In theory, Tim O’Hara had come to Paris to map the biodiversity of a faraway seamount. In practice, this meant sifting a plastic barrel of preserved brittle stars floating in 95% ethanol.

For weeks, he sorted through common, five-armed species of echinoderms that are related to starfish, many of which he had seen before. “You get humdrum things,” said O’Hara, senior curator at Museums Victoria in Australia.

One specimen O’Hara scooped from the bucket looked unlike any brittle star he had seen before. It had a thorny nest of teeth and, quite peculiarly, eight arms. “Brittle stars always have five, a few have six, and the very odd one has more than 10,” he said. “To suddenly have eight arms? That was special.”

O’Hara believes the echinoderm, which was collected on an earlier expedition to a seamount east of New Caledonia in the South Pacific, represents an entirely new family of brittle stars that hails from an ancient lineage dating back to the Jurassic and survives to this day. He and other researchers described the species, Ophiojura exbodi, in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

“If I found this thing, I just would have died,” said Christopher Mah, researcher at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and expert on sea stars, who reviewed the paper. “That thing is all teeth.”

After O’Hara took a genetic sample from the toothy, eight-armed star, he put it in his “weirdo box,” where he stores specimens that puzzle him. A phylogenetic analysis revealed that the star’s singular lineage emerged in the Jurassic or late Triassic, approximately 160 million to 200 million years ago.

“Wow,” O’Hara remembers thinking. He then called Ben Thuy, his longtime collaborator and a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History, Luxembourg, about his eight-armed dilemma. He wanted to know if Thuy knew of a similarly shaped star in the fossil record. Thuy responded, “Send me a piece of its arm.”

O’Hara hand-delivered the arm segment to Luxembourg. Thuy soaked the specimen in bleach to remove its flesh and coated it in an extremely thin layer of gold to ensure electric conductivity so he could run it under a scanning electron microscope. The scans revealed the brittle star’s arm plates, which join together in a chain to form their internal skeleton; each had a pair of holes, a nerve hole and a muscle attachment hole. Together, the passageways bore an eerie resemblance to a particular set of nostrils.

“Pig snout articulations,” O’Hara said. “That was our internal joke name, but it’s quite descriptive.”

But Thuy was stumped. He racked his brain for other pig-snouted holes he might have seen in the fossil record. Months later and still stumped, he noticed a poster he had long ago hung on the wall of his office. It described some microfossils from the early Jurassic, including arm plates of a fossilized brittle star with the very same snouted openings. “It looked exactly the same,” he said.

With only a preserved specimen, the researchers do not know how the newly described brittle star uses its proliferation of spinelike teeth or even what color it was while alive. But they do know this: The brittle star has thousands of pig snouts on each arm, a veritable sty in the benthos.

It is not common taxonomic practice to describe a new species from a single, imperfect specimen. But the researchers’ multiple lines of morphological and phylogenetic evidence offer strong support for their claims, according to Mah.

“There is no doubt that it is a new species, and the genetic analysis suggesting a new family is strong,” Sabine Stöhr, an echinoderm biologist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History who was not involved with the research, wrote in an email.

The researchers do not know the next time an expedition will go to New Caledonia and happen to pick up another specimen of this seemingly rare brittle star. “We felt it was important to come along now and alert people to the fact that this animal exists,” O’Hara said.

“This could be the last time we find this animal,” Mah added.

In O’Hara’s eyes, the deep seamounts east of New Caledonia promise to be a living museum of creatures that have survived since the time of dinosaurs. Here, approximately 1,000 to 2,000 feet underwater, scientists have found decapod crabs, flowerlike crinoids, nautiluses and other creatures once believed to be extinct, Thuy said.

“That’s where the ancient things are,” O’Hara said, shortly after stepping out of the Zoom call for his daily temperature check (no symptoms). He is quarantining in a cabin in Darwin, Australia, until he sets off on an expedition to the ancient seamounts near the Christmas and Cocos Islands in the East Indian Ocean.

