the polymer and improve some of the actuation properties, including energy density and speed. They also may use this same design technique to create actuators that respond to different stimuli, such as light.

Venkat Ganesan, a professor in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering and Rui Huang, professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, are the other Texas Engineers on the team. Also on the team from Penn State are Chao Lang, Elisabeth Lloyd, Kelly Matuszewski and Yifan Xu. The Air Force Office of Scientific Research, National Science Foundation and Penn State funded the research.

The team, led by Dr James R. Allan from the University of Amsterdam, used advanced geospatial algorithms to map the optimal areas for conserving terrestrial species and ecosystems across the world. They further used spatially explicit land-use scenarios to quantify how much of this land is at risk from human activities by 2030.

“Our study is the current best estimate of how much land we must conserve to stop the biodiversity crisis — it is essentially a conservation plan for the planet,” said lead author James Allan. “We must act fast, our models show that over 1.3 million km² of this important land — an area larger than South Africa — is likely to have its habitat cleared for human uses by 2030, which would be devastating for wildlife.”

The work has important policy implications since governments are currently negotiating a post-2020 global biodiversity framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity, with new goals and targets for biodiversity which will hopefully come into effect later this year. This will set the conservation agenda for at least the next decade, and governments will have to report progress against these targets on a regular basis.

“More than a decade ago, governments set a global target to conserve at least 17 per cent of terrestrial areas through protected areas and other site-based approaches for improving the status of biodiversity and ecosystems,” explains co-author Dr Kendall Jones, Conservation Planning Specialist at the Wildlife Conservation Society. “However, by 2020 it was clear that this was not enough for halting biodiversity declines and averting the biodiversity crisis.”

A high-profile target being now discussed for 2030 is that nations should conserve 30% of their land through protected areas and other site-based approaches.

Added Jones: “While this is a great step in the right direction, our study suggests that more ambitious goals and policies to maintain ecological integrity beyond this 30% target are crucial. If nations are serious about safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystem services that underpin life on Earth, then they need immediately to scale-up their conservation efforts, not only in extent and intensity but also in effectiveness.”

The authors said the study provides essential information for conservation and development planning, and can help guide future national and global conservation agendas. They also emphasized that all the identified land should not necessarily be designated as protected areas, but rather managed through a wide range of strategies for species and ecosystem conservation, including including other effective area-based conservation measures, and effective sustainable land-use policies when appropriate.

“Conservation actions that promote the autonomy and self-determination of people living on this land, whilst also maintaining ecological integrity are crucial,” said Dr Allan. “We have many effective conservation tools available, from empowering Indigenous Peoples to manage their natural environment, through to policies that limit deforestation or provide sustainable livelihood options, and of course protected areas.”

Story Source:

Materials provided by Wildlife Conservation Society. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.