Daniel Salzler No. 1137
EnviroInsight.org Three Items February 18, 2022
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- Who’s Responsible For Roadside Rubbish? Litter is mostly environmentally toxic plastic. February 8, 2022 University of California – Riverside
New research reveals that items in litter typically originate less than two miles from where they’re found — and unless humans remove them, most of these items will never leave the environment.
For the study, researchers from the University of California, Riverside spent a month collecting trash from seven sites across the Inland Empire. They examined its composition, discerned the manufacturers of many items, and thanks to receipts, were also able to determine where the items were purchased.
Most trash items end up on streets only a short distance from where someone bought them. In other words, the majority of litter comes from local sources. This finding could help cities prevent plastic litter that will eventually taint water and air.
“A lot of people say, ‘it’s not my trash,'” said Win Cowger, a UCR environmental scientist and first author on the study. “I want to dispel that notion with the evidence we have, at least here in the Inland Empire.”
Some people have theorized that wind, water or other factors are responsible for moving litter through urban areas. This study, published in the journal Environmental Research, was the first of its kind to study local litter in such close detail and identified that humans were the primary means by which it moves from sellers to streets.
To reach these conclusions, 18 undergraduate and graduate students trained in data collection surveyed up to 3,280 feet of roadside several times a week in Riverside, Moreno Valley, Loma Linda, San Dimas and Palm Desert.
Nearly 60 percent of the materials they found were plastic. Most were food related, followed by tobacco products. Correspondingly, the top producers of these items, when they were identifiable, were Philip Morris, Mars Incorporated, RJ Reynolds and Jack in the Box.
Because people are responsible for the flow of items from stores onto streets, it can be tempting to blame bad behavior for litter. However, the researchers feel individuals, policy makers, and manufacturers must all work together to solve the problem.
On the local level, the researchers conclude that cities have a variety of tools to address the issue. These could include bans on items that frequently end up outside, or an increase in the frequency of street sweeping.
Bans and other preventative measures are suggested because the study also determined that cleaning up litter does not prevent it from reoccurring. Every time researchers came to survey, they also cleaned the sites up, only to find a similar volume of trash when they returned.
“There’s a broken window theory some people subscribe to, that trash begets trash. However, we find even if you keep a place clean the accumulation is really consistent so other actions to prevent litter in the first place are needed,” Cowger said.
To further understand how trash moves onto roadsides and how to clean it up, the researchers are planning additional studies in Long Beach, California and in Oregon. In addition, Cowger is working on a universal index of trash survey terminology to help connect this study with others like it.
“There’s a more systematic approach we need to take as humans to decide what gets produced, because eventually, it all gets into the environment,” Gray said.
2. Number Of Earth’s Tree Species Estimated To Be 14% Higher Than Currently Known, With Some 9,200 Species Yet To Be Discovered. January 31,2022 University of Michigan.
A new study involving more than 100 scientists from across the globe and the largest forest database yet assembled estimates that there are about 73,000 tree species on Earth, including about 9,200 species yet to be discovered.
The global estimate is about 14% higher than the current number of known tree species. Most of the undiscovered species are likely to be rare, with very low populations and limited spatial distribution, the study shows.
That makes the undiscovered species especially vulnerable to human-caused disruptions such as deforestation and climate change, according to the study authors, who say the new findings will help prioritize forest conservation efforts.
“These results highlight the vulnerability of global forest biodiversity to anthropogenic changes, particularly land use and climate, because the survival of rare taxa is disproportionately threatened by these pressures,” said University of Michigan forest ecologist Peter Reich, one of two senior authors of a paper scheduled for publication Jan. 31 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“By establishing a quantitative benchmark, this study could contribute to tree and forest conservation efforts and the future discovery of new trees and associated species in certain parts of the world,” said Reich, director of the Institute for Global Change Biology at U-M’s School for Environment and Sustainability.
“Each set comes from someone going out to a forest stand and measuring every single tree — collecting information about the tree species, sizes and other characteristics. Counting the number of tree species worldwide is like a puzzle with pieces spread all over the world.”
Their conservative estimate of the total number of tree species on Earth is 73,274, which means there are likely about 9,200 tree species yet to be discovered, according to the researchers, who say their new study uses a vastly more extensive dataset and more advanced statistical methods than previous attempts to estimate the planet’s tree diversity. The researchers used modern developments of techniques first devised by mathematician Alan Turing during World War II to crack Nazi code, Reich said.
Roughly 40% of the undiscovered tree species — more than on any other continent — are likely to be in South America, which is mentioned repeatedly in the study as being of special significance for global tree diversity.
South America is also the continent with the highest estimated number of rare tree species (about 8,200) and the highest estimated percentage (49%) of continentally endemic tree species — meaning species found only on that continent.|
Hot spots of undiscovered South American tree species likely include the tropical and subtropical moist forests of the Amazon basin, as well as Andean forests at elevations between 1,000 meters (about 3,300 feet) and 3,500 meters (about 11,480 feet).
“Beyond the 27,000 known tree species in South America, there might be as many as another 4,000 species yet to be discovered there. Most of them could be endemic and located in diversity hot spots of the Amazon basin and the Andes-Amazon interface,” said Reich, who was recruited by U-M’s Biosciences Initiative and joined the faculty last fall from the University of Minnesota, where he maintains a dual appointment.
“This makes forest conservation of paramount priority in South America, especially considering the current tropical forest crisis from anthropogenic impacts such as deforestation, fires and climate change,” he said.
Worldwide, roughly half to two-thirds of all already known tree species occur in tropical and subtropical moist forests, which are both species-rich and poorly studied by scientists. Tropical and subtropical dry forests likely hold high numbers of undiscovered tree species, as well.
Forests provide many “ecosystem services” to humanity for free. In addition to supplying timber, fuelwood, fiber and other products, forests clean the air, filter the water, and help control erosion and flooding. They help preserve biodiversity, store climate-warming carbon, and promote soil formation and nutrient cycling while offering recreational opportunities such as hiking, camping, fishing and hunting.
Story Source: Materials provided by University of Michigan. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
3. West’s Megadrought Worsens To Driest In At Least 1200 Years. Whereas Arizona’s drought has softened a little this past season, we still have a long way to go to get back to where we need to be. The American West’s megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest in at least 1,200 years and is a worst-case climate change scenario playing out live, a new study finds.
A dramatic drying in 2021 — about as dry as 2002 and one of the driest years ever recorded for the region — pushed the 22-year drought past the previous record-holder for megadroughts in the late 1500s and shows no signs of easing in the near future, according to a study Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The study calculated that 42% of this megadrought can be attributed to human-caused climate change .
“Climate change is changing the baseline conditions toward a drier, gradually drier state in the West and that means the worst-case scenario keeps getting worse,” said study lead author Park Williams, a climate hydrologist at UCLA. “This is right in line with what people were thinking of in the 1900s as a worst-case scenario. But today I think we need to be even preparing for conditions in the future that are far worse than this.” Source: Associated Press
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