“No one’s taken a sample from this area. It’s totally unknown,” he said, adding that he is hoping to find another weirdo.

In theory, Tim O’Hara had come to Paris to map the biodiversity of a faraway seamount. In practice, this meant sifting a plastic barrel of preserved brittle stars floating in 95% ethanol.

In theory, Tim O’Hara had come to Paris to map the biodiversity of a faraway seamount. In practice, this meant sifting a plastic barrel of preserved brittle stars floating in 95% ethanol. For weeks, he sorted through common, five-armed species of echinoderms that are related to starfish, many of which he had seen before. “You get humdrum things,” said O’Hara, senior curator at Museums Victoria in Australia. One specimen O’Hara scooped from the bucket looked unlike any brittle star he had seen before. It had a thorny nest of teeth and, quite peculiarly, eight arms. “Brittle stars always have five, a few have six, and the very odd one has more than 10,” he said. “To suddenly have eight arms? That was special.” O’Hara believes the echinoderm, which was collected on an earlier expedition to a seamount east of New Caledonia in the South Pacific, represents an entirely new family of brittle stars that hails from an ancient lineage dating back to the Jurassic and survives to this day. He and other researchers described the species, Ophiojura exbodi, in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. “If I found this thing, I just would have died,” said Christopher Mah, researcher at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and expert on sea stars, who reviewed the paper. “That thing is all teeth.” After O’Hara took a genetic sample from the toothy, eight-armed star, he put it in his “weirdo box,” where he stores specimens that puzzle him. A phylogenetic analysis revealed that the star’s singular lineage emerged in the Jurassic or late Triassic, approximately 160 million to 200 million years ago. “Wow,” O’Hara remembers thinking. He then called Ben Thuy, his longtime collaborator and a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History, Luxembourg, about his eight-armed dilemma. He wanted to know if Thuy knew of a similarly shaped star in the fossil record. Thuy responded, “Send me a piece of its arm.” O’Hara hand-delivered the arm segment to Luxembourg. Thuy soaked the specimen in bleach to remove its flesh and coated it in an extremely thin layer of gold to ensure electric conductivity so he could run it under a scanning electron microscope. The scans revealed the brittle star’s arm plates, which join together in a chain to form their internal skeleton; each had a pair of holes, a nerve hole and a muscle attachment hole. Together, the passageways bore an eerie resemblance to a particular set of nostrils. “Pig snout articulations,” O’Hara said. “That was our internal joke name, but it’s quite descriptive.” But Thuy was stumped. He racked his brain for other pig-snouted holes he might have seen in the fossil record. Months later and still stumped, he noticed a poster he had long ago hung on the wall of his office. It described some microfossils from the early Jurassic, including arm plates of a fossilized brittle star with the very same snouted openings. “It looked exactly the same,” he said. With only a preserved specimen, the researchers do not know how the newly described brittle star uses its proliferation of spinelike teeth or even what color it was while alive. But they do know this: The brittle star has thousands of pig snouts on each arm, a veritable sty in the benthos. It is not common taxonomic practice to describe a new species from a single, imperfect specimen. But the researchers’ multiple lines of morphological and phylogenetic evidence offer strong support for their claims, according to Mah. “There is no doubt that it is a new species, and the genetic analysis suggesting a new family is strong,” Sabine Stöhr, an echinoderm biologist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History who was not involved with the research, wrote in an email. The researchers do not know the next time an expedition will go to New Caledonia and happen to pick up another specimen of this seemingly rare brittle star. “We felt it was important to come along now and alert people to the fact that this animal exists,” O’Hara said. “This could be the last time we find this animal,” Mah added. In O’Hara’s eyes, the deep seamounts east of New Caledonia promise to be a living museum of creatures that have survived since the time of dinosaurs. Here, approximately 1,000 to 2,000 feet underwater, scientists have found decapod crabs, flowerlike crinoids, nautiluses and other creatures once believed to be extinct, Thuy said. “That’s where the ancient things are,” O’Hara said, shortly after stepping out of the Zoom call for his daily temperature check (no symptoms). He is quarantining in a cabin in Darwin, Australia, until he sets off on an expedition to the ancient seamounts near the Christmas and Cocos Islands in the East Indian Ocean. “No one’s taken a sample from this area. It’s totally unknown,” he said, adding that he is hoping to find another weirdo.

