Daniel Salzler No. 1036 EnviroInsight.org Four Items February 14, 2020
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1. Arizona Association of Environmental Professionals.
February Monthly Meeting & Raffle!
Tuesday, February 25th: David McIntyre, McIntyre Environmental LLC
Location: Old Spaghetti Factory; 1418 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85004
Time: 6:00-8:00pm
A Summary of the Proposed Changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
This presentation will cover the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) proposal to update its regulations for implementing the procedural provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act. We will look at the major changes, and some minor ones, and opine about their impact to federal agencies and contractors.
David McIntyre is the co-owner of McIntyre Environmental LLC located in Tucson. Mr. McIntyre started in environmental consulting in 1999 at the US Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG).
RSVP here or email us at azaep@azaep.org by Friday, February 21st.
Monthly meetings are $25 for non-members, $20 for members, and $10 for students and will include dinner.
* Please bring cash or check *
2. Are Bumblebees Going Extinct?
Bumblebees are among the most effective pollinators—they’re big and they’re fuzzy, which means a lot of pollen sticks to them, and they buzz so vigorously that they knock more pollen out of flowers than other pollinators like honeybees do.
They are also very threatened by climate change, according to a report published today in Science, which found that the habitat where most species are found has narrowed considerably in recent decades. Between the baseline period (1901 to 1974) and the time when climate change began to have an effect on weather patterns (2000 to 2015), the probability that bumblebees would be found at a site in North America declined by 46 percent. In Europe, that probability declined by 17 percent.
“It was the weirdest thing ever,” says Jeremy Kerr, a biologist at the University of Ottawa and a coauthor of the report, along with Peter Soroye, a PhD candidate at the university, and Tim Newbold, an ecologist at University College London. “We were going over our numbers, and we realized that actually what we were looking at over the course of half a generation of humans was the progressive mass extinction of a taxom. This is a whole group of species. It’s showing a decline of around 30 percent, in less than 20 years. I mean, it’s an astonishing rate of change.”
The report builds on previous research that Kerr and other scientists have done with a massive dataset that combines information from more recent wildlife surveys with location data collected from specimens held in the archives of natural history museums. Because of the limitations to that approach (much of the data is concentrated around sites in North America and Europe that were frequently visited by entomologists and insect collectors, for example) other scientists say that this kind of data is suited to find correlations, rather than make conclusions. “We need details; we need examples of species that have shown changes in distribution and why,” wrote Sydney Cameron, an entomologist at the University of Illinois, when asked her opinion of the new report. “We need data from populations within species, showing how some might have shifted while others have remained.”
Kerr and Sorye are also studying the distribution of butterflies, another group of pollinators that are even better represented in natural history collections. They’re completely different,” says Kerr, of the butterflies. “They evolved under tropical conditions. It could be that bumblebees are responding really badly to climate change as a reflection of their evolutionary inheritance.”
Even a few hot days a year can be deadly to bumblebee populations in the long term. When temperatures rise to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, many bumblebee species, says Kerr, “basically kind of go punch drunk.” They stop gathering pollen and expend their energy trying to fan the colony and keep it cool.
Like other species that are vulnerable to climate change, bumblebees are moving toward the poles and into colder climates. But they aren’t doing it quickly enough to stay ahead of their declining range. For every one instance that Soroye and Kerr found of bumblebees appearing in a new location, they found eight instances of them disappearing entirely from others.
Not every place is losing bumblebees at the same rate. Because they’re ground-nesters, bumblebees are particularly vulnerable to pesticides and any form of land management that disturbs or removes rotten logs, fallen leaves, and shrubs and shade trees. The disparity between relative bumblebee declines in Europe and North America could mean that European bumblebees had already lost more territory to development and agriculture and thus had less to lose—or it could be a sign that the way that land is managed in European countries is preventing further losses.
Soroye and Kerr plan to use the data to calculate the effects of climate change on the range of other species—and to look more closely at sites where bumblebees have managed to hang on or expand their range despite the changing weather patterns brought by climate change. Soroye thinks these sites could have “microrefugia”—shaded, undisturbed spots that bumblebees can use to build colonies, and to retreat to during a heat wave In a review of the global status of bumblebees published in the Annual Review of Entomology, Cameron and Ben M. Sadd, a biologist at Illinois State, go even bigger, calling for long-term field and laboratory studies—similar to the work that the European Union has put into assessing the effect of neonicotinoids on honey bees—that might be able to conclusively explain why the presence of bumblebee species in some areas is increasing, even as it declines in others. As far as climate change is concerned, Cameron recommends in-depth long-term studies of specific habitats. “At this early stage in our awareness of climate effects on bees,” writes Cameron, “we need more studies like those of David Inouye and Jessica Forrest, who have been working on alpine floral distribution and seasonal changes in flowering.”
