It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, September 02, 2021
Grim warning for Aussie species in conservation checklist
IMAGE: AERIAL SHOT OF DEFORESTATION IN DALY RIVER, NORTHERN TERRITORY IN 2008.view more
CREDIT: CREDIT: JULIAN MURPHY/WWF-AUS
The first comprehensive list of the threats to Australia’s most endangered plants and animals reveals blunt news about the future for some of the country’s favourite species.
The University of Queensland-led study has compiled a data set, listing the threats to Australian species from habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation.
“This information can improve the conservation of some of Australia’s most endangered plants and animals by providing conservation managers with more precise data to better direct their efforts,” Ms Ward said.
“The database has been distributed to federal and state governments and conservation groups like Birdlife Australia, World Wide Fund for Nature, and the Nature Conservancy, who are using it to help inform their conservation actions.
“It brings together knowledge from experts across Australia and it has a range of applications – not only to prioritise conservation work, but also to assess when developments might have significant impacts on species.”
The list includes an in-depth analysis of almost 1800 plants and animals listed as threatened under Australian Commonwealth law – including 1339 plants and 456 animals.
“More accurate conservation efforts are now possible due to the ability to categorise and address these threats facing our at-risk species,” Ms Ward said.
“Looking at the data, conservation managers can see that mitigating habitat loss, invasive species, and disease, while also improving fire regimes and curtailing the impact of climate change wherever possible is crucial for curbing species decline.”
“Before now we didn’t have comprehensive information on the threats to these species, and more importantly, the severity of those threats,” Dr Reside said.
“For example, the swift parrot is facing 17 different threats including habitat loss from logging and agriculture, invasive weeds, and the many and varying effects of climate change.
“So now we know the range of threats that need to be addressed to save this iconic bird.
“Similarly, koalas face nine threats including habitat loss from agriculture and urban development, dog attacks and disease.
“With this information, we are now better equipped to protect the plants and animals that we cherish so much in Australia.”
The study was carried out with the support of eight universities and seven conservation, environmental and ecological science organisations throughout Australia.
The research has been published in Ecology and Evolution (DOI: 10.1002/ece3.7920).
CAPTION
Mother and joey koala after deforestation of habitat.
IMAGE: RAPTORS ARE TOP PREDATORS IN THE TERRESTRIAL FOOD WEB. HIGH ACCUMULATION LEVELS OF C15-BASED CHLORDANE BYPRODUCTS, HOMOLOGUES OF DDT METABOLITES AND POLYCHLORINATED TERPHENYLS IN THE LIVER OF RAPTORS SUGGEST HIGH BIOMAGNIFICATION POTENTIAL OF THESE TYPICALLY UNMONITORED CONTAMINANTS.view more
A research team in Ehime University, Japan conducted a comprehensive profiling of chlorinated and brominated compounds bioaccumulated in the liver of various wild bird species from Osaka, Japan in order to find potentially harmful but “hidden” contaminants. The team found a specific accumulation of several groups of typically unmonitored halogenated contaminants in raptors, including those so far never been reported in wild animals. The findings were published in Environmental Science & Technology on June 8, 2021.
Ecological risk assessment of halogenated contaminants is an important issue, as many of these chemicals persist in the environment, bioaccumulate through the food web, and can cause lasting adverse effects. Chemicals listed as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) under the Stockholm Convention—including legacy industrial chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and legacy organochlorine pesticides such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and chlordane, etc.—are monitored in the environment, animals, and humans by national and international programs, typically using chemical analysis targeting specific predetermined groups of POPs. However, conventional analytical methods cannot detect untargeted contaminants such as chemical synthesis byproducts, and environmental transformation products. There is increasing evidence for the occurrence of many typically unmonitored and unknown bioaccumulative contaminants in the environment and biota, but the accumulation levels and behavior of such POPs-like contaminants in various food webs remain unclear.
