Your clothes are polluting the ocean every time you do laundry

Oceanic pollution has become as serious concern in the modern era as use of plastics coupled with the practice of dumping waste into the oceans has created some environmentally unhealthy areas. Identifying where the pollution is coming from, how it eventually degrades and its overall effects on oceanic ecosystems has become a very large subject of academic research. In particular, the new use of micro-particles for cleaning products and the findings that some large pieces of plastic will fragment into tiny particles has prompted further work into understanding how these "microplastics" could impact animals and environments living in the ocean and coastal regions.

This recent article published by "Treehugger.com" highlights the results of this study published in the journal, Environmental Science and Technology. The news article makes emphasis of the finding that a large portion of the microplastics found in coastal populated areas, and especially near waste disposal sites, could come from synthetic clothing fibers that may be entering waste water after being cleaned in washing machines. There is special emphasis put on the statistic that >1900 fibers could come from one single piece of clothing. The article is then ended with a call to action to bring this study to the attention of clothing makers and encouraging readers to only wear natural fibers to avoid this pollution.

The research article paints a slightly different story, though it does seem to indicate that the washing of synthetic fiber clothing could play a significant role in the total number of microplastics in the waters. They concluded this based on the relative percentages of types of fibers in the water and compared these to general percentages used in synthetic clothing fiber, however they note several times that this is most likely only one of many sources of the fibers. After concluding many of these fibers are most likely from clothing, the authors then used a washing machine to determine how many fibers generally come out in the waste water by washing synthetic textiles. The article does state that a single piece of clothing can emit >1900 fibers, but the mean across all samples was closer to 200 fibers, this seems to be a way to try and make their findings more exciting but could come across and disingenuous to readers. In addition, the study does not control for use of detergents nor types of other machines that could have other filtering mechanisms in place. What I drew from the study was the composition of microfibers in waste waters is similar to synthetic fibers used in clothing and that a preliminary test of washing machine usage indicates these fibers do come out waste water, but the effect of this is still largely uncertain.

The only data figure from the ES&T paper, demonstrating the sampled waste sites along with the results of their machine washing tests.

Somewhat more interestingly, the article cites a quote from the first author of the paper taken from this website, indicating that the author is attempting to use this type of study to sell new textile fabrics that reduce waste pollution to large manufacturers. While this is usually benign behavior, I would have liked to see some disclaimer in the scientific study that declares some competing financial interest. Especially because the article was very short, had very little in the way of presented data and seemed to use hyperbolic terms so news agencies could easily make a story.

I thought the treehugger article showed pretty clear bias and cherry picked lines from the study to make a stronger point than what the researchers concluded. On top of that, I felt the actual scientific study lacked in content and detail; it appears to me that the authors were trying to get their story out and make it seem very important without giving background, context or strong evidence for their point. Overall I would give both of these sources a poor grade for the science and reporting by clouding the data with some influence, both clear and hidden, on what they are attempting to accomplish by publishing these articles.

Australia's Protection Plan to Preserve the Great Barrier Reef Is Inadequate

Earlier this year, the Australian government released a draft plan entitled "Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan" aimed at implementing a protection plan that would save the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) from further degradation. In response, the Australian Academy of Science (AAS) published a report, which outlines the reasons that scientists argue the plan will not work and in actuality will lead to increased degradation rather than protecting the GBR. Scientists argue that the proposal is flawed because it does not address any plans to mitigate critical processes, such as climate change and coastal development. One scientist notes, "The science is clear, the reef is degraded and its condition is worsening," said Prof Hughes. "This is a plan that won't restore the reef, it won't even maintain it in its already diminished state...It is also more than disappointing to see that the biggest threat to the reef - climate change - is virtually ignored in this plan."

Source: Australian Conservation Foundation

AAS notes at least three threats leading to increased degradation of the GBR. First, up to 50% of coral has already been destroyed namely due to acidification caused by global warming. A second issue is an aggressive starfish that has been able to flourish due to fertilizers and farm waste run-off into the ocean. Finally, coal is being shipped for export to Japan, Korea and China, which feeds the economy. The process of dredging, digging out silt to widen the amount channels so bigger ships can move through, produces waste that is then dumped close enough to the GBR to cause further degradation.

The original article notes that there are several conflicts of interests (COI) (which the government proposal does not address) that may be at play. The Australian economy is becoming increasingly dependent on fossil fuels, like coal. As noted above, the environmental degradation and overall impact to the GBR is a clear example as to how competing interests may lead to worsened conditions. Another COI may be "conflict [that] arises when regulators are also among the proponents and co-investors of activities such as port development." There may be inadequate oversight in terms of monitoring and even compliance protocols based on the stake some officials have in extractive industries.