3. One In Three Americns Will Be Diagnosed With Cancer In Their Lifetime. One in three Americans will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime, yet nearly half of all cancers are preventable. Traditional initiatives that aim to prevent cancer have largely ignored the role of toxic substances in the environment. February is National Cancer Prevention Month, and EWG wants you to know about resources we created to help you stop cancer before it starts. 10 Household tips for cancer prevention Cancer prevention starts with a healthy lifestyle. That means not smoking or using tobacco products, eating a healthy diet, getting regular physical activity, practicing safe sex and getting appropriate vaccinations.
Don’t forget that your environment also plays an important role. Here are some simple actions you can take in and around your home to help reduce your family’s risk of cancer.
1. Protect yourself from the sun. Clothing – shirts, hats and pants – and sunscreen can help protect your skin from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. These precautions are especially important when the sun is high in the sky and most intense. EWG’s sunscreen guide can help you find safe, effective products.
2. Keep a clean home. Dust is a reservoir for many toxic chemicals and can be a source of exposure, particularly for children who spend a lot of time on or close to the floor and often put their hands in their mouths. Regular cleaning with a HEPA filter vacuum cleaner and dusting in a way that removes dust, rather than stirring it up, can reduce indoor exposures. In older buildings, lead paint, asbestos-containing materials (flooring and insulation) and older electrical equipment can pose risks. Lead and asbestos removal should only be done with extreme caution and by a professional.
3. Find alternatives to pesticides. Pesticides have been linked to a variety of cancers including prostate, leukemia, lymphoma, and childhood cancers. Control insects by not leaving food out and cleaning up crumbs or spills, keeping your home dry (using a dehumidifier if you have a basement) and keeping the foundation clear of dirt, plants and debris. Mulch, landscaping fabrics and homemade solutions of vinegar and/or soap are good ways to suppress weeds without using chemicals.
4. Keep indoor air clean. When you tackle a home improvement project, use products made without volatile organic compounds such as low-VOC paints and keep work areas well ventilated. Avoid laminates and other composite wood products that contain formaldehyde. Air pollution from fireplaces and wood-burning stoves can also be a serious issue. Choose clean-burning stoves or inserts and make sure they are properly ventilated, with no leaks in the chimney or exhaust pipes. Finally, you shouldn’t ever smoke, but certainly don’t do it in your home.
5. Filter drinking water. Tap water can contain low levels of metals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, nitrates and disinfection by-products (chemicals formed when the chlorine utilities use to treat water reacts with organic material). Simple carbon filters can remove many of these contaminants. If arsenic or nitrates are a major concern, consider more expensive options such as reverse osmosis filters or distillation.
6. Look for alternatives to harsh cleaners. Solutions of soap or vinegar in water can be simple and effective cleaners. EWG’s cleaners guide can help identify less toxic products on the market.
7. Check for radon. Radon, a naturally occurring gas that can seep into your house from the ground, is a known carcinogen. Professional radon testing and commercial kits are readily available.
8. Cook clean. Today’s non-stick cookware is much improved, but it doesn’t last forever. Scratched or worn cookware can release toxic chemicals into your food and air, as can pre-heating non-stick cookware at high temperatures. Don’t heat food or drinks in plastic containers; they can leach chemicals into your food. And be aware that charring meat, especially red meat, can produce cancer-causing chemicals known as heterocyclic amines.
9. Check for mold. Mold is toxic to your health and your home. It can be a sign of excessive moisture. In addition to being a cancer hazard, the toxins produced by mold can cause serious acute and chronic respiratory disease.
10. Be mindful of personal-care products and medicinesThe ingredients in personal-care products are largely unregulated and can contain known carcinogens such as formaldehyde and endocrine disrupting chemicals such as phthalates and parabens. EWG’s Skin Deep® can help you find products without these problematic chemicals. Estrogen-promoting medications, including hormone replacement therapy and oral contraceptives, have been linked to small increases in the risk of breast cancer.
4. President’s Day 2020. This year President’s Day is going to be celebrated on February 17th. Other than most all Federal and State offices being closed on this day, President’s Day has been around for some time. Originally created in 1885 in recognition of President George Washington, President’s Day was moved in 1971 as a part of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, an attempt to create more three day weekends for workers. Source: History.com
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