The research team in Ehime University used advanced analytical methods based on two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC), time-of-flight mass spectrometry (ToFMS), and software mass spectral filtering for comprehensive profiling of chlorinated and brominated contaminants in the liver of terrestrial and brackish water bird species from Osaka, Japan. Relatively high levels of typically unmonitored halogenated contaminants, including polychlorinated terphenyls (PCTs), various DDT- and chlordane-related compounds, were found in raptors. Notably, chlordane byproducts with C15-based structures were detected for the first time in wild animals and showed high biomagnification potential in the terrestrial food web. These findings highlight the need for further studies on occurrence, structure elucidation and toxicological assessment of unmonitored POPs-like contaminants.
The study was part of an effort to build a complementary digital archive of comprehensive chemical screening data for a chemical monitoring repository for environmental and biological specimens (ChemTHEATRE, Ehime University).
Nontarget Screening of Organohalogen Compounds in the Liver of Wild Birds from Osaka, Japan: Specific Accumulation of Highly Chlorinated POP Homologues in Raptors
https://libcom.org/files/Bookchin M. Our Synthetic Environment.pdf · PDF file
Our Synthetic Environment Murray Bookchin 1962 Table of contents Chapter 1: THE PROBLEM Chapter 2: AGRICULTURE AND HEALTH Chapter 3: URBAN LIFE AND HEALTH Chapter 4: THE PROBLEM OF CHEMICALS IN FOOD Chapter 5: ENVIRONMENT AND CANCER Chapter 6: RADIATION AND HUMAN HEALTH Chapter 7: HUMAN ECOLOGY Chapter 8: HEALTH AND SOCIETY Appendixes
Hurricane Ida ‘may be one of the best observed landfalling hurricanes’
IMAGE: THE OU SMART RADAR WITH THE NOAA P3 HURRICANE HUNTERview more
CREDIT: COOPERATIVE INSTITUTE FOR MESOSCALE METEOROLOGICAL STUDIES/NOAA
NORMAN, OKLA. – A research team led by Michael Biggerstaff, a professor of meteorology in the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences at the University of Oklahoma, successfully captured data with mobile radars and other weather instruments as Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana.
“The goal of this research, funded by the National Institute for Standards and Technology, is to capture the vertical profile, duration and gustiness of extreme winds in an effort to provide information that could improve building codes and mitigate damage to homes and commercial buildings,” Biggerstaff said.
The team captured unique datasets during the landfall of Hurricane Ida and as it transitioned into a tropical storm.
“Ida was undergoing an eyewall replacement cycle during landfall that caused the inner eyewall and associated wind field to weaken just before landfall,” Biggerstaff said. “The OU radar team observed the eyewall replacement process and how that process was impacted by increased surface friction during landfall.”
“Eventually, the outer eyewall dissipated, giving the inner eyewall an opportunity to increase in strength again as the eye was filling in to the west of New Orleans,” he specified. “This is the first time the process of an eyewall replacement cycle at landfall has been observed at such high temporal and spatial scales and should help improve forecasts of this process, which is responsible for significant changes in storm intensity over time scales of a few hours.”
Additionally, the SMART radars observed many mesovortices, small-scale rotational features found in convective storms, along the inner edge of the eyewall before, during and after landfall. This is the 13th landfalling hurricane Biggerstaff has studied with the SMART radars, including three deployments in Louisiana last year.
“Research from our deployment into Hurricane Harvey in 2017 shows these mesovortices can produce extreme wind gusts that add to the damage associated with the hurricane,” he said. “Moreover, these mesovortices help redistribute energy across the eyewall that affects both the strength and breadth of damaging winds.”
“Together with the additional effort of scientists from other universities, Hurricane Ida may be one of the best observed landfalling hurricanes to date,” he added.
CAPTION
OU graduate student Addison Alford is operating the radar.