These brittle stars have thousands of ‘Pig Snouts’ on each arm

China's environment ministry said on Wednesday that there was no leak at the Taishan nuclear power station, responding to a CNN report earlier this week. 
 
The Ministry of Ecology and Environment also said in a statement on its official WeChat account that the National Nuclear Safety Administration did not raise acceptable limits for radiation detection levels outside of the Taishan plant. 
 
Earlier, a US media report had revealed the possibility of a potential leak in a Chinese nuclear plant near Hong Kong after its French operator said that the plant is dealing with a 'performance issue' linked to a gas build-up.

The Taishan Nuclear Power Plant is jointly owned by China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group and French multinational electric utility Électricité de France, the main owner of Framotome, which helps operate the plant.

CNN reported that Framotome had written to the US Department of Energy warning of an 'imminent radiological threat'&nbsp;and accusing Chinese authorities of raising acceptable limits for radiation outside the plant to avoid having to shut it down.

EDF, the majority owner of Framatome, said in a statement that it had requested an extraordinary meeting of the power plant's board 'for management to present all the data and the necessary decisions'.

Framatome said in a statement that it is 'supporting a resolution of a performance issue' at the plant.

"According to the data available, the plant is operating within the safety parameters," the company said.

EDF later said that there was an "increase in the concentration of certain noble gases in the primary circuit of reactor no. 1" at Taishan, referring to a part of the reactor's cooling system.

Noble gases are elements like argon, helium and neon which have low chemical reactivity.

Their presence in the system "is a known phenomenon, studied and provided for in the reactor operating procedures," EDF said.

David Fishman, manager at energy-focused consulting group The Lantau Group, said that the presence of noble gases could suggest the problem was caused by a cracked fuel rod.

"When you have a cracked fuel rod... you get a small release potentially of fission materials from inside that cracked fuel rod into the cooling loop, where it wouldn't normally be," he said.&nbsp;

"Failed fuel or cracked fuel is a fairly normal and common, undesirably certainly but not uncommon phenomenon in the nuclear fuel industry."

Citing a letter from Framatome to the US energy department, CNN said the warning included an accusation that the Chinese safety authority was raising the acceptable limits for radiation outside the facility in order to avoid having to shut it down.

But a US official told the broadcaster that the administration of President Joe Biden believes the facility is not yet at "crisis level".

The operator of the power station, state-owned China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), said in a statement on Sunday evening that "the environmental indicators of Taishan Nuclear Power Plant and its surroundings are normal".

It did not reference any leak or incident at the power station, which it said meets "the requirements of nuclear safety regulations and power plant technical specifications."

The International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN body, said it had contacted its counterpart in China regarding the issue.

"At this stage, the Agency has no indication that a radiological incident occurred," the IAEA said in a statement, adding that it would share more information "as it becomes available".

If the problem is a cracked fuel rod, said Fishman, it would have to be logged by the Chinese nuclear safety administration with a mitigation report to fix the problem.

What's more, "if (Framatome) were going to transfer over any information that they have gotten from working in the US, they would have to apply for an exemption... because CGN is on the US entity list," he added.

"It is a no-fly zone for any US information, any information or data or technology or IP to go to China."

(With inputs from agencies)

China's environment ministry said on Wednesday that there was no leak at the Taishan nuclear power station, responding to a CNN report earlier this week. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment also said in a statement on its official WeChat account that the National Nuclear Safety Administration did not raise acceptable limits for radiation detection levels outside of the Taishan plant.

