Category: Newsletter

The Mysterious Case of Shelly Island

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18 Issue 12

As spring draws nearer, the weather is supposed to gradually become warmer and warmer, until walking outside without a jacket is no longer outrageous. However, if you happen to live in North Carolina, the weather cannot seem to decide whether it wants to welcome spring or desperately hold on to winter. Today, snow falls, but tomorrow could bring temperatures in the high 70s or 80s. However, this is not the only phenomenon that North Carolina cannot seem to make up its mind about. Enter Shelly Island.

Shelly Island appeared overnight in July 2017. It is located in the famous Outer Banks off the coast of Cape Point, which is part of Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Scientists are not completely sure how the island originally formed, but they think it has something to do with the weather conditions of July 2017. Last summer, the winds, and currents appeared to be just right to bring sands from the northern barrier islands to the southern tip of Cape Point to form Shelly Island. This island became a new attraction for tourists interested in snorkeling and kayaking, and it grew to be about 27 acres in area. However, do not start planning your trip to Shelly Island for the summer of 2018. New photos from NASA show that Shelly Island disappeared just as quickly as it came. Moreover, the island is now beneath the waves once again.

How did this happen? The blame can be thrust upon the many hurricanes of the fall of 2017: Hurricanes Irma, Jose, and Maria. The erosion created by these storms first split the island in two and have now completely erased what was once Shelly Island. By October 2017, Shelly Island was “ninety percent gone,” according to Virginia businessman Ken Barlow who was one of many seeking ownership of the new island. Only a small crescent, about 100 acres in area, was left after the fall, and by February 2018 the island was no more.

Could Shelly Island return? Possibly. Again, scientists are not positive how Shelly Island came to be in the first place. However, people such as Barlow suspect the formation of the island had to do with nearby dredging operations, which are resuming. So hold on to your kayaks and your snorkeling equipment: Shelly Island could come back. This would be good news for local businesspeople interested in buying parts of the island and for the local economy that could benefit from growing interest from tourists. Shelly Island may be a mystery, but it is a mystery that comes with positive outcomes.

Sources:

Ghose, Tia. “Mysterious Sandbar Island that Formed Last Summer is Gone Once Again.” Live Science. Live Science. March 8, 2018. Web. March 12, 2018.

Price, Mark. “The strange new NC island mystifies the world yet again.” Charlotte Observer. Charlotte Observer. October 1, 2017. Web. March 12, 2018.

King Penguins Face Habitat Loss in Warming Southern Ocean

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18, Issue 11

The king penguins of the Antarctic sea may be the next charismatic species faced with the daunting challenge of moving to escape the impacts of climate change. A study recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change suggests that, unless warming greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are reduced, up to 70% of the king penguin population will have to move or face starvation by the end of the century.

Due to warming ocean temperatures, the Antarctic polar front, a nutrient-rich band of water in the Southern Ocean from whence king penguins derive 80% of their diet, is migrating closer to Antarctica and farther away from the southern archipelagos where the penguins roost. While the penguins can swim up to 400 miles round trip from the southern islands to the polar front, if the band moves much farther south, it will be out of reach for most of the penguin colonies.

Additionally, the lack of sea ice, which allows penguins to rest while hunting in the open ocean, may further threaten the species capacity to feed itself as warming continues. “They will need to either move somewhere else or they will just disappear,” said Dr. Emiliano Trucchi, an evolutionary biologist at Italy’s University of Ferrara and one of the study’s senior authors. “The largest colonies are on islands that will be too far from the source of food.”

The largest colonies of king penguins, home to a full half of the species population, are located on Prince Edwards and the Crozet Islands, south of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. According to the researchers’ “business as usual” climate change model, the populations on these islands would likely lose their habitat entirely by the end of the century. Another 21% that live on the Kerguelen Islands in the Indian Ocean and the Falkland Islands off the South American coast will likely find themselves far enough away from their food source that they may be incentivized to relocate to islands farther south.

Yet, relocation may not be as simple as moving farther south to islands closer to the new Antarctic polar front. Unlike the larger emperor penguins, king penguins require ice-free islands with sandy beaches, leaving the species with few additional islands closer to Antarctica to move to as many are rocky, covered in ice, or have other species of penguins already living there. “We are talking about one million individuals that need to find a new place to live,” says Trucchi, noting that “the endpoint of this massive relocation is hard to predict.”

