Climate Week NYC: Large cities are at the forefront of climate change, experts say

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Climate Week NYC: Large cities are at the forefront of climate change, experts say

Julia Jacobo – September 18, 2023

Climate Week NYC: Large cities are at the forefront of climate change, experts say

America’s largest cities are at the forefront of climate change.

About 80% of the U.S. population live in urban settings, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Some of the country’s most densely populated cities, like New York City, are already at the frontlines of global warming, according to experts.

“This particular section of the population is very vulnerable to a range of climate impacts,” Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told ABC News.

MORE: One urban heat island has a plan to bring residents some relief

Hotter temperatures are posing threats to city dwellers

Heat is one of the two major impacts expected to plague cities as climate change continues to worsen, the experts told ABC News.

“Extreme heat is one of the most clearly recognized signals of climate change,” Cleetus said.

Not only are residents and infrastructure experiencing a steady rise in average temperatures, but when the extreme heat waves come, they pose an even greater danger, Malgosia Madajewicz, an associate research scientist for Columbia University’s Center for Climate Systems Research, told ABC News.

PHOTO: FILE - People keep cool in a fountain in Battery Park in Manhattan, July 27, 2023 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images, FILE)
PHOTO: FILE – People keep cool in a fountain in Battery Park in Manhattan, July 27, 2023 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images, FILE)

One of the biggest concerns for residents of large cities when a heat wave arrives are for those living in disadvantaged communities who do not have access to air conditioning or can not afford to run it all the time, Madajewicz said.

Extreme summertime heat overburdens vulnerable populations, especially communities of color living with low incomes, Cleetus said, citing mapping research the Union of Concerned Scientists has done to show the inequities of keeping cool in cities.

Heat illness is the number one weather-related killer in the world, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while cooling centers are available during business hours, they do not help people stay cool at night, which tends to be the most dangerous time for people in vulnerable populations or with preexisting conditions to succumb to heat illness, Madajewicz said.

Urban environments are prone to overheating because of the lack of greenery and abundance of concrete, which absorbs the heat and does not release it easily, creating the phenomenon known as an urban heat island. Heavy traffic also contributes to air pollution, which helps to trap the heat even more.

“There’s a very inequitable impact of extreme heat and cities because of these urban heat islands,” Cleetus said.

MORE: Some of the ways extreme heat will change life as we know it

Several consequences of climate change are causing increased flooding in cities

Historically, large cities all over the world have been built on coasts, which allowed for easy access to transportation and trade. But the convenience of location has also left these cities vulnerable to sea level rise and high tide flooding, the experts said.

As sea levels continue to rise about 3.5 millimeters per year, mostly due to melting in the Arctic, the additional water is contributing to chronic flooding in metropolitan regions, Cleetus said.

High-tide flooding, or “sunny day flooding,” is becoming increasingly common due to decades of sea level rise, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a report released last year.

PHOTO: FILE - Commuters walk into a flooded 3rd Avenue / 149th st subway station and disrupted service due to extremely heavy rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, Sept. 2, 2021, in the Bronx borough of New York City. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images, FILE)
PHOTO: FILE – Commuters walk into a flooded 3rd Avenue / 149th st subway station and disrupted service due to extremely heavy rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, Sept. 2, 2021, in the Bronx borough of New York City. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images, FILE)

Changing storm patterns, with an increase of stronger storms that contain more moisture, are also partly responsible for increased flooding. In 2021, more than 50 people in the Northeast died after the remnants of Hurricane Ida caused flash flooding in major cities along the East Coast.

In some New York City neighborhoods, the chronic flooding has become so regular that it is occurring on a weekly basis, Madajewicz said.

“There are areas in New York City that are going to be difficult to sustain neighborhoods in in the long term,” she said.

The prevalence of concrete also contributes to the flooding, as there is no soil to help absorb the excess water, Madajewicz said. The lack of wetlands and dunes in coastal areas that have been heavily developed, such as the Rockaways in Queens, make those neighborhoods more susceptible to flooding, especially when a major storm comes in, like Tropical Storm Sandy in 2012.

PHOTO: FILE - A person makes their way in rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, Sept. 1, 2021, in the Bronx borough of New York City. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images, FILE)
PHOTO: FILE – A person makes their way in rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, Sept. 1, 2021, in the Bronx borough of New York City. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images, FILE)

About 1.3 million residents of New York City live within or directly adjacent to the floodplain, according to Rebuild by Design, a climate research and development group. As sea levels continue to rise, that number could increase to 2.2 million New Yorkers.

Both heat waves and flooding can have an impact on people’s health, their livelihoods as well as the economy, Madajewicz said. They can also have these impacts of various channels like water quality, air quality and infrastructure, such as roads and the power grid, Cleetus said.