Overall, the BBC article addressed many of the points of the original report; however, it did not mention the COI outlined by the AAS scientists. The COI seemed to be a major component of the original article and are important to convey to the public. If the public has any say over the government officials they select then it would have made sense for the BBC article to shed light on the possible complicit role of the existing COI's listed, above. I would rate this article a 6.5/10 because of its failure to include key points from the original article that may inform public opinion.

Original article: https://www.science.org.au/sites/default/files/user-content/submission-to-the-2015-defence-white-paper.pdf

BBC article: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-29782610

Marine ammonium deposition: anthropogenic input or ocean emission?

The industrialization processes have seen a great increase in the anthropogenic emission of nitrogen (N) to the atmosphere and its subsequent deposition to terrestrial and coastal ecosystems. A clear increase in nitrate deposition to the open ocean has been detected due to NOx emissions, but little has been understood about marine ammonia/um (NH₃/NH₄⁺), especially with regard to its source of deposition.

A previous estimation has associated ~90% of the ammonium deposition to the ocean with anthropogenic sources. Opposed to that, findings of a recent study, published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles and cited by a Science Daily article, suggest that almost the entire deposition should come from natural marine source.

The study obtained its data from event-based rainwater sample collection in Bermuda over two years, with each sample classified as continental (North America) or marine originated according to its air mass location 36 hours prior to the collection of a rain event. Each sample was analyzed for its NH₄⁺ concentration and the ratio of ¹⁵N/¹⁴N in NH₄⁺, since the difference in isotopic composition may be used to distinguish the source of emission. The results showed that the NH₄⁺ concentration did not vary significantly among the samples, and that surprisingly, there lacked a correlation between NH₄⁺ isotopic ratio and air mass origin - no evidence pointed to a clear anthropogenic source. On the other hand, using a box model, the researchers found out that sources from the ocean itself could explain the concentration and isotopic composition of NH₄⁺ in marine rainwater, which also implied that the deposition of anthropogenic NH₃ would approach equilibrium near the coast before reaching the open ocean.

Geographic distribution of the air mass origin of samples
(isotopic composition represented by colored symbols)

Reading the Science Daily article gives a good grasp of the main findings of the study. It described, supplemental to the publication, why Bermuda was considered an ideal testing site. For different times of the year, the island receives air masses either blowing in northward from the Atlantic Ocean or coming off the continental US carrying anthropogenic pollutants, which makes it possible to separate the anthropogenic and natural marine sources. While the publication mainly aimed to communicate scientific discoveries, the news article was obviously more interested in the political implications with regard to limiting the emissions of N-containing pollutants. Furthermore, a co-author of the journal article and major member on the research team was quoted several times, making the news article more convincing in its tone and more appealing in the content. However, the article was not free from flaws when it tried to retell the story with plain words. An example would be the confusing interpretation of ‘isotopic ratio variation not correlated with air mass origin’ as ‘generally the same nitrogen isotopes regardless of air mass‘. Overall, I would give the news article a score of 7/10. 


Links:

Global Biogeochemical Cycles article
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GB004809/abstract;jsessionid=F982F2481807844E08BB65F784E08D2A.f01t01

Science Daily article
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141029145642.htm

Air Quality Near Fracking Sites A Concern For Human Health

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is a drilling technology used to collect trapped reserves of natural gas. This method does act as an alternative to dirtier coal energy; however, the human health impacts of fracking are a concern. While many communities in close proximity to fracking sites have voiced concern over water quality, the topic of air quality has been largely ignored.

The journal Environmental Health published a study called Air concentrations of volatile compounds near oil and gas production: a community-based exploratory study in which the levels of certain compounds were measured near fracking sites. The air sampling method was designed in a way that would provide accurate readings of public exposure near fracking sites with a resolution in the part-per-billion range. Air samples were analyzed for 75 VOCs, 20 sulfur compounds, and formaldehyde. Eight different chemicals showed levels exceeding federal guidelines under several operational circumstances. The most common chemicals that showed levels of concern were: benzene, formaldehyde, and hydrogen sulfide. Benzene and formaldehyde are known and suspected human carcinogens, respectably, and hydrogen sulfide poses as an acute health hazard. This study is important because it took the time to investigate an overlooked aspect of fracking that has a serious potential to cause harm to the neighboring population.

The news articles comes from The Telegraph, a newspaper from the United Kingdom. The article title reads, Fracking emits more formaldehyde than medical students experience from dead bodies. The article does not spend much time describing the research of the study being reported. It only quotes two sentences from the results section of the paper. Instead, The Telegraph article focuses on the chemicals and draws comparisons with which the readers can relate. In addition to the formaldehyde levels being “twice as high as medical students experience when dissecting dead bodies,” benzene levels were reported as “33 times the concentration that drivers can smell when filling up with fuel at a petrol station,” and hydrogen sulfide levels were “up to 60,000 times the acceptable odour threshold.” From that point, the article discusses the potential of fracking in Britain. The article presents both sides of the fracking argument, but seems to mostly quote potential fracking practices that will ensure safety.

