ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS TO SHARE AND COMMENT IN CLASS

Student: Maribel Villegas ECA 2

A piece of news.       

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesellsmoor/2019/04/26/cruise-ship-pollution-is-causing-serious-health-and-environmental-problems/#299d7da37db3                                               

Cruise ship pollution is causing serious health and environmental problems.

Cruise ship 'Independence of the Seas' at the cruise terminal on Wilhelmina Pier, Netherlands, sending black smoke into the atmosphere.

The cruise industry transported over 26 million customers last year and was worth upwards of $117 billion in 2017. All market projections show that the industry will continue to grow as operators continue to build new state-of-the-art ships with the latest in leisure opportunities.

Cruise ships have often been described as ‘floating cities’, and as environmental groups have pointed out that they are just as if not more polluting. A passenger’s carbon footprint triples in size when taking a cruise and the emissions produced can contribute to serious health issues. On top of the pollution caused by their exhaust fumes, cruise ships have been caught discarding trash, fuel, and sewage directly into the ocean.

Carbon emissions and dangerous particulates emitted by cruise ships are caused by the quantity and quality of the fuel used by these floating citadels.

The dumping of sewage and other such pollutants into the ocean has only aggravated environmental groups and governments charged with cleaning it up, leading the decisions made by some in the cruise industry’s to release more pollutants to be met with widespread condemnation.

https://youtu.be/2N9JHYtAzVk

ENVIRONMENTAL NEW TO SHARE AND COMMENT IN CLASS

Ivory Coast law could see chocolate industry ‘wipe out’ protected forests

A new law in Ivory Coast is removing the rights of forest. The demand of production of chocolate is so high so than protected forest until now are in danger of deforestation´.

Workers earn less than a dollar a day despite of working with a heavy level of pesticides and bad job conditions.

There are people in the community who are struggling against this poor conditions.

The demand for chocolate is driving deforestation in Ivory Coast, which produces more than a third of the world's cocoa. Around 90% of the country's forests have been destroyed since independence in 1960, forcing species such as elephants and chimpanzees in the forest to almost become extinct.

Studies estimate that there are more than 2 million children working in the cocoa fields of West Africa, and trafficking and slavery are widespread.

Companies say they want to improve conditions but they also say that “Chocolate companies have no responsibility for anything, they have a supply chain of They are not responsible”. And Alain-Richard Donwahi, the Ivory Coast’s minister for water and forests, committed to restoring a fifth of the forest cover the country had lost by 2030.

The minister did not respond to repeated requests from the Guardian to comment for this article.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/ivory-coast-law-could-see-chocolate-industry-wipe-out-protected-forests

AUTHOR : Nely Soriano

Environmental News to Share and Comment in class

DECLINE OF GLACIERS

Most glaciers in Central Europe, Western Canada and the United States would disappear in the second half of this century from ice loss, according to a new report.

Glaciers have lost more than 9 trillion tons of ice between 1961 and 2016, according to a research paper published in the journal Nature.This equates to a block of ice the size of Germany and almost 30 meters thick, or the size of the United States and 1.2 meters thick.

This loss of ice has also meant an increase in overall sea level of up to 27 millimetres in the period.This represents between 25% and 30% of the observed increase in global sea levels.

Glaciers are a consequence of climate change, the authors said, and research suggests that the loss of glaciers may be greater than previously reported.

Currently, the study found that up to 335 billion tons of ice are lost each year. This results in an increase in sea levels of almost 1 millimeter per year, according to calculations.

The main cause of this problem is the large amount of carbon dioxide that we emit into the atmosphere, what I would recommend to lessen this problem would be not to use the car so much and use public transport more.

AUTHOR: Alberto Traver

ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS TO SHARE AND COMMENT IN CLASS

That`s how "El Mar Menor" died.

The major ecological tragedy in Spain happened in October of 2019. The most important lake of Mediterranean sea has been murdered, therefore human activities like intensive agriculture and the cattle industry. A lot of animals died and appeared in the seashore

Eutrophication is a phenomenon produced by fertilizers that have been used in intensive agriculture and they are flowing into the Mar Menor Lake. This fact increases the presence of nutrients in water and the seaweed grows quickly. Seaweed anaerobic bacteria consume all oxygen of water and other species like fish or mollusks died suffocated.

All this has been known by the politicians and they haven`t done anything, on the contrary, they have allowed that agriculture industries don`t obey the law.

Now the situation of El Mar Menor sea is irreversible and ecologists demand responsibilities and solutions.

Care about the environment is everyone’s job.

 Dead Fish  in San Pedro del Pinatar, Murcia.

 (Source: La Vanguradia, 2019)

Elena López

Source New:

https://www.lavanguardia.com/natural/actualidad/20191021/471100486538/mar-menor-eutrofizacion-gimenez-casalduero-juan-manuel-ruiz-nutrientes.html

ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS TO SHARE & COMMENT IN CLASS

Brazilian beaches affected by oil spill

Thick crude oil that has stained hundreds of miles of Brazilian beaches in recent weeks 

probably originated in Venezuela, the Brazilian government has said, in an accusation l

ikely to further strain relations between the two countries.

'Chaos, chaos, chaos': a journey through Bolsonaro's Amazon inferno
 
Brazilian authorities have been investigating the growing disaster for more than a month, 

as the oil has spread to more than 130 beaches across nine states.
On Wednesday, the country’s environment minister, Ricardo Salles, told a congressional hearing 

that a study by the state oil company Petrobras had concluded that the oil “is very likely from Venezuela”.

He said that a foreign ship near Brazil’s coastline appeared to have caused the spill “accidentally or not”.

Salles said that more than 100 tonnes of oil had already been collected from the coastline since 

2 September, but said that the disaster was proving “enormously difficult to contain”.
There was no immediate response from Venezuela, but the Brazilian assertion is likely to further 

escalate tensions between the two countries. Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right president, is a 

longstanding critic of Venezuela’s embattled leader, Nicolás Maduro, and has close relations 

with rightwing Venezuelan groups seeking his overthrow.
Earlier this week, Bolsonaro dismissed speculation that the spill had been released by a sinking ship.

 “If it was a shipwreck, oil would still be coming up. It is more probable that something was dumped 

there criminally,” he told reporters.
Bolsonaro said he did not want to blame another country without proof, but hinted darkly: “We have

 a country on our radar screen that could be the origin of the oil.”
 

Petrobras’s chief executive, Roberto Castello, said on Tuesday that the amount of oil spilled so far – 

approximately 500 barrels – was far too much to have been from the result of a routine tank cleaning.
Social media users have shared shocking images of the spill, showing kilometers of white sand stained 

with oil blotches and dead, oil-covered turtles and dolphins. One video shows thick black oil lapping 

up against a rocky jetty.
The oil’s appearance came shortly after Brazil became the focus of international criticism over record 

wildfires and deforestation in the Amazon rainforest – both of which have surged since Bolsonaro 

came to office.
Environmentalists and indigenous leaders say that Bolsonaro’s stripping back of environmental

 legislation and protections has stoked a fresh assault on the country’s ecosystems.
“The oil spill that’s reached over 132 beaches in the north-east is criminal. Removing the residue 

from the ocean can take 10 to 20 years,” said the former environment minister Marina Silva in a tweet.

 “This is a warning that we need to strengthen and not suffocate the environmental monitoring 

institutions in the country.”

SOURCE: The Guardian. 

AUTHOR: Daniel Lerma 1ºEca