Once that infrastructure starts to get affected, a domino affect of threats to public health ensues, which includes a potential rise in energy and food prices, Cleetus said.

The food supply could even be interrupted because there are only so many access points in which sustenance can be shipped in, Madajewicz said.

“If those access points are disrupted, with flooding or effects of heat, that affects a very large population,” she said.

Rising groundwater is also being pushed to the surface — both due to rising sea levels, but also due to human consumption and waste, Madajewicz said. Then, when the rain and storm surge comes, there’s nowhere for the extra water to go, and there is potential for polluted water or raw sewage to also rise to the surface.

MORE: How rising sea levels will affect New York City, America’s most populous city

The suburbs are also in danger

People living in the suburbs will also acutely feel the affects of climate change, according to a new study by JW Surety Bonds, an insurance brokerage and consulting firm.

The paper, which used artificial intelligence to project climate change effects on major U.S. cities by 2123, found that homes in cities like New York City, Oakland, California, Miami and Cape Coral, Florida would be underwater in 100 years.

PHOTO: FILE - A woman looks on as she stands outside of his flooded home after heavy rain in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., April 13, 2023. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)
PHOTO: FILE – A woman looks on as she stands outside of his flooded home after heavy rain in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., April 13, 2023. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)

Conversely, places like Phoenix will be even more dry and deserted, due to an increase of drought, the researchers found.

PHOTO: FILE - A damaged 7-Eleven gas station following Hurricane Ian in Cape Coral, Fla., Sept. 30, 2022. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE)
PHOTO: FILE – A damaged 7-Eleven gas station following Hurricane Ian in Cape Coral, Fla., Sept. 30, 2022. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE)

People who live in the suburbs are more likely to settle there with a family and therefore pure for permanent solutions to create environmentally friendly homes and infrastructure that will withstand future threats from climate change, including green spacing, urban farming and sustainable water management, James Campigotto, a data journalist for JW Surety Bonds and researcher for the study, told ABC News.

MORE: How climate change, rising sea levels are transforming coastlines around the world

What cities need to do to combat climate change

Big cities are “engines of solutions,” and are tasked with implementing climate resiliency strategies to protect its citizens from future threats, Cleetus said.

The Big Apple has already started implementing infrastructure improvements that will protect its residents from future extreme events, but the work is nowhere near finished, Madajewicz said.

New York City enacted new building regulations in 2021 that take climate change into account, such as requiring all new construction to be above base flood elevation and take various other flood considerations into account.

There are also efforts being made to raise subway entrances, make the electricity grid and telecommunications more resilient and improve the infrastructure for public transportation, which can shut down when inundated with water — especially certain subway and train lines as well as New York City’s airports, which are located right on the coast in extremely flood-prone areas, Madajewicz said. After Superstorm Sandy, Con Edison, the utility company that serves that majority of New Yorkers, upgraded the infrastructure to the power grid.

“Right now, even a city like New York, which has considerable resources, does not have enough for the scale of investments that are needed,” Cleetus said.

PHOTO: FILE - Caution tape is seen at a construction site near saguaro cactus at the Phoenix botanical gardens in Phoenix, Aug. 1, 2023. (Andrew Caballero-reynolds/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)
PHOTO: FILE – Caution tape is seen at a construction site near saguaro cactus at the Phoenix botanical gardens in Phoenix, Aug. 1, 2023. (Andrew Caballero-reynolds/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)

But other large cities may not have the same resources or as sizeable a budget as New York, and the challenge will be to prioritize those transformations before it’s too late, Madajewicz said. In Miami and other costal cities in Florida, city planners have prioritized the installation of stormwater pumps, for instance.

“There is more to be done, and it’s important to recognize the gaps as well as the need for more funding going forward to fill those gaps,” Cleetus said.

If not, people may need to move further inland — a budding trend of climate migration that experts expect to see more often in the coming years.

“There’s going to be huge issue with availability of housing for the people who need to live,” Madajewicz said.

Russia is exhausting its resources and ‘a reckoning is coming,’ says Ukraine’s spy chief

Business Insider

Russia is exhausting its resources and ‘a reckoning is coming,’ says Ukraine’s spy chief

Thibault Spirlet – September 18, 2023

Russian forces ride on an armored vehicle in Armyansk on February 22, 2022.
Russian forces ride on an armored vehicle in Armyansk on February 22, 2022.STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images
  • Russia is running out of military resources, Ukraine’s spy chief told The Economist.
  • Kyrylo Budanov cited Russia’s struggling mobilization and Putin’s meeting with Kim Jong Un.
  • Budanov predicts Russia’s supply of weapons will dry up by 2026, if not sooner.

Russia is running out of reserve troops and weapons it desperately needs to sustain its fighting in Ukraine, Ukraine’s intelligence chief said.