CREDIT
Michael Biggerstaff, College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, University of Oklahoma
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Data/statistical analysis
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Not applicable
ARTICLE TITLE
Hurricane Ida ‘May Be One of the Best Observed Landfalling Hurricanes’
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
2-Sep-2021
Geologists look to past for answers on future tsunami threats
IMAGE: VIRGINIA TECH AND JAPANESE RESEARCHERS EXTRACT SEDIMENT CORE FROM THE KUJUKURI COASTAL PLAIN IN JAPAN. PHOTO COURTESY OF TINA DURAview more
CREDIT: TINA DURA
Multiple large and destructive tsunamis in the past few decades in the Indian Ocean (2004), Chile (2010), and Japan (2011) have underscored the threat that tsunamis pose to coastal regions, ushering in a new era of research aimed at better predicting areas threatened by the fast-developing natural disasters.
But documenting and examining recent events does not provide enough information to fully characterize coastal hazards, said Tina Dura, an assistant professor of coastal hazards in Virginia Tech’s Department of Geosciences. Dura is taking a new approach to help overcome that information deficit. She’s looking at the past, with an aim to understand what may lie ahead.
“It is still too difficult to predict when a tsunami may strike if we only consider the recent past,” Dura said. “Some coastlines have not experienced a recent large tsunami, so we may underestimate the potential for infrequent, but large and destructive tsunami events,” Dura said. “We hope to change that by using geological history as our guide.”
In another study published earlier this year, Dura, along with Jessica DePaolis, a Ph.D. student in the Coastal Hazards Lab, discovered important geologic evidence along the coast of north-central Chile that should help improve earthquake and tsunami hazards assessments along this coastline. Robert Weiss and Ben Gill, also members of the Department of Geosciences, contributed to the study.
“This study describes the first geologic evidence of past tsunami inundation along the north-central Chile coast,” said Dura, who is an affiliated member of the Center for Coastal Studies at Virginia Tech. “Every new tsunami deposit we describe helps paint a more complete picture of how tsunamis have behaved in the past and what we can expect in the future.”
Their findings were published in Quaternary Science Reviews, a peer-reviewed journal covering earth, climate, and life interactions.
“Visiting north-central Chile and seeing the tsunami evidence firsthand really drove home the power of this hands-on geologic effort to better understand tsunami hazards,” said DePaolis. “Leading the data collection and writing of the study was a big challenge but it was made possible by a great group of collaborators from Chile and the U.S.”
The study focuses on a region of north-central Chile that lies along an active portion of a subduction zone that has produced multiple earthquakes larger than magnitude 8 over the past century, often accompanied by tsunamis. However, a combination of several factors, including a semi-arid climate, sand-dominated coastline, and historically sparse population, has limited the historical (written and instrumental) and geologic records of tsunamis in this region. A recent magnitude 8.3 earthquake and accompanying tsunami in north-central Chile on Sept. 16, 2015, provided a unique opportunity to examine the nature of tsunami deposits in the region.
Dura’s Coastal Hazards Lab uses sand beds deposited by tsunamis and preserved in coastal environments to reconstruct past tsunami inundation over hundreds to thousands of years, helping better define coastal hazards in a region.
Dura was part of research that appeared in Nature Geoscience today examining seismic risk of earthquakes and associated tsunamis in the Tokyo region. They used a combination of geological evidence of tsunami inundation along with tsunami modeling to determine what plate boundaries past regional tsunamis have originated from. The work revealed that earthquakes along a previously unconsidered plate boundary have produced significant tsunami inundation in the past, adding another possible source for earthquakes in the Tokyo region and tsunamis in the Pacific Ocean.
The Coastal Hazards Lab group employed both field-based (stratigraphic mapping, sediment descriptions, surveying) and laboratory-based methods (particle size, geochemical, modeling, and dating analyses) to identify two anomalous sand beds in a coastal wetland in Tongoy Bay, north-central Chile. Satellite imagery taken before and after the 2015 earthquake, and post-earthquake surveys show the younger sand bed was deposited by the 2015 tsunami.
An older sand bed at the site was previously undocumented and was remarkably similar in composition to the 2015 tsunami sand bed. However, the older sand bed was slightly thicker and extended further inland than the 2015 tsunami sand, suggesting it was deposited by a larger event.