Despite the grim finding, the researchers suggested that some islands, such as Bouvet Island in the Southern Ocean, may be able to be colonized by king penguins as temperatures warm if humans take steps to protect them. “If there are some islands that are likely to be relatively safe, like those in the south, then we know about that now, and we can potentially protect those from other threats like fishing and tourism – to give animals the best chance of survival,” says Dr. Jane Younger, evolutionary ecologist at Loyola University Chicago.

The researchers ultimately argue that mitigating climate change is the best chance we have at saving king penguin habitat; using a model in which greenhouse gases were reduced enough to prevent global temperature from rising more than 2-degrees Celsius, they found that the majority of the population would not need to migrate.

“These are kind of poster children for what’s going to happen with climate change,” said Dr. Ceriden Fraser, a marine molecular ecologist at the Australian National University in Canberra. “People wouldn’t care as much if it were a slug or a slime mold, but the same sorts of impacts will happen to many different species. In a way, it’s good for us to see these impacts happening to animals we love, because it might spur a little bit of action.”

Sources:

  1. Harvey, Chelsea. “Antarctica’s Iconic King Penguins May Have to Move South: But suitable islands for breeding may be harder to find.” Scientific American. E&E News, 27 February 2018. Web. 4 March 2018.
  2. Kennedy, Merrit. “Scientists Predict King Penguins Face Major Threats Due to Climate Change.” North Carolina Public Radio. National Public Radio, Inc., 26 February 2018. Web. 5 March 2018.
  3. Winetraub, Karen. “King Penguins Are Endangered by Warmer Seas.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 26 February 2018. Web. 5 March 2018.

The Birds and the Coffee Beans

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18 Issue 10

Coffee. To anyone who regularly has early mornings, this single drink can be a lifesaver. Coffee is more than just a drink. It gets people up in the morning when they least want to leave their beds. But according to a relatively recent study, it may be even more than that.

In addition to providing people with the ability to go to school or work, coffee is also a very valuable commodity. This is true globally. Coffee is consumed on every continent (except, perhaps, Antarctica), so it is very important to the human economy. However, humans are not the only ones who enjoy their coffee.

Although we often think of coffee as a delicious beverage, it is first a plant. There are many different species of this plant, but two of these species include Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora. (The second species is often referred to as C. robusta.) These species are very important to an often-overlooked group of coffee connoisseurs: birds. Moreover, because there are so many species of coffee and because birds value the plants as homes, a group of conservation biologists decided to determine the effects of the different species on biodiversity.

In this study conducted in India, researchers compared the diversity of birds who made their homes in C. arabica farms versus C. robusta farms. There were some differences in habitat preferences, but overall, these researchers came to a more generic conclusion. Within coffee farms in general, there is a great abundance of birds. This is a very important conclusion, as coffee as a commodity is constantly growing in demand.

So what does this mean for birds and the future of coffee? Past studies tended to not focus on the differences between coffee species, but on the differences between different types of tropical plants. This allowed conservationists to focus their attention on helping support the ecosystems of certain plants. This study made it known that across coffee species, these plants are important in terms of avian conservation. In other words, if we want to protect the birds, we need to take care of the coffee properly. For farmers, this could mean focusing management efforts towards making coffee plants safer for birds by, for example, limiting pesticide usage. However, this could mean finding a balance between protecting birds from toxins and protecting plants from the birds.

Moreover, what this study proved was that conservation efforts need to be more focused on the effects of coffee farming on biodiversity. As the demand for coffee rises, so does the need for these efforts. Birds are just as valuable to ecosystems as coffee is to economies. Without coffee, economies may rupture, and without birds, ecosystems may rupture. At this point, there is an unknown, delicate balance between protecting the environment and protecting the crop, but with the cooperation of conservationists and coffee farmers, this balance can be achieved for the benefit of economies and ecosystems.

Source:
Chang, C.H. Karanth, K.K, and Robbins, P. Birds and beans: Comparing avian richness and endemism in arabica and robusta agroforests in India’s Western Ghats. Scientific Reports [Internet] .16 February 2018. [cited 2018 February 2018]; 8: 3143. Available from doi:10.1038/s41598-018-21401-1.