“Contrary to what the Russian Federation declares, it has absolutely no strategic reserve,” Kyrylo Budanov told The Economist in an interview published on Sunday.

Budanov cited Russia’s underperforming troops, its poor-quality equipment, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong Un, as evidence for his claim.

“If everything is fine and Russia has enough resources, why are they looking for them all over the world? The answer is obvious. There is nothing to extract any more,” he said.

Budanov pointed to the “premature” deployment of Russia’s 25th Combined Arms Army in early August, which he said had only 80% of the manpower and 55% of the equipment it needed to operate effectively.

The UK Ministry of Defence also reported earlier this month that Russia had likely deployed the 25th early, in August instead of December.

It’s likely that it was “rushed into action early” as Russia “continues to grapple with an over-stretched force along the front and Ukraine continues its counter-offensive on three different axes,” the MOD said.

While Russia is reportedly poised to step up its mobilization drive, Budanov told The Economist that head count is the only obvious advantage that Russia retains over Ukraine.

When it comes to Russian human resources “the quality is low, but the quantity is sufficient,” he said.

That’s not the case for military hardware. Given what he called Russia’s dwindling military resources, Budanov predicted that Russia’s economy will survive only until 2025, and its flow of weapons will dry up in 2026, or “perhaps earlier,” he told the outlet.

“A reckoning is coming,” Burdanov said, per The Economist.

Later in the interview, Burdanov acknowledged that Ukraine also risks running out of resources, but he insisted his country has Western allies ready to supply them with aid, whereas Russia is dependent on itself.

While some Ukrainian officials have said they are noticing a “shift” in their partners’ readiness to continue supplying support at the same level, Budanov said he had “good intelligence” about realities in the West.

“Warehouses in Western countries are not completely empty. No matter what anyone says,” he added. “We can see this very clearly as an intelligence agency.”

State Farm is closing its doors to millions of new customers exposed to ‘rapidly growing’ catastrophes — here’s who’s affected

The Cool Down

State Farm is closing its doors to millions of new customers exposed to ‘rapidly growing’ catastrophes — here’s who’s affected

Laurelle Stelle – September 18, 2023

The EPA reports that wildfires are getting worse as the planet gets warmer. In response to this and other factors, major insurer State Farm has announced that it will no longer offer homeowner’s insurance to new applicants in fire-prone California.

What’s happening?

According to the EPA, the area burned by wildfires each year has been increasing since the 1980s. The 10 most destructive years on record have happened in the past 20 years, causing more damage thanks to the plentiful dry plants left behind by drought.

While the effects are felt across the U.S., California is famous for its yearly wildfires and the resulting smoke. This year has been particularly hard for the state due to a devastating combination of storms, floods, drought, and fire.

As Axios reports, this became too much risk for State Farm. The company cited “historic increases in construction costs outpacing inflation” and “rapidly growing catastrophe exposure” in its decision to close applications across California in May.

Why does it matter?

For homeowners in California, it will now be harder to find affordable coverage for their property. Without it, residents run the risk of losing everything in a fire. Owners that already have coverage are still protected, but State Farm won’t accept any new applications in California, it says.

But the problem extends beyond California. Disasters of all kinds have become more common and more destructive as rising temperatures across the world have caused the weather to become less stable.

If insurers find it too risky to cover areas affected by these disasters, then more and more regions could find themselves without coverage. Louisiana and Florida are already losing coverage thanks to predictions of an active hurricane season, Axios reports. Ironically, State Farm has announced its intent to remain in Florida despite large competitors like Farmers and AAA pulling out.

What’s being done?

Michael Soller, the California deputy insurance commissioner, told Axios in an email that the California Department of Insurance is dedicated to protecting consumers in the long run.

“We have been here before after major wildfires,” he said. “What’s different is the actions that we are taking with the first-ever insurance discount program for wildfire safety and unprecedented wildfire mitigation investments from the Legislature and Governor.”

In other words, the CDI is working with the state government to lower insurance costs and reduce the risk of wildfires so that insurers can be secure operating in the area once again.

Water-starved Saudi confronts desalination’s heavy toll

AFP

Water-starved Saudi confronts desalination’s heavy toll

Robbie Corey-Boulet – September 16, 2023

General manager Mohamed Ali al-Qahtani checks the quality of the ouput at the Ras al-Khair desalination plant (Fayez Nureldine)
General manager Mohamed Ali al-Qahtani checks the quality of the ouput at the Ras al-Khair desalination plant (Fayez Nureldine)

Solar panels soak up blinding noontime rays that help power a water desalination facility in eastern Saudi Arabia, a step towards making the notoriously emissions-heavy process less environmentally taxing.

The Jazlah plant in Jubail city applies the latest technological advances in a country that first turned to desalination more than a century ago, when Ottoman-era administrators enlisted filtration machines for hajj pilgrims menaced by drought and cholera.