Radionuclide dating, which using cesium and lead to calculate the recent rate of sedimentation in the wetland, constrained the age of the older sand bed to 1922, when a large earthquake and tsunami occurred to the north of the study site. Analysis of historical maps showing the land use history of the wetland further supported the timing of sand bed deposition in the wetland to the early 20th century.
The discovery of a 1922 tsunami sand in north-central Chile shows that the 1922 tsunami produced significant inundation beyond the southern end of the earthquake rupture area. This provides additional insight into the type of ruptures that create high tsunamis along the north-central Chile coast. Dura said the results demonstrate that careful site selection and a multidisciplinary (e.g., stratigraphic, historical, and modeling) approach may help improve earthquake and tsunami histories along similar arid subduction zone coastlines.
“We need more studies like this; it’s a crucial step,” said Robert Weiss, director of Virginia Tech’s Center for Coastal Studies. “This is essential information that the Chilean government or the towns within the potentially threatened region could take action with to help mitigate the human toll of a tsunami.”
IMAGE: JESSICA PILARCZYK AND COLLEAGUES FROM THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF JAPAN CORE RICE PADDIES ON THE BOSO PENINSULA TO UNCOVER GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR A TSUNAMI FROM 1,000 YEARS AGO.view more
CREDIT: SFU
Researchers have discovered geologic evidence that unusually large earthquakes and tsunamis from the Tokyo region—located near tectonic plate boundaries that are recognized as a seismic hazard source—may be traceable to a previously unconsidered plate boundary. The team, headed by Simon Fraser University Earth scientist Jessica Pilarczyk, has published its research today in Nature Geoscience.
The team’s ground-breaking discovery represents a new and unconsidered seismic risk for Japan with implications for countries lining the Pacific Rim, including Canada.
Pilarczyk points to low-lying areas like Delta, Richmond and Port Alberni as potentially vulnerable to tsunamis originating from this region.
In 2011, eastern Japan was hit with a massive magnitude 9 quake – creating the largest rupture area of any earthquake originating from the Japan Trench. It triggered the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and a tsunami that travelled thousands of miles away—impacting the shores of British Columbia, California, Oregon, Hawaii and Chile.
For the past decade, Pilarczyk and an international team of collaborators have been working with the Geological Survey of Japan to study Japan’s unique geologic history. Together, they uncovered and analyzed sandy deposits from the Boso Peninsula region (50 km east of Tokyo) that they attribute to an unusually large tsunami that occurred about 1,000 years ago.
Until now, scientists did not have historical records to ascertain if a portion of the Philippine Sea/Pacific plate boundary near the Boso Peninsula was capable of generating large tsunamis similar in size as the Tohoku event in 2011.
Using a combination of radiocarbon dating, geologic and historical records, and paleoecology, the team used 13 hypothetical and historical models to assess each of the three plate boundaries, including the Continental/Philippine Sea plate boundary (Sagami Trough), the Continental/Pacific plate boundary (Japan Trench) and the Philippine Sea/Pacific plate boundary (Izu-Bonin Trench) as sources of the 1,000-year-old earthquake.
CAPTION
Jessica Pilarczyk (SFU) and collaborator Tina Dura (Virginia Tech) sample sediment cores from rice paddies of the Greater Tokyo Region that contain evidence for an earthquake from 1,000 years ago that potentially originated from a historically unconsidered earthquake source.
CREDIT
SFU
Pilarczyk reports that the modeled scenarios suggest that the source of the tsunami from 1,000 years ago originated from the offshore area off the Boso Peninsula —the smallest of which (for example, possible earthquakes with the lowest minimum magnitude), are linked to the previously unconsidered Izu-Bonin Trench at the boundary of the Philippine Sea and Pacific plates.
“Earthquake hazard assessments for the Tokyo region are complicated by the’ trench-trench triple junction’, where the oceanic Philippine Sea Plate not only underthrusts a continental plate but is also being subducted by the Pacific Plate.”says Pilarczyk, an assistant professor of Earth sciences at SFU who holds a Canada Research Chair in Natural Hazards. ”Great thrust earthquakes and associated tsunamis are historically recognized hazards from the Continental/Philippine Sea (Sagami Trough) and Continental/Pacific (Japan Trench) plate boundaries but not from the Philippine Sea/Pacific boundary alone.”