The Microbead Dilemma

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18 Issue 9

The UK has recently taken steps to protect the oceans from further pollution, and these steps involve tiny pieces of plastic called “microbeads.” If you have been in the cosmetics aisle at Target or your local grocery stores in the last year, you have run into these small but very impactful pieces of plastic. They are the shiny flecks in exfoliating scrubs and other gel products. But they are also in other places, including cleaning products and synthetic clothing.

The problem with microbeads exists just in what might seem to make them unimportant: their size. Imagine you have just taken a shower, and the shampoo and body wash that you use just happens to contain these tiny, probably meaningless microbeads. You turn the shower off, and the remnants of your soaps wash down the drain, microbeads and all. This water eventually finds itself at a wastewater treatment plant, so the microbeads should be taken care of here. Right? Wrong. Microbeads are so small that they cannot be filtered: they slip through the cracks. And these cracks lead to local waterways, the rivers you drive along on your way to work, which lead to the oceans. And the microbeads begin to build up in the ocean, tiny pieces of plastic unable to be broken down.

But how much impact can these microbeads really have? According to a report conducted in 2016 by the Environmental Audit Committee of the British House of Commons, just one shower can involve over 100,000 microbeads down the drain. Multiply 100,000 by the number of people in the world and you will get a gigantic number. Furthermore, this results in an enormous amount of plastic entering our oceans every single day. And for what reason? So that our shampoos are more aesthetically appealing?

The massive amount of microbeads building up in the oceans have deadly effects on marine life. When microbeads make their journey from the shampoo bottle to the ocean, they tend to absorb chemicals along the way. These chemicals could be anything from motor oil to industrial chemicals that have found their way into local waterways. So, when a fish ingests a microbead, it is ingesting any number of chemicals. Not only is this bad news for the fish, but it is also bad news for any other living thing connected to that fish through their ecosystems. In short, microbeads are killing an unknown amount of marine life.

The good news is that the UK has decided to join a (hopefully) growing list of countries that have decided to outlaw microbeads. The United States passed the Microbeads-Free Waters Act of 2015, which outlawed microbeads beginning in July 2017, and Canada and New Zealand imposed bans which are beginning this year. Microbeads are still alive and well, but more countries in the European Union are starting to join in the outlawing. Moreover, eight million tons of plastic may be entering the oceans every year, but, perhaps, these new laws will start to really make a difference in that number.

 

Sources:

Shoe, Des. “The U.K. Has Banned Microbeads, Why?” New York Times. New York Times. 9 January 2018. Web. 11 February 2018.

 

Sea Snakes Visit California

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18 Issue 8

The world is made up of two types of people: people who like snakes and people who do not like snakes. This first class of people see snakes as captivating, multi-colored animals that serve as a good friend, ready to curl around your fingers as soon as your familiar, loving hand draws near to their equally loving reptilian bodies. On the other side, the latter class of people are repelled at even a pixelated image of a snake living hundreds of miles away, seeing these cold-blooded reptiles as just the device through which Satan tricked Eve. And unfortunately, if you happen to belong to this latter class of people, there is some bad news: rare sea snakes have continued to wash up unexpectedly on the beaches of California. Moreover, the range of the uncommon yellow-bellied sea snake (Pelamus platurus) is beginning to expand.

So, what is a sea snake? And, further, what is a yellow-bellied sea snake? These reptiles are exactly what they sound like: they are snakes that live in the sea. In fact, their bodies are not suitable for living and slithering on land. Spending their lives in the tropical warmth of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, sea snakes feed on small fish and drink rainwater that collects on the surface of the ocean. Sea snakes also are very venomous. Possessing a neurotoxin that stops communication between muscles and nerve cells, the bite of a sea snake can cause respiratory, heart, or nerve failure. But don’t worry too much because Greg Pauly, herpetological curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, says, “Their fangs are tiny, and they can barely open their mouths wide enough to bite a person.” And until recently, sea snakes lived far, far away from humans.

Since 1972, five sea snakes have washed up in California, hundreds of miles north of their typical range. Why? Until the most recent sea snake washed up on southern California’s Newport Beach, all the snakes had arrived during El Nino years. Because sea snakes tend to follow where the currents lead them, it was strange to see sea snakes in California, but the presence of El Nino made it make sense that these snakes would be so far outside their range. However, on January 10, 2018, when the fifth sea snake arrived, El Nino could not be blamed.

University of Florida biologist and sea snake expert Harvey B. Lillywhite suspects the mysterious arrival of the snakes has to do with the Davidson Current. Rising toward the surface from October through February, the Davidson Current may pick up sea snakes floating near Baja and take them places like Newport Beach. But, historically, not many sea snakes dwell near Baja. Thus, both Pauly and Lillywhite state that warming waters may have something to do with the expanding of sea snakes’ range. However, Pauly admits, “This is all speculation.”

The yellow-bellied sea snake that arrived this past week in California did not survive the colder waters of California. But her death may not be in vain: herpetologists like Lillywhite and Pauly are using her tissue samples and other data to hopefully determine how these sea snakes came to be in California. But until then, California may be seeing a few more sea snakes in their future.

 

Sources:

Goldman, Jason G. “Venomous Sea Snake Found Off California-How did it Get There?” National Geographic. National Geographic, 17 January 2018. Web. 19 January 2018.

Kaplan, Sarah. “Rare venomous sea snakes keep washing up on California beaches.” Washington Post. Washington Post, 14 January 2016. Web. 19 January 2018.

Ritchie, Erika I. “Discovery of rare, venomous sea snake in California could mean trouble for sea lions.” Mercury News. Mercury News, 11 January 2018. Web. 19 January 2018.

Gray Dolphin Die-Offs Puzzle Scientists

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18 Issue 7

From their powerful swimming techniques to their mysteriously intelligent brains, dolphins have enchanted the public for generations. These marine mammals swam their ways into popular culture from Flipper to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy over the course of the last 100 years. Dolphins have once again captured the public eye, but, unfortunately, in a much more gruesome way.

Off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, gray dolphins have been washing up dead since November 2017. Scientists in Brazil have concluded that these deaths are a result of a virus known as the “cetacean morbillivirus.” However, the origin of the virus is still unknown. The virus is an immune system pathogen that causes skin lesions and pneumonia in dolphins, as well as in porpoises and whales. Because dolphins are such social animals, living in pods consisting of up to 200 dolphins, this virus is easily spread, having potentially catastrophic results on the gray dolphin population.

But gray dolphins are not the first victims of morbillivirus. Bottlenose dolphins and harbor seals were victims of different strains of morbillivirus in 1988 and 2006, respectively, in the northeastern United States. And in 2014, at least 1,441 bottlenose dolphins were found dead along the East Coast of the United States from New York to Florida, also due to morbillivirus.

So, what is there to do? Leonardo Flach, a biologist and the chief coordinator of the Boto Cinza Institute in Mangaratiba, Brazil told ABC News, “The only solution would be to create a marine refuge to allow the dolphins to survive.” Dolphin conservation has never been a priority in Brazil, but Flach hopes the die-offs will draw more attention to the need to protect the gray dolphin population, which he calls “an endangered species.” Brazilian scientists are working hard to determine the cause of this deadly virus, but without more attention given to this issue, gray dolphin populations could experience growing numbers of fatalities.

Sources:

El Hammar, Aicha. “Over 80 Dolphins Die in Brazil, Confounding Environmentalists.” ABC News. ABC News. 4 January 2018, Web. 13 January 2018.

Fine Maron, Dina. “Massive Dolphin Die-off Eludes Final Explanation.” Scientific American. Scientific American. 6 August 2014, Web. 13 January 2018.

Zachos, Elaina. “Scores of Dolphin Deaths Have Scientists Baffled.” National Geographic. National Geographic. 12 January 2018, Web. 13 January 2018.

China Bans Imported Recyclables, Disrupting Global Market

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18, Issue 6

On January 1st, the Chinese government instituted a ban on imported recycled plastic and paper materials, throwing the global recycling market into turmoil.Since the 1990’s, China has been the number one consumer of raw recycled materials, receiving a full half of the world’s waste plastic, metal and paper as cheap fodder for its rapid urban-industrial expansion. In 2016, China purchased 7.3 million tons of “solid waste” worth about $18 billion, leaving a gaping hole in global demand after the ban that experts fear will not easily be filled.

The ban prohibits the import of 24 different types of commonly recycled waste products, including low-grade polyethylene terephthalate found in plastic bottles and unsorted paper. It also requires that all non-banned imported recyclables contain no more than 0.5% contamination, a threshold stricter than any European or American standard on recyclables.