Lacking lakes, rivers and regular rainfall, Saudi Arabia today relies instead on dozens of facilities that transform water from the Gulf and Red Sea into something potable, supplying cities and towns that otherwise would not survive.

But the kingdom’s growing desalination needs –- fuelled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s dreams of presiding over a global business and tourism hub –- risk clashing with its sustainability goals, including achieving net-zero emissions by 2060.

Projects like Jazlah, the first plant to integrate desalination with solar power on a large scale, are meant to ease that conflict: officials say the panels will help save around 60,000 tons of carbon emissions annually.

It is the type of innovation that must be scaled up fast, with Prince Mohammed targeting a population of 100 million people by 2040, up from 32.2 million today.

“Typically, the population grows, and then the quality of life of the population grows,” necessitating more and more water, said CEO Marco Arcelli of ACWA Power, which runs Jazlah.

Using desalination to keep pace is a “do or die” challenge, said historian Michael Christopher Low at the University of Utah, who has studied the kingdom’s struggle with water scarcity.

“This is existential for the Gulf states. So when anyone is sort of critical about what they’re doing in terms of ecological consequences, I shake my head a bit,” he said.

At the same time, he added, “there are limits” as to how green desalination can be.

– Drinking the sea –

The search for potable water bedevilled Saudi Arabia in the first decades after its founding in 1932, spurring geological surveys that contributed to the mapping of its massive oil reserves.

Prince Mohammed al-Faisal, a son of King Faisal whom Low has dubbed the “Water Prince”, at one point even explored the possibility of towing icebergs from Antarctica to quench the kingdom’s growing thirst, drawing widespread ridicule.

But Prince Mohammed also oversaw the birth of the kingdom’s modern desalination infrastructure beginning in 1970.

The national Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) now reports production capacity of 11.5 million cubic metres per day at 30 facilities.

That growth has come at a cost, especially at thermal plants running on fossil fuels.

By 2010, Saudi desalination facilities were consuming 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, more than 15 percent of today’s production.

The Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture did not respond to AFP’s request for comment on current energy consumption at desalination plants.

Going forward, there is little doubt Saudi Arabia will be able to build the infrastructure required to produce the water it needs.

“They have already done it in some of the most challenging settings, like massively desalinating on the Red Sea and providing desalinated water up to the highlands of the holy cities in Mecca and Medina,” said Laurent Lambert of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

– Going green? –

The question is how much the environmental toll will continue to climb.

The SWCC says it wants to cut 37 million metric tonnes of carbon emissions by 2025.

This will be achieved largely by transitioning away from thermal plants to plants like Jazlah that use electricity-powered reverse osmosis.

Solar power, meanwhile, will expand to 770 megawatts from 120 megawatts today, according to the SWCC’s latest sustainability report, although the timeline is unclear.

“It’s still going to be energy-intensive, unfortunately, but energy-intensive compared to what?” Lambert said.

“Compared to countries which have naturally flowing water from major rivers or falling from the sky for free? Yeah, sure, it’s always going to be more.”

At desalination plants across the kingdom, Saudi employees understand just how crucial their work is to the population’s survival.

The Ras al-Khair plant produces 1.1 million cubic metres of water per day –- 740,000 from thermal technology, the rest from reverse osmosis –- and struggles to keep reserve tanks full because of high demand.

Much of the water goes to Riyadh, which requires 1.6 million cubic metres per day and could require as much as six million by the end of the decade, said an employee who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief the media.

Looking out over pipes that draw seawater from the Gulf into the plant, he described the work as high-stakes, with clear national security implications.

If the plant did not exist, he said, “Riyadh would die”.

Scientists find shocking new use for cocoa beans that could affect our entire planet — and it has nothing to do with chocolate

The Cool Down

Scientists find shocking new use for cocoa beans that could affect our entire planet — and it has nothing to do with chocolate

Roberto Guerra – September 17, 2023

A novel way to counter climate change is taking place in the German port city of Hamburg.

It’s a process that begins with cocoa bean shells going in one end of a factory and coming out as a black powder called biochar, which is doing its part to slow climate change.

What is biochar? 

Biochar is the black powder mentioned above, and it’s produced by — in this case — heating cocoa husks in a room that has no oxygen to a temperature of 1,112 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Phys.org. Biochar producers can also use other organic wastes as raw materials.

The process prevents plant-warming toxic gases from entering the atmosphere, and the final product can be turned into fertilizer or an ingredient for concrete that is environmentally friendlier than traditional concrete, per Phys.org.

How does the process work? 

Biochar captures the carbon dioxide present in the husks of the cocoa shells from the European plant mentioned above, and this method can be implemented by any other facility.

If the cocoa shells were discarded conventionally, the carbon within the unused byproduct would be released into the atmosphere during its decomposition.