Pilarczyk hopes that these findings will be used to produce better informed seismic hazard maps for Japan. She also says that this information could be used by far-field locations, including Canada, to inform building practices and emergency management strategies that would help mitigate the destructive consequences of an earthquake similar to the one of 1,000 years ago.
JOURNAL
Nature Geoscience
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Data/statistical analysis
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Not applicable
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
2-Sep-202
Canadian Paralympian Calls For Equal Pay & Says Some Athletes Could End Up 'Working In Starbucks'
One of Canada's most decorated Paralympic athletes has expressed her disappointment that her home country doesn't pay its Olympic and Paralympic athletes equally.
But when asked by Narcity Canada if the 25-year-old will receive payment for her medals from the Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC), similar to the Canadian Olympic Committee's (COC) Athlete Excellence Fund set up for Olympians, she said:
"No, we officially get $0.
"Prize money will come from private businesses. For swimming, Speedo will give $25,000 to be split between medalists, for example. Swimming Canada will allow a small amount too.
"I personally will get bonuses from my own sponsors. Other Canadian athletes might not have this chance."
As Narcity Canada reported in July, eligible Olympic athletes get $20,000 for winning a gold medal, $15,000 for a silver medal, and $10,000 for a bronze medal through the excellence fund. These performance awards are the same amount regardless of whether they win in a team sport or an individual sport.
In the U.S., Paralympians and their Olympic counterparts are now being paid the same amount of money for winning medals. According to a report by the New York Times in 2019, Paralympians were paid US$7,500 for gold, but now receive US$37,500 for a gold medal, US$22,500 for silver and US$15,000 for bronze from the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
"We definitely support the idea, and strive to be in a position in the future to offer financial bonuses to medallists," the statement added.
At the Tokyo Games, Rivard has won two gold medals in the S10 100-metre freestyle and the S10 400-metre freestyle, while also claiming a bronze medal in the 50-metre freestyle event in the same classification.
She said she hopes that Canada one day recognizes equal pay for both sets of athletes. "It's a Canada problem, as other countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Ukraine and Belarus will allow their Paralympic medallists hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money for their Paralympic medals.
"We put in the same work and the same effort but at the moment we get about a tenth of what the Olympic athletes get. But, we have to remember that the COC has more money than the CPC and that is part of the problem."
Rivard also expressed concern for the next generation of young Paralympic athletes. "We do it because we love it but you can't expect people to move entire lives around and sacrifice 20 years of their life on one sport because when you retire you have nothing. You might have to go working at Starbucks."
Paralympians still don’t get the kind of media attention they deserve as elite athletes
Laura Misener, Associate Professor & Director, School of Kinesiology, Western University
Erin Pearson, PhD Student in Kinesiology, Western University -
With no international spectators and limited domestic crowds, the importance placed on broadcasting the Paralympic Games is greater than ever before. When the Games were postponed in 2020, International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Andrew Parsons argued that the Paralympics were needed more than ever to put disability back at the heart of the inclusion agenda.
With the highest estimated global viewership to date, at 4.25 billion total viewers, Parsons was convinced that media representation of the Paralympic Games would help “change attitudes, breakdown barriers of inequality and create more opportunities for persons with disabilities.”
But has the media represented Paralympic athletes in a way that can change attitudes about disability? Our recent analysis found Canadian media coverage of Paralympians at the 2016 Rio Games fell into four main categories: athlete first, stereotyped, informative and multidimensional. Athlete first
From a positive perspective, we found that many Paralympians were represented as athletes first. While not necessarily the most dominant approach, this frame was at the forefront of coverage.
In athlete first coverage, media referred to Paralympic sporting events as high-performance sport competitions, highlighted the dedication and training of athletes and focused on their results and accomplishments — all aspects of sports coverage we normally only see for able-bodied athletes.