China's environment ministry said on Wednesday that there was no leak at the Taishan nuclear power station, responding to a CNN report earlier this week. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment also said in a statement on its official WeChat account that the National Nuclear Safety Administration did not raise acceptable limits for radiation detection levels outside of the Taishan plant. Earlier, a US media report had revealed the possibility of a potential leak in a Chinese nuclear plant near Hong Kong after its French operator said that the plant is dealing with a 'performance issue' linked to a gas build-up. The Taishan Nuclear Power Plant is jointly owned by China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group and French multinational electric utility Électricité de France, the main owner of Framotome, which helps operate the plant. CNN reported that Framotome had written to the US Department of Energy warning of an 'imminent radiological threat' and accusing Chinese authorities of raising acceptable limits for radiation outside the plant to avoid having to shut it down. EDF, the majority owner of Framatome, said in a statement that it had requested an extraordinary meeting of the power plant's board 'for management to present all the data and the necessary decisions'. Framatome said in a statement that it is 'supporting a resolution of a performance issue' at the plant. "According to the data available, the plant is operating within the safety parameters," the company said. EDF later said that there was an "increase in the concentration of certain noble gases in the primary circuit of reactor no. 1" at Taishan, referring to a part of the reactor's cooling system. Noble gases are elements like argon, helium and neon which have low chemical reactivity. Their presence in the system "is a known phenomenon, studied and provided for in the reactor operating procedures," EDF said. David Fishman, manager at energy-focused consulting group The Lantau Group, said that the presence of noble gases could suggest the problem was caused by a cracked fuel rod. "When you have a cracked fuel rod... you get a small release potentially of fission materials from inside that cracked fuel rod into the cooling loop, where it wouldn't normally be," he said. "Failed fuel or cracked fuel is a fairly normal and common, undesirably certainly but not uncommon phenomenon in the nuclear fuel industry." Citing a letter from Framatome to the US energy department, CNN said the warning included an accusation that the Chinese safety authority was raising the acceptable limits for radiation outside the facility in order to avoid having to shut it down. But a US official told the broadcaster that the administration of President Joe Biden believes the facility is not yet at "crisis level". The operator of the power station, state-owned China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), said in a statement on Sunday evening that "the environmental indicators of Taishan Nuclear Power Plant and its surroundings are normal". It did not reference any leak or incident at the power station, which it said meets "the requirements of nuclear safety regulations and power plant technical specifications." The International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN body, said it had contacted its counterpart in China regarding the issue. "At this stage, the Agency has no indication that a radiological incident occurred," the IAEA said in a statement, adding that it would share more information "as it becomes available". If the problem is a cracked fuel rod, said Fishman, it would have to be logged by the Chinese nuclear safety administration with a mitigation report to fix the problem. What's more, "if (Framatome) were going to transfer over any information that they have gotten from working in the US, they would have to apply for an exemption... because CGN is on the US entity list," he added. "It is a no-fly zone for any US information, any information or data or technology or IP to go to China." (With inputs from agencies)

China environment ministry says no leak at Taishan nuclear power station

Western states in the US have been dealing with the increase in wildfires. Environmentalists have been concerned about the toxin chemicals released from burned homes into the soil. A non-profit organization in California is using mushrooms to clean up the environment. WION brings you a report.

Fighting the impact of US wildfires with mushrooms

Some environmental solutions are win-win, helping to rein in global warming and protecting biodiversity, too. But others address one crisis at the expense of the other. Growing trees on grasslands, for example, can destroy the plant and animal life of a rich ecosystem, even if the new trees ultimately suck up carbon.

What to do?

Unless the world stops treating climate change and biodiversity collapse as separate issues, neither problem can be addressed effectively, according to a report issued Thursday by researchers from two leading international scientific panels.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/poland-faces-first-citizen-lawsuits-over-climate-change-390695">Poland faces first citizen lawsuits over climate change</a>

“These two topics are more deeply intertwined than originally thought,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, co-chair of the scientific steering committee that produced the report. They are also inextricably tied to human well-being. But global policies usually target one or the other, leading to unintended consequences.