I think that the study was well executed and necessary for assuring proper practices in future fracking operations. The effect of fracking on air quality in terms of human health should not be ignored. Hopefully, more stringent regulations will pass to ensure safer operations. The Telegraph article was an interesting change of pace from the Science Daily articles we usually find on our blog. I thought that The Telegraph used the study as an eye-catcher to introduce readers to the topic of fracking. Interestingly, the chemical comparisons used in the article were mentioned nowhere is the study. I would be very much like to see the source or calculations behind those descriptions. The news article appeared to use the study to detail the wrong way to frack. It seemed to me as though the writer was either neutral or they favored fracking in the UK, but under the stricter regulations listed by UK specialist in the article. I really liked how the article used the study to present a national issue, but the way it did so was sub-par. It didn't even provide any sort of link to the source material! I would rate the news article 4 out of 10.

News Article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fracking/11196238/Fracking-emits-more-formaldehyde-than-medical-students-experience-from-dead-bodies.html

Journal Article: http://www.ehjournal.net/content/pdf/1476-069X-13-82.pdf

Clean Air Linked to Fewer Deaths

In the past few decades, air quality in the United States has been slowly increasing thanks to new acts and standards that have been adopted. North Carolina took an additional step in improving air quality by joining the Southern Appalachian Mountains Initiative, which helped lead to the Clean Smokestacks Act that reduces coal-plant emissions. As the air quality slowly improves in this area, it provides scientists with the unique opportunity to see how changes in air quality affects mortality rates of diseases related to respiratory problems.

In the study published by The International Journal of COPD, scientists looked at how the concentrations of ozone, CO, NO_x, SO₂, PM_2.5, and PM₁₀ were related to changes in mortality rates of emphysema, asthma, and pneumonia. The air quality data was collected from EPA public data files for 1993-2010 and the mortality rates for emphysema, asthma, and pneumonia for North Carolina were collected from the Vital Statistics National Center for Health Statistics Multiple Cause of Death dataset from 1983-2010. Adjustments were made in the study for smoking prevalence and seasonal fluctuations in respiratory deaths. The relationships were all studied using a log-linear model. The statistical Bonferroni correction was used when looking at multiple comparisons.

Air quality measurements of North Carolina from 1993 to 2010 using arbitrary units to show the general decreasing trend in air pollutants. 

The study found that the air quality in North Carolina is slowly increasing, mainly due to decreases in CO, NO₂, and PM₁₀ levels. They also found that since 1983 the mortality rates of the three studied diseases also have decreased, although dramatic decreases started at different times for each of the diseases. Pneumonia death rates have been decreasing more dramatically since 1990, while asthma decreased more since 1995 and emphysema since 1998. These decreases in mortality rates for each disease were related to changes in different atmospheric pollution levels. The decrease in the mortality rate of emphysema was related to decreases in ozone, SO₂, NO₂, CO, and PM_2.5, but only SO₂ and CO were still significant after the Bonferroni correction. NO₂, SO₂, CO, and PM₁₀ decreases were shown to correlate with decreases in asthma mortality, with only NO₂ not significant under the Bonferroni correction. Decrease in pneumonia deaths was only found to be correlated with decreasing SO₂ levels. 

The article in the New York Times that discussed this study was very short. Although the article did mention that the study corrected for smoking and seasonal variations, it also got some points wrong. The article says that SO₂, PM, NO₂, and CO “decreased markedly from month to month” while graphs in the study show that there were some times that each of these compounds increased in concentration. It mentions that both emphysema and pneumonia death rate decreases were related to SO₂ and CO, which is correct but it didn’t mention that asthma mortality decreased with PM₁₀ also. Even though there was little mention of the methods of this study, a detailed description would have seemed out of place in this short of an article. I also thought that ending the article with a quote from lead author was a great way of showing that air quality studies on health effects is still being investigated.

Overall, I would have to give this article a 7/10. It gave some wrong information and mentioned almost no methods, but it did get the general idea of the study across in a very small amount of space. 

New York Times article: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/cleaner-air-linked-to-fewer-deaths/?_r=0

International Journal of COPD (through MLibrary): http://dl2af5jf3e.scholar.serialssolutions.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/?sid=google&auinit=J&aulast=Kravchenko&atitle=Long-term+dynamics+of+death+rates+of+emphysema,+asthma,+and+pneumonia+and+improving+air+quality&id=doi:10.2147/COPD.S59995&title=International+journal+of+chronic+obstructive+pulmonary+disease&volume=9&date=2014&spage=613&issn=1176-9106

Committed Emissions Growing Dispite Lower Emission Commitments

Annual carbon emissions are often the main focus of scientists and policymakers when thinking about reducing greenhouse gases. However, unlike annual emission tracking, "committed emissions" track the expected carbon emissions if existing energy-infrastructure runs for its forecasted lifetime. Commitment Accounting therefore provides an alternative way to estimate carbon emissions and account for new capital investment as time progresses.