Historically, this has not been the primary way of representing Paralympians, as stereotypical representations of disability remain prevelant. But we are starting to see this narrative used more often, especially with the coverage of the Tokyo Paralympics. Overcoming disability
Despite the positive shift towards representing Paralympians as athletes first, stereotypical ways of covering Paralympians remain dominant in media coverage; this is the most common way they have been represented over the past two decades.
One of the most common stereotypes we saw used was the “supercrip narrative.” This narrative frames disability as an individual problem that a person must “overcome” to achieve success. Paralympians were heralded as “superheroes” because they were able to “overcome” their disabilities to participate in the Paralympic Games. The media often used the word “participate” and not “compete” when describing Paralympians.
Other stereotypical narratives of coverage we observed portrayed Paralympians as “cyborgs” whose success was owed to their adaptive technologies, such as running blades, rather than their athletic abilities.
during the men’s long jump T64 final in the 2020 Paralympics.
We also observed “comparison” narratives where a Paralympian’s success was compared to an able-bodied counterpart, often an Olympic athlete who competed in a similar event. This was highlighted when Paralympic athletes achieved similar times in races as their Olympic counterparts. This appears to be a way for the media to justify the success of a Paralympian rather than celebrating their athletic abilities in their own rights.
Why are stereotypes a problem?
Celebrating a Paralympian for “overcoming” their disability in order to “participate” in sport, rather than celebrating them as a high-performance athlete, devalues their athletic performance. This type of narrative perpetuates the idea that any person with a disability can overcome it if they just tried hard enough. This misrepresents the experiences of Paralympians and the everyday lives of people who live with disabilities.
Alongside these stereotypical representations, we also observed that only a select group of people with disabilities tended to be given coverage. Our research demonstrated that athletes with less visible impairments and more innovative technologies, such as wheelchairs or blades, were represented more in coverage than athletes with more visible impairments.
As a result, media coverage conformed to what society thinks an athletic body should look like, and ended up not representing the diversity of bodies and abilities that compete in sport. The issue of what bodies are acceptable at the Games and what ones are shown by the media continues to be hotly debated within the Paralympic movement. More than an athlete
The other two ways we observed Paralympians being represented was through informative and multidimensional frames. The informative frame focused on educating viewers about the Paralympic movement, disability sports and included articles written by Paralympians. The increase in media commentary from former Paralympic athletes supports this approach.
This is a step in the right direction, as it helps create a fan base for disability sport while providing a platform for Paralympians to share their perspectives and control their representation.
The multidimensional frame was another positive example of media coverage that addressed their roles outside of being an athlete. Stories that highlighted their roles as parents, spouses, children and friends were used to connect with audiences in a way that had been typically absent from Paralympic coverage previously.
What about Tokyo 2020 coverage?
The Tokyo 2020 Paralympics is the most widely broadcasted Games to date, and it’s encouraging to see a steady increase in the quantity and quality of coverage. The diversity of the coverage has also increased, and is comparable to what’s seen with able-bodied sports. It has also spread across a wide range of social media channels and platforms, such as TikTok.
What we hope to see, in terms of the quality of media coverage, is a focus on athlete first framing that steers clear of stereotypical representations of Paralympians. That way all athletes can be celebrated as the elite, high performance athletes they train to be.
Earlier, we asked if media representations of the Paralympics can change attitudes about disability. We think they can if Paralympians are represented in non-stereotypical ways. The Paralympic Games have the ability to raise awareness and start important conversations about disability, but it’s important to remember the context of what we are watching and to not homogenize the experience of a Paralympian as the everyday lived experience of people with disabilities.
What’s most important, however, is that conversations about disability, and campaigns such as #WeThe15 — a human rights campaign headed by the IPC and UNESCO to end discrimination against people with disabilities — continue beyond the Paralympics’ two-week life span. Tangible actions, not just rhetoric, need to occur 365 days a year to truly ensure that positive changes are made for people with disabilities across all areas of life.