Rather than following the usual disposal method, where the carbon within the unused cocoa shells would be released into the atmosphere, which heats up the planet, it is instead stored in the biochar for a very long time.

David Houben, an environmental scientist at the UniLaSalle Institute in France, told Phys.org that the biochar could hold onto the planet-warming gas for centuries.

Why is biochar important?

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that biochar could potentially capture billions of tons of the environmentally damaging gases released by our species every year.

This is important because human activities, such as electricity production and transportation, spew around 77 billion tons of planet-warming gases into the atmosphere each year. So far, this warming has triggered an increase in heatwaves, floods, droughts, and forest fires over the past few decades.

Some experts believe implementing renewable energy to reduce the amount of planet-warming emissions into the atmosphere isn’t enough and that it may already be too late to prevent the most damaging effects of a warming planet.

That’s why carbon sequestration, or the process of removing the planet-warming gases we’ve already injected into the atmosphere, is considered so important by many climate experts, and the use of biochar does exactly that.

However, the production of biochar is still difficult to scale up to the levels where it could actually slow the overheating of the planet.

“To ensure the system stores more carbon than it produces, everything needs to be done locally, with little or no transport. Otherwise it makes no sense,” Houben, the environmental scientist, told Phys.org.

However, even though challenges remain, the number of biochar initiatives is increasing rapidly. As reported by Phys.org, the production of biochar is expected to nearly double this year compared to last year.

Join our free newsletter for easy tips to save more, waste less, and help yourself while helping the planet.

Researchers make disturbing discovery while analyzing samples taken from the Great Lakes: ‘We know we are being exposed’

The Cool Down

Researchers make disturbing discovery while analyzing samples taken from the Great Lakes: ‘We know we are being exposed’

Erin Feiger – September 17, 2023

It has long been said that water is life, as no human can survive without it. Humans, however, aren’t showing our waters the appreciation they deserve in return.

The Guardian reported that a recent peer-reviewed paper from the University of Toronto found that nearly 90% of water samples taken from the Great Lakes over the last 10 years contain levels of microplastics unsafe for wildlife.

What’s happening? 

Our planet is riddled with plastic pollution. Plastics take ages to break down, and as they do, they create microplastics — tiny particles less than five millimeters (about 0.2 inches) in length.

Of the samples taken and analyzed from the Great Lakes, about 20% are at the highest level of risk.

“Ninety percent is a lot,” Eden Hataley, University of Toronto researcher and co-author of the study, told the Guardian. “We need to answer some basic questions by monitoring … so we can quantify risks to wildlife and humans.”

The authors reviewed data from other peer-reviewed studies from the last 10 years. These studies showed that the highest levels are found in tributaries leading to the lakes or around major cities like Chicago and Toronto, with the highest average levels in Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario.

Statista reported that about 40 million tons of plastic are thrown out annually in the United States. Only about 5% of this gets recycled, per Greenpeace, and about 85% ends up in landfills.

Researchers found that nearly 22 million pounds of plastic debris enter the Great Lakes every year from the U.S. and Canada. That’s as much weight in plastic as about 5,500 cars.

Hataley believes wastewater treatment plants, microfibers that come off clothing in washing machines, and preproduction plastic pellets used in manufacturing are major contributors of plastics to the Great Lakes basin.

She also noted that alarming levels of microplastics have been found in fish consumed by humans and beer brewed with water from the Great Lakes.

“We know we are being exposed,” she told the Guardian, “but what that means in terms of harm or what’s a safe level – we have no idea, and that’s going to take more research.”

Why is this concerning? 

Combined, the Great Lakes supply drinking water to over 40 million people across Canada and the U.S. They hold nearly 90% of the freshwater in the U.S.; and they are home to 3,500 species of plants and animals, according to the Guardian.

If these lakes aren’t healthy, neither are we.

However, the study’s authors said that if the U.S. and Canada act now, the damage to the Great Lakes can be reversed.

What can be done to save the Great Lakes? 

The authors say both governments must start monitoring the lakes’ microplastics levels now.

Hataley pointed out that the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement already has programs monitoring other pollutants, and adding microplastics to the list would not be difficult.

Adding filters to washing machines or storm sewers at manufacturing sites would also greatly help, Hataley told the Guardian.

As individuals, we can research ways to reduce our reliance on single-use plastics and take steps to do so.

“The timeline is not that shocking,’ Hataley said, “but it makes a lot of sense to do it now.”

Moroccan earthquake shattered thousands of lives

Associated Press

AP PHOTOS: Moroccan earthquake shattered thousands of lives

Sam Metz and Mosa Ab El Shamy – September 16, 2023

Children walk through the rubble of their town of Amizmiz which was damaged by the earthquake, outside Marrakech, Morocco, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
Children walk through the rubble of their town of Amizmiz which was damaged by the earthquake, outside Marrakech, Morocco, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy)
A child reacts after inspecting the damage caused by the earthquake, in her town of Amizmiz, near Marrakech, Morocco, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023. An aftershock rattled Moroccans on Sunday as they prayed for victims of the nation’s strongest earthquake in more than a century and toiled to rescue survivors while soldiers and workers brought water and supplies to desperate mountain villages in ruins. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
A child reacts after inspecting the damage caused by the earthquake, in her town of Amizmiz, near Marrakech, Morocco, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023. An aftershock rattled Moroccans on Sunday as they prayed for victims of the nation’s strongest earthquake in more than a century and toiled to rescue survivors while soldiers and workers brought water and supplies to desperate mountain villages in ruins. (AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy)
The foot of a man stuck under rubble while a rescue operation for him is underway, after an earthquake, in Moulay Brahim village, near Marrakech, Morocco, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023. A rare, powerful earthquake struck Morocco late Friday night, killing more than 800 people and damaging buildings from villages in the Atlas Mountains to the historic city of Marrakech. But the full toll was not known as rescuers struggled to get through boulder-strewn roads to the remote mountain villages hit hardest. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
The foot of a man stuck under rubble while a rescue operation for him is underway, after an earthquake, in Moulay Brahim village, near Marrakech, Morocco, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023. A rare, powerful earthquake struck Morocco late Friday night, killing more than 800 people and damaging buildings from villages in the Atlas Mountains to the historic city of Marrakech. But the full toll was not known as rescuers struggled to get through boulder-strewn roads to the remote mountain villages hit hardest. (AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy)
A woman tries to recover some of her possessions from her home which was damaged by the earthquake in the village of Tafeghaghte, near Marrakech, Morocco, Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. Rescue crews expanded their efforts on Monday as the earthquake's death toll continued to climb to more than 2,400 and displaced people worried about where to find shelter. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
A woman tries to recover some of her possessions from her home which was damaged by the earthquake in the village of Tafeghaghte, near Marrakech, Morocco, Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. Rescue crews expanded their efforts on Monday as the earthquake’s death toll continued to climb to more than 2,400 and displaced people worried about where to find shelter. (AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy)
A rescue team recovers the body of a woman who was killed by the earthquake, in the town of Imi N'tala, outside Marrakech, Morocco, Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
A rescue team recovers the body of a woman who was killed by the earthquake, in the town of
Imi N’tala, outside Marrakech, Morocco, Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy

AMIZMIZ, Morocco (AP) — With their arms around each other, three boys walked through the streets of their town at the foot of Morocco’s Atlas Mountains.

It could have been a scene like millions around the world that day. But in the Moroccan town of Amizmiz, the boys were walking through rubble, one week after an earthquake rattled their community’s homes, schools, mosques and cafes. Their possessions were buried beneath tons of mud and clay bricks, along with an untold number of people whom the boys knew.

A little girl held her palms to her cheeks, stunned at the destruction.

The 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit Morocco at 11:11 p.m. on Sept. 8, causing mass death in mountain villages near the epicenter that have collapsed in on themselves. A magnitude 4.9 aftershock hit 19 minutes later.

Entire villages higher up the mountains were leveled. In many, at least half of the population appears to have died.

Photos of the disaster show how fathers, mothers, children and their animals remain trapped under bricks, appliances and fallen ceilings. Going without power for days, residents see at night by the light of their phones.

“It felt like a bomb went off,” 34-year-old Mohamed Messi of Ouirgane said.

When mud and clay brick — traditional materials used for construction in the region — turn to rubble, they leave less space for oxygen than collapsed construction materials in countries like Turkey and Syria, which were also hit by quakes this year.

The day after the quake, hundreds of residents of the mountain town of Moulay Brahim gathered to perform funeral rites, praying on rugs arranged neatly in the street before carrying blanket-covered bodies from the town’s health center to its cemetery.

“People are suffering here very much. We are in dire need of ambulances. Please send us ambulances to Moulay Brahim. The matter is urgent. This appeal must reach everyone, and on a large scale. Please save us,” said Ayoub Toudite, the head of a community group in Moulay Brahim. “We hope for urgent intervention from the authorities. There is no network. We are trying to call, but to no avail.”

The United Nations reported that roughly 300,000 people were likely affected by the earthquake. UNICEF said that likely included 100,000 children.

As the Moroccan government approved only limited assistance from four countries and certain NGOs, Salah Ancheu, a 28-year-old from Amizmiz, told The Associated Press that nearby villages desperately needed more assistance. Residents of his town swept all the rubble off the main road so that cars, motorycles and aid crews can reach villages further along the mountain roads. A giant pile of steel rods, baskets and broken cinderblocks lay just off the center of the road.

“It’s a catastrophe,” he said. ‘’There aren’t ambulances, there aren’t police, at least for right now. We don’t know what’s next.’’