“If you look at just one single angle, you miss a lot of things,” said Yunne-Jai Shin, a marine biologist with the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development and a co-author of the report. “Every action counts.”

How We Got Here

For years, one set of scientists and policymakers has studied and tried to tackle the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/climate-change">climate crisis</a>, warning the world of the dangers from greenhouse gases that have been building up in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. The lead culprit: burning fossil fuels.

Another group has studied and tried to tackle the biodiversity crisis, raising alarms about extinctions and ecosystem collapse. The lead culprits: habitat loss because of agriculture and, at sea, overfishing.

The two groups have operated largely in their own silos. But their subjects are connected by something elemental, literally: carbon itself.

The same element that makes up soot and heat-trapping carbon dioxide and methane is also a fundamental building block of the natural world. It helps form the very tissue of plants and animals on earth. It is stored in forests, wetlands, grasslands and on the ocean floor. In fact, land and water ecosystems are already stashing away half of the human-generated emissions.

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/archaeologists-fear-climate-change-slowly-erasing-worlds-oldest-cave-painting-in-indonesia-390674/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Another connection between climate and biodiversity: People have created emergencies on both fronts by using the planet’s resources in unsustainable ways.

For the last couple of decades, the climate crisis has largely overshadowed the biodiversity crisis, perhaps because its threat seemed more dire. But the balance may be shifting. Scientists warn that declines in biodiversity can lead to ecosystem collapse, threatening humanity’s food and water supply.

“Climate change of 4 or 5 degrees is just such an existential threat to people, it’s hard to imagine,” said Paul Leadley, one of the authors and an ecologist at Paris-Saclay University.

And, he continued, “if we lose a really large fraction of species on earth, that’s an existential threat.”

What Is Not Working

Businesses and countries have increasingly looked to nature as a way to offset their emissions, for example, by planting trees to absorb carbon. But the science is clear: Nature cannot store enough carbon to let us keep on spewing greenhouse gases at our current rates.

“A clear first priority is emissions reductions, emissions reductions and emissions reductions,”&nbsp;Pörtner said.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/heres-an-idea-to-reverse-climate-change-alter-the-orbit-of-the-moon-390689">Here's an idea to reverse climate change: Alter the orbit of the Moon</a>

Just last month, the world’s leading energy agency declared that if the world wants to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, nations would need to stop approving new coal, oil and gas projects immediately.

To make matters worse, some measures being used or proposed to address climate change could devastate biodiversity.

“Some people are out there selling this message that if we cover the whole planet with trees, that will solve the climate problem,” Leadley said. “That’s a mistaken message on many levels.”

In Brazil, parts of the Cerrado, a biodiverse savanna that stores large amounts of carbon, have been planted with monocultures of eucalyptus and pine in an attempt to meet a global reforestation goal. The result, researchers have written separately, is an “impending ecological disaster” because they destroy the native ecosystem and the livelihoods of local communities, including Indigenous people.

Europe once hoped to lead the world in biofuels until realizing they led to deforestation and increased food prices. Another kind of bioenergy, wood pellets, is currently booming in the southeastern United States, despite concerns about pollution and biodiversity loss.

Climate interventions tend to hurt biodiversity more than the other way round, and some trade-offs must occur, the authors wrote. Solar farms, for example, eat up wildlife habitat, a particular concern for places with threatened species. But, critically, they generate clean energy.

The report highlights ways to mitigate the damage to biodiversity, for example, by grazing livestock around them, improving carbon soil stocks and avoiding intact habitat. Pollinator gardens on solar farms can help nurture insects and birds. While wind farms can hurt migrating birds, the authors note that modern turbines cause much less damage.