“Large amounts of dirty wastes or even hazardous wastes are mixed in the solid waste that can be used as raw materials,” Beijing wrote to the World Trade Organization explaining the logic behind the new ban. “This polluted China’s environment seriously.”

While Chinese officials were initially willing to ignore the environmental costs of importing contaminated scrap materials, such as soil and water pollution, the country’s explosive economic growth affords it the option of sourcing newer, cleaner plastics for its domestic needs over recycled ones.

“What’s happened is that the final link in the supply chain has turned around and said: ‘No, we’re not going to take this poor quality stuff anymore. Keep it for yourself,’” said Simon Ellin, chief executive of the British Recycling Association. “The rest of the world is thinking, ‘What can we do?’ It’s hard times.”

This decision is having profound impacts on the capacity of Western nations to handle their recycling, most of whom sent their waste to China and thus do not have the infrastructure to process recyclables themselves.

Some countries, such as the United Kingdom, are resorting to either incinerating or burying their plastics in landfills as a short-term solution to the crisis, though both options are environmentally damaging. Other countries, such as the United States, are attempting to find markets in countries like Myanmar, India, and Vietnam for their recycling, though switching supply chains so abruptly is a challenge.

“There may be alternative markets but they’re not ready today,” said Emmanuel Katrakis of the Brussels based European Recycling Industries Confederation. In the meantime, the United States, which annually sends over 1.42 million tons of scrap plastic and 13.2 million tons of scrap paper to China, will be forced to either spend taxpayer money on upgrading recycling processing facilities domestically or, like the UK, divert the excess to landfills according to Adam Minter, author of “Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade.” “Without China, there will be less recycling in the United States, and it will cost more,” the author said.

The United States initially relied upon China to recycle its plastic waste due to market incentives; it was simply cheaper to send recyclables overseas than it was to expand recycling capacities at home. With the shifting of incentives caused by China’s tightening regulations over recent years culminating in the most recent ban, it is costing the U.S. $2,100 per shipping container to return recyclables by ship from Chinese ports back to California.

“The public doesn’t realize this, but recycling is made possible by technology and markets – they think its just a matter of technology,” an expert on China’s waste management reported to Quartz. “And we don’t have strong enough markets in the U.S.”

While this market change will almost certainly harm the U.S.’s environment in the short term as recycling friendly states like Oregon and Washington divert their recycling to landfills, in the long term it could be beneficial as American states become incentivized to build their own recycling facilities.

Sources

  1. De Freytas-Tamura, Kimiko. “Plastics Pile Up as China Refuses to Take the West’s Recycling.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 11 January 2018. Web. 16 January 2018.
  2. Guilford, Gwynn. “China doesn’t want your trash anymore – and that could spell big trouble for American cities.” Quartz. Quartz Media LLC, 8 May 2013. Web. 27 January 2018.
  3. Guilford, Gwynn. “US states banned from exporting their trash to China are drowning in plastic.” Quartz. Quartz Media LLC, 21 August 2013. Web. 27 January 2018.
  4. Ives, Mike. “China Limits Waste. ‘Cardboard Grannies’ and Texas Recyclers Scramble.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 November 2017. Web. 16 January 2018.
  5. Kaskey, Jack and Ann Koh. “China’s Blow to Recycling Boosts U.S.’s $185 Billion Plastic Bet.” Bloomberg. Climate Changed, 6 December 2017. Web. 16 January 2018.
  6. Staub, Colin. “Exporter response to China: ‘We are changing our whole strategy.'” Plastics Recycling Update. A Resource Recycling, Inc. Publication, 4 January 2018. Web. 16 January 2018.

US Supreme Court WOTUS Ruling

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18, Issue 5

On Monday, January 22, 2018, the US Supreme Court in a unanimous decision ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cannot shelter its “waters of the United States” rule from judicial review by limiting where victims can sue. This decision is in response to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals nationwide stay of the Clean Water Rule in October 2015. Oddly enough it is considered a victory for both the Plaintiff (National Association of Manufacturers) and a repudiation of the Trump Administration plan to repeal the Rule. The other odd thing about this ruling is that it exclusively directs its admonition to the US Environmental Protection Agency when the defendant was the US Department of Defense.

In case you have not been following this issue, what is at stake is what waterbodies are regulated by the US Government under the Clean Water Act.

This ruling is important because it does two important things. First, by having the challenges to the rule reviewed at the District Court level it expands the timeframe in which plaintiffs can bring challenges to six years. If the decision were to have left it at the Appeals Court as EPA had argued, those challenges would be limited to 120 days. In essence, if someone is aggrieved by the issuance of the Rule they now have six years to file a lawsuit. Not only that, it can be filed at the lower District Court level. There are 94 Districts Courts in the US and only 11 Circuit Courts of Appeals. The EPA had argued that the Circuit Court venue was more efficient, but the Supreme Court did not feel that “Congress did not pursue that end at all costs” in its drafting of the Clean Water Act.

The second issue that comes up as a result of the case relates to the Nationwide Stay of the implementation of the Clean Water Rule. That Stay came from the Sixth Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court ruled that that Court did not have jurisdiction. Therefore, the Stay will be lifted, thus implementing the Clean Water Rule. This is seen by many media sources as a setback to the Trump Administration’s attempt to repeal the rule. However, if it had gone the other way it would be up to the Sixth Circuit to lift the Stay anyway and make a decision. As it is not their jurisdiction, the decision goes back to the District Courts.

By the way, the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota also has a 13 state stay on the Clean Water Rule. This was in effect the day before the Rule went into effect on August 28, 2015. When the Sixth Circuit Court Stay is lifted it will only pertain to 37 states. It is not known what the ND Court will do.

In November 2017, the Trump Administration put forth a 2-year delay proposal on the implementation of the Clean Water Rule as a new regulation. This is yet another draft regulation that we may or may not see. However, if it is not implemented the 2015 Clean Water Rule will become effective the day the Sixth Circuit Court removes the Stay.

Looking forward, the Trump Administration has been meeting with stakeholder groups to formulate a new Waters of the US definition. In light of last Monday’s Supreme Court decision, I think we can expect to see this regulation fairly soon.

2018: Year of the Bird

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18, Issue 4

Look outside right now. More than likely, some sort of bird crossed your line of sight. Maybe it was a cardinal or a robin scouring the earth for something to eat. Maybe it was a vulture souring through the sky. Or maybe you did not see the bird, but you could hear it chattering away in its own foreign language. Regardless, birds are everywhere, so everyone can appreciate a piece of legislation passed now 100 years ago that allowed for the conservation of birds to be better recognized: the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

In 1916, the United States and Canada battled the dwindling numbers of waterfowl and game species by signing the Migratory Bird Treaty. By establishing hunting seasons for game birds and eliminating hunting of insectivorous birds, both countries officially recognized the importance of these creatures who were being adversely affected by unregulated hunting. After the loss of the Labrador duck (Camptorhynchus labradorius), Carolina parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis), and passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), the need for these actions was more than relevant. Moreover, it seemed many other species would soon be following in the footsteps of these once common species. Flash forward two years, and this treaty became law. Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, migratory birds no longer could be harmed, killed, or sold, and this included their nests and eggs. Additionally, the first federal hunting seasons were established, as well as federal authority to manage migratory birds.

Now, this new act was met with opposition. In those days, scientists studied birds by shooting them and then studying them without thinking how this might upset population or ecosystem dynamics. How would scientists study birds if they could not kill them first? Additionally, hunting was a popular sport across America (as it still is today), and designating times of the year when people were and were not allowed to hunt certain species did not only seem absurd, but it also seemed to be just another example of government intrusion on Americans’ lives.

But the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was a necessary act to preserve the birds of America, and although passed now 100 years ago, the Act is far from archaic. Today, the Act continues to positively influence bird populations. For example, the Act has helped preserve endangered puffins by designating a habitat for them south of Cape Cod as Maine’s puffins face habitat destruction. Additionally, 1.8 million acres of Californian desert was set aside under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to preserve over 250 species of birds, including the Elf Owl and Least Bell’s Vireo.

But what is the point? Why is it so important for Americans to celebrate such an act? Further, why are birds so important? Why should we go the extra mile to protect the cardinal or the hawk outside your window right now?