In parts of Amizmiz that weren’t leveled by the temblor, families began to return on Sunday to sort through the wreckage and retrieve valuables from homes where at least one floor remained standing. People cheered the trucks full of soldiers speeding through the road bisecting the town, as women and children sat under tents eating bread, cheese and vegetable stew.

Hafida Fairouje, who came from Marrakech to help her sister’s family in Amizmiz, said smaller nearby villages had nothing left, expressing shock that it took authorities about 20 hours after the earthquake to reach some of the nearby villages.

Morocco on Monday created a special government fund for earthquake-related efforts, to which King Mohammed VI later donated the equivalent of $97 million (91 million euros). Enaam Mayara, the president of the parliament’s House of Councilors, said it would likely take five or six years to rebuild some affected areas.

A foul stench permeated the air through the beginning of the week as rescuers worked to dig out bodies and sort through wreckage in smaller villages.

In Tafeghaghte, residents estimated that more than half of the 160 people who lived in there had perished.

Aid began to arrive and piles of flour, blankets and yogurts were stacked in villages where most buildings were reduced to rubble. People said they had been given food and water, but they still worried about shelter and their long-term prospects.

Moroccan military forces and international teams from four approved countries — Qatar, Spain, the United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom — erected tents near Amizmiz while their teams wound through mountain roads to contribute to ongoing rescue efforts in villages such as Imi N’Tala, where a slice of mountain fell and destroyed the vast majority of homes and killed many residents.

Young boys sang “Hayya Hayya” — the theme song of the 2022 World Cup hosted in Qatar — as the country’s trucks drove through the mountains.

“The mountain was split in half and started falling. Houses were fully destroyed,” a local man, Ait Ougadir Al Houcine, said Tuesday as crews worked to recover bodies, including his sister’s. “Some people lost all their cattle. We have nothing but the clothes we’re wearing. Everything is gone.”

Families and children relocated to yellow tents provided by Moroccan authorities as fears set in about the time it would likely take to rebuild their homes.

“We just started the new school year but the earthquake came and ruined everything,” Naima Ait Brahim Ouali said, standing under an umbrella outside of a yellow tent as children play inside. “We just want somewhere to hide from the rain.”

After King Mohammed VI donated blood in Marrakech and later presided over an emergency response meeting, Moroccan officials said the government would fund both emergency relief and future rebuilding for residents of roughly 50,000 homes that were damaged or destroyed by allocating cash, depending on the level of destruction.

Scientists develop unreal solution to get toxic microplastics out of our drinking water: ‘[They] pose a growing threat’

The Cool Down

Scientists develop unreal solution to get toxic microplastics out of our drinking water: ‘[They] pose a growing threat’

Ben Raker – September 16, 2023

Widely available sawdust and plant-based materials could be the keys to filtering plastic from our drinking water, according to research led by scientists at the University of British Columbia.

Although it’s still at the testing stage, the study’s filter technology may provide a natural and effective solution to the problem of microplastics in water supplies.

The filtration material, which the researchers named “bioCap” and described in a recent paper, is composed of wood sawdust and tannins. Tannins are “natural plant compounds that make your mouth pucker if you bite into an unripe fruit,” as a university news release described them.

The scientists showed in tests that the sawdust with tannins removed 95.2 to 99.9% of microplastics in a column of water.

“There are microfibers from clothing, microbeads from cleansers and soaps, and foams and pellets from utensils, containers, and packaging,” Orlando Rojas, director of the university’s  BioProducts Institute and the project’s lead researcher, stated for the news release. “[O]ur bioCap solution was able to remove virtually all of these different microplastic types.”

Microplastic particles are generally said to be no longer than 0.2 inches long — about the length of a grain of rice.

One study showed that 83% of drinking water samples taken from around the world contained microplastics, with 94% of U.S. samples containing them, the Guardian reported.

The World Health Organization said that “no reliable information suggests” that microplastic in drinking water is a human health concern. However, it also points to “insufficient information” on the topic and recommends generally firmer control of plastics getting into the environment.

Other experts are wary of microplastics because of the limited information, the known toxicity associated with certain plastics, and how widespread microplastics have become.

The bioCap technology may provide some peace of mind for those who would prefer to keep plastics out of their hydration routines.

Various other researchers are also looking at ways to remove plastic from water, including one team in Korea that reportedly removed a similar percentage of particles using advanced filtration.

The advantages bioCap has are its use of natural materials and its flexibility.

SciTechDaily called it “a scalable and sustainable solution to microplastic pollution.”

“Most solutions proposed so far are costly or difficult to scale up,” Rojas noted for the news release. “We’re proposing a solution that could potentially be scaled down for home use or scaled up for municipal treatment systems.”