The Solutions

By protecting and restoring nature, the report said, we can safeguard biodiversity, help limit warming, improve human well-being and even find protection from the consequences of climate change, like intensified flooding and storms.

In the Casamance region of Senegal, for example, local communities restored mangroves and adopted sustainable fishing measures, improving their catch, bringing back dolphins and 20 species of fish, storing carbon and protecting their coastline, said Pamela McElwee, an environmental anthropologist at Rutgers University who was one of the authors.

“Mangroves are a really special type of ecosystem,” she said, “in that they do it all for humans.”

While mangroves are themselves vulnerable to climate change, McElwee said they appear less threatened than once thought, because restoration efforts are working.

In the Hindu Kush mountains of South Asia, a project has conserved an area about the size of Belgium, restoring high-altitude forests and rangelands and protecting threatened snow leopards and musk deer, the report says while keeping carbon out of the atmosphere. The 1.3 million people who live there, straddling Nepal, India and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, have seen enhanced household incomes through tourism and sustainable farming.

Urban areas, too, can do their part with native trees, green spaces and coastal ecosystems, the researchers said.

The report was the first collaboration between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

John Holdren, an environmental scientist at Harvard University and a former White House science adviser who was not involved in the report, called it “a must-read for our time.”

Some environmental solutions are win-win, helping to rein in global warming and protecting biodiversity, too. But others address one crisis at the expense of the other.