Most simply, birds are a crucial part of our ecosystems, of our food webs. As birds are eliminated from the food web, any insects or other small animals that they eat will increase dramatically in biomass. Additionally, anything that eats a bird will be wiped out. Without birds, our ecosystem will have no stability, as they form all parts of food webs, from higher level consumers like hawks and owls to decomposers like vultures.

Perhaps an even more tragic result of losing birds would be the loss of such beautiful details in our world. A sky without a bird is like a voice without words. Birds are inimitable creatures from their specialized beaks that Darwin found so fascinating to their vast array of plumage colors.

Many institutions, such as the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, are deeming 2018 the “Year of the Bird,” but perhaps the true year of the bird was 100 years ago when lawmakers decided birds truly are worth protecting.

 

Sources:

Franzen, Jonathan. “Why Birds Matter and are Worth Protecting.” National Geographic. National Geographic, January 2018. Web. 9 January 2018.

Imbler, Sabrina. “A Hundred Year Legacy: The Modern Role of the Migratory Bird Treaty.” Audubon. Audubon, 16 August 2016. Web. 9 January 2018.

Mehlman, David. “Safe Flight: 100 Years of Protecting Birds.” Nature Conservancy. Nature Conservancy, December 2016. Web. 9 January 2018.

Ronis, Emily. “Migratory Bird Treaty Turns 100 Today.” Wildlife Society. Wildlife Society, 16 August 2016. Web. 9 January 2018.

China Launches World’s Largest Carbon Market

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18, Issue 3

Premier Xi Jinping of China announced on December 19th that his country was opening the largest carbon trading market in the world, fulfilling China’s pledge to do just that in two years’ time at the 2015 Paris climate summit. This comes after US president Donald Trump rescinded the United States’ commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris accords earlier this year, leaving a vacuum in global climate change leadership that many expect China to fill. “The launching of China’s national emissions trading system is a significant step in a long march toward a clean energy economy,” president of Energy Foundation China, Zou Ji, told HuffPost. “By launching, China sends a strong political signal internationally that China is keeping its global commitments, and is committed to the Paris Agreement.” China’s carbon trading market would function as a “cap and trade” system, wherein the central government puts a price on carbon by instituting a “cap” on the total amount of greenhouse gases a given industry is allowed to produce within a given time frame. Companies that produce less carbon dioxide than the cap allows for can then sell “carbon credits” to companies that exceeded the emissions cap, incentivizing companies to produce less greenhouse gases. As caps are reduced each year, so too are the country’s total emissions over the course of several years. Although the scheme only covers power plants producing more than 26,000 tons of carbon per year, which collectively produce 33% of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions, the government plans to extend the program to other industries in the future if it proves successful, such as the petrochemical, aviation, and steel industries. Due to the sheer size of China’s power sector, however, the 3.3 billion tons of carbon that are expected to be traded annually on the new market dwarfs the emissions covered by the world’s next biggest carbon market, that of the European Union, which covers only 2 billion tons of carbon annually. The high emissions are due in part to China’s massive population, which at 1.3 billion people makes it the world’s most populous country, as well as the world’s number one emitter of greenhouse gases. Yet China’s per capita emissions still lag behind that of the United States, which are more than double that of China. Ambitious as China’s cap and trade scheme is, official trading will probably not begin until 2019, according to Energy Foundation China, as the Chinese government has yet to fully plan out the regulations under which the market would operate. Of particular concern is determining how to get the price of carbon high enough to be effective at actually limiting emissions, an objective the European Union market struggled with in the wake of the 2008 financial crises when the price for carbon credits dipped from 25 Euros per ton to 5 Euros per ton, eventually stabilizing at around 7 Euros per ton. According to economists, every ton of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere today will do $125 worth of damage to society at a global scale in the future, a number commonly referred to as the social cost of carbon. In order for the scheme to actually reduce emissions and have a mitigating effect on climate change, the price of carbon needs to be as close to this number as possible. If all goes well, the program could help China achieve its goal of reaching peak carbon dioxide production by 2030.

Sources:

  1. Bradsher, Keith and Lisa Friedman. “China Unveils an Ambitious Plan to Curb Climate Change Emissions.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 December 2017. Web. 23 December 2017.
  2. Mosbergen, Dominique. “China Unveils World’s Largest Carbon Market.” HuffPost. Huffington Post, 19 December 2017. Web. 23 December 2017.
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