He added that bioCap “uses renewable and biodegradable materials: tannic acids from plants, bark, wood, and leaves, and wood sawdust — a forestry byproduct that is both widely available and renewable.”

It’s unclear how long it might take before this technology could be used widely, but the research team suggested that it could be scaled up quickly with an industry partner. Rojas told the Vancouver Sun that the BioProducts Institute already works with forest companies to supply wood byproducts for their creative approach.

“Microplastics pose a growing threat to aquatic ecosystems and human health, demanding innovative solutions,” Rojas said.

Outraged beachgoer shares shocking footage of the plastic ‘nurdles’ they collected after a storm: ‘There were probably thousands’

The Cool Down

Outraged beachgoer shares shocking footage of the plastic ‘nurdles’ they collected after a storm: ‘There were probably thousands’

Hayleigh Evans – September 15, 2023

In a viral Reddit post, one user has declared war. While their enemy may be small, they are a sizable opponent responsible for mighty environmental consequences.

This Redditor is fighting plastic pollution by hunting down nurdles and removing them from nature. Nurdles are tiny pellets that are essential ingredients in many plastic products.

They are melted down to make plastic water bottles, vehicle parts, and other products.

These microplastics resemble fish eggs. Nurdles are frequently clear or white, but you may come across brightly colored pellets as well. They are lentil-sized, or about 3 to 5 millimeters in diameter.

“So many nurdles after a rain,” the Redditor writes. “I friggin hate nurdles.”

This Redditor’s quest is a noble environmental pursuit. Billions of nurdles have entered ecosystems around the world, as ships have repeatedly spilled tons of them into oceans during transport.

Roughly 253,000 tons of nurdles enter oceans each year. These toxic pellets then make landfall on coastlines, and they are especially prevalent after rainfall.

Research shows these pellets absorb and transport toxic chemicals into marine environments. Seabirds, fish, and crustaceans will mistakenly eat them because they resemble fish eggs.

This mistake can be extremely harmful, if not deadly, to these animals. Nurdles can cause stomach ulcerations that lead to starvation and introduce harmful chemicals to animals and the greater food chain.

This Redditor is one of many nurdle hunters who want to protect coastlines, wildlife, and water sources. Fellow Redditors have applauded their efforts in the post’s comment section.

“I live on the coast and saw a bunch of them in multiple colors,” one user comments. “I spent 20 minutes picking them up (especially the brightly colored ones since I didn’t want the birds or wildlife to eat them) but there were probably thousands left on that beach.”

“Going for the nurdles! This person rocks,” another user says.

“I’m all for the nurdle patrol,” one user adds.

Scientists are sounding the alarm about a dangerous problem that will soon affect 2 billion people — here’s what to know

The Cool Down

Scientists are sounding the alarm about a dangerous problem that will soon affect 2 billion people — here’s what to know

Laurelle Stelle – September 15, 2023

As the world has gotten hotter, more people are exposed to dangerously high temperatures each year. Recent findings published in Nature Sustainability show that without policy changes, the world will heat up enough by the end of the century that more than 2 billion people will live in life-threatening hot climates, as Science Hub reported.

What’s happening?

So far, the world’s average temperature has risen by just under 1.2 degrees Celsius (about 2 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial level due to human activity, according to Science Hub. The Paris Agreement — an international treaty to limit heat-trapping gases produced by each country and stop the world from getting hotter — proposed to cap the increase at 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

However, the new study found that with the current laws, population growth, and environmental conditions, the world will likely reach about 4.8 degrees Fahrenheit above the preindustrial benchmark, per Science Hub.

The researchers then looked at which areas would be most affected if the temperature increased to that level. They defined “unprecedented heat” zones as areas where the average temperature throughout the year, counting all seasons, is 84.2 degrees Fahrenheit or higher.

Science Hub reported that 40 years ago, only 12 million people worldwide lived in regions with temperatures surpassing that heat. Today, thanks to the warming we’ve already experienced, about 60 million people are affected.

The study found that by 2100, 2 billion out of the world’s projected population of 9.5 billion will live in areas with an average temperature higher than 84.2 degrees Fahrenheit. The most affected areas will be countries around the equator, noted Science Hub: India, Nigeria, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Pakistan.

Why is this heating worrisome?

The hotter the world gets, the more heat waves, droughts, and wildfires we experience. As Science Hub reported, studies have also linked the rising heat to everything from more contagious diseases to lower labor efficiency and more conflict between people.​

“That’s a profound reshaping of the habitability of the surface of the planet, and could lead potentially to the large-scale reorganization of where people live,” study author Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter, told ScienceAlert.

What’s being done?

Science Hub reported that if the global community reaches the goal set by the Paris Agreement, the affected population would be limited to half a billion people instead of 2 billion.

In the meantime, individuals can protect themselves from heat waves with these tips for cooling off.