Some environmental solutions are win-win, helping to rein in global warming and protecting biodiversity, too. But others address one crisis at the expense of the other. Growing trees on grasslands, for example, can destroy the plant and animal life of a rich ecosystem, even if the new trees ultimately suck up carbon. What to do? Unless the world stops treating climate change and biodiversity collapse as separate issues, neither problem can be addressed effectively, according to a report issued Thursday by researchers from two leading international scientific panels. Also read | Poland faces first citizen lawsuits over climate change “These two topics are more deeply intertwined than originally thought,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, co-chair of the scientific steering committee that produced the report. They are also inextricably tied to human well-being. But global policies usually target one or the other, leading to unintended consequences. “If you look at just one single angle, you miss a lot of things,” said Yunne-Jai Shin, a marine biologist with the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development and a co-author of the report. “Every action counts.” How We Got Here For years, one set of scientists and policymakers has studied and tried to tackle the climate crisis, warning the world of the dangers from greenhouse gases that have been building up in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. The lead culprit: burning fossil fuels. Another group has studied and tried to tackle the biodiversity crisis, raising alarms about extinctions and ecosystem collapse. The lead culprits: habitat loss because of agriculture and, at sea, overfishing. The two groups have operated largely in their own silos. But their subjects are connected by something elemental, literally: carbon itself. The same element that makes up soot and heat-trapping carbon dioxide and methane is also a fundamental building block of the natural world. It helps form the very tissue of plants and animals on earth. It is stored in forests, wetlands, grasslands and on the ocean floor. In fact, land and water ecosystems are already stashing away half of the human-generated emissions. Another connection between climate and biodiversity: People have created emergencies on both fronts by using the planet’s resources in unsustainable ways. For the last couple of decades, the climate crisis has largely overshadowed the biodiversity crisis, perhaps because its threat seemed more dire. But the balance may be shifting. Scientists warn that declines in biodiversity can lead to ecosystem collapse, threatening humanity’s food and water supply. “Climate change of 4 or 5 degrees is just such an existential threat to people, it’s hard to imagine,” said Paul Leadley, one of the authors and an ecologist at Paris-Saclay University. And, he continued, “if we lose a really large fraction of species on earth, that’s an existential threat.” What Is Not Working Businesses and countries have increasingly looked to nature as a way to offset their emissions, for example, by planting trees to absorb carbon. But the science is clear: Nature cannot store enough carbon to let us keep on spewing greenhouse gases at our current rates. “A clear first priority is emissions reductions, emissions reductions and emissions reductions,” Pörtner said. Also read | Here's an idea to reverse climate change: Alter the orbit of the Moon Just last month, the world’s leading energy agency declared that if the world wants to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, nations would need to stop approving new coal, oil and gas projects immediately. To make matters worse, some measures being used or proposed to address climate change could devastate biodiversity. “Some people are out there selling this message that if we cover the whole planet with trees, that will solve the climate problem,” Leadley said. “That’s a mistaken message on many levels.” In Brazil, parts of the Cerrado, a biodiverse savanna that stores large amounts of carbon, have been planted with monocultures of eucalyptus and pine in an attempt to meet a global reforestation goal. The result, researchers have written separately, is an “impending ecological disaster” because they destroy the native ecosystem and the livelihoods of local communities, including Indigenous people. Europe once hoped to lead the world in biofuels until realizing they led to deforestation and increased food prices. Another kind of bioenergy, wood pellets, is currently booming in the southeastern United States, despite concerns about pollution and biodiversity loss. Climate interventions tend to hurt biodiversity more than the other way round, and some trade-offs must occur, the authors wrote. Solar farms, for example, eat up wildlife habitat, a particular concern for places with threatened species. But, critically, they generate clean energy. The report highlights ways to mitigate the damage to biodiversity, for example, by grazing livestock around them, improving carbon soil stocks and avoiding intact habitat. Pollinator gardens on solar farms can help nurture insects and birds. While wind farms can hurt migrating birds, the authors note that modern turbines cause much less damage. The Solutions By protecting and restoring nature, the report said, we can safeguard biodiversity, help limit warming, improve human well-being and even find protection from the consequences of climate change, like intensified flooding and storms. In the Casamance region of Senegal, for example, local communities restored mangroves and adopted sustainable fishing measures, improving their catch, bringing back dolphins and 20 species of fish, storing carbon and protecting their coastline, said Pamela McElwee, an environmental anthropologist at Rutgers University who was one of the authors. “Mangroves are a really special type of ecosystem,” she said, “in that they do it all for humans.” While mangroves are themselves vulnerable to climate change, McElwee said they appear less threatened than once thought, because restoration efforts are working. In the Hindu Kush mountains of South Asia, a project has conserved an area about the size of Belgium, restoring high-altitude forests and rangelands and protecting threatened snow leopards and musk deer, the report says while keeping carbon out of the atmosphere. The 1.3 million people who live there, straddling Nepal, India and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, have seen enhanced household incomes through tourism and sustainable farming. Urban areas, too, can do their part with native trees, green spaces and coastal ecosystems, the researchers said. The report was the first collaboration between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. John Holdren, an environmental scientist at Harvard University and a former White House science adviser who was not involved in the report, called it “a must-read for our time.”

Our response to climate change is missing something big, scientists say

Brazilian artist Eduardo Srur reproduces works by renowned masters without using a drop of paint - just recycled shreds of plastic picked up from city streets and rivers.

Brazilian conjures works of art from plastic bags

More than one-third of all deaths in the world are caused due to global warming. According to a new study, 37 percent of all heat-related deaths in the recent summer periods were caused due to global warming.

Study: Global warming leads to 1 in 3 heat-related deaths worldwide

Rapidly growing population=declining biodiversity. How can the world tackle the biodiversity crisis? Watch 'Mission Sustainability - Population vs Planet'

Deforestation, species extinction: A global concern

An Australian court held that the environment minister is morally responsible to the next generation for the effects of climate change. Is climate litigation the only way to hold governments accountable? Palki Sharma gets you a report.

Gravitas: Australian court pulls up government for climate change

UK's COP26 President Alok Sharma said on Friday that the world must act now to slow global warming otherwise there will be a climate catastrophe. He also said that if we do not act now, the science tells us these effects will become more frequent and more brutal, that we will witness a scale of global catastrophe the likes of which the world has not seen.

UK's COP26 Chief says world must act now to avoid climate catastrophe

Around&nbsp;400&nbsp;tonