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