Credit: Davis/Socolow

A recent article in Science Daily shares research findings from a study in the journal, Scientific Research Letters, revealing how commitment accounting of CO2 emissions in the power sector further illuminates the global climate challenge.

Credit: Davis/Socolow

The article begins by claiming, "existing power plants around the world will pump out more than 300 billion tons of carbon dioxide over their expected lifetimes, significantly adding to atmospheric levels of the climate-warming gas..." Feeding into this carbon tally whenever we decide to build a new fossil fuel-burning plant, we "commit" at least 40 year's worth of emissions (Assuming an average lifetime of 40 years per power plant). Because more power plants are being built than are being removed, the rate of committed emissions is increasing "by a rate of 4% per year". One of the main points, however, is that as committed emissions have recently leveled off in Europe and the U.S., the worldwide commitment increase is reflective of China and developing world's rapid growth in the power sector. The article also makes mention that over 2/3 of these committed emissions come from coal-burning stations and that the emissions from natural gas-fire generators has increased from 15 to 27% from 1980 to 2012.

The Scientific Research Letters study further outlines the principles of emissions commitment accounting well, adding, "'committed' does not mean inevitable", in that if a power plant were to shut down, it's remaining emissions commitment would go to zero while the realized emissions would remain. The study also illustrates how the commitment accounting model can be incorporated alongside annual emissions measurements into various energy and economic outlook scenarios.

Overall, I think the news article does well in drawing attention to the model of commitment accounting, but falls short in conveying the potential for further utility. In addition to relying heavily on quotes from the researchers and including no figures from the paper, there is no mention of the sources on which the study retrieved power plant emission data. Doing so would have allowed interested readers the opportunity to further investigate committed vs. annual comparisons. Conversely, I felt the original journal article gives a much better introduction to the modeling concept, adding context with explanations for why researchers chose to use a 40 yr lifespan assumption for power plants. Furthermore, a weakness that is not identified by the Science Daily article is that commitment accounting concepts are still in infancy and must be further implemented by a diverse research base before being implemented in public policy debates.

As such,  I would give this Science Daily article a rating of 6/10 at best on the "Dan-Bator-Thinks-You-Rock" scale.

References
Science Daily Article 
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140826142443.htm

Scientific Research Letters journal article
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/8/084018/article

Air Pollution Causes Increasing River Flows

Particulate air pollution, such as aerosols (defined as a suspension of fine solid or liquid particles in gas), from industries reduces the amount of sunlight that can reach the earth’s surface. The lack of appropriate sunlight on the earth’s surface will lead to lower temperature; consequently, there will be lower river water evaporation and increasing water yield. Therefore, an elevated river flow will be observed.

The ScienceDaily article Air Pollution Increases River Flows summarizes a recently published Nature Geoscience journal article, Detection of Solar Dimming and Brightening Effects on Northern Hemisphere River Flow, which shows that serious air pollution has led to increased river flows.

                                          Credit: Fyle/Fotolia

The ScienceDaily article claims “air pollution has had a significant impact on the amount of water flowing through many rivers in the northern hemisphere”. Because of the increasing amount of air pollution, more and more sunlight is reflective so that they cannot reach the earth surface, which can refer to a new term “solar dimming”. As a result, an increasing in river flows is observed. Not only did they notice increasing air pollution leading to increasing river flows, but also the reverse way. “When the dimming began to reverse, reductions in river-flows were observed”. The key point in this article is discussing the relationship between the air pollution and flow rate. The ScienceDaily author states that the research group did take temperature and other aspects into consideration.

The Nature Geoscience article provides more detailed information regarding the model (a global land surface model: JULES) and methods they used to do the comparison. In addition, carbon dioxide and landuse were also considered to compare and contrast their effects on river flows.

Overall, I think the ScienceDaily article did a good job summering the main points of the Nature Geoscience article in an easy understanding way. It requires a lot of background knowledge to read the Nature Geoscience article since probably many audiences do not know the methods they used. Additionally, the ScienceDaily article gives explanations to professional terms, like “solar dimming”. As for the shortcomings of the article, I think it would be better if a little more detailed information were provided. From my point of view, I would give this article 8.5/10.

ScienceDaily article

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141005134913.htm

Nature Geoscience article (you will need to log into MLibrary)

http://www.nature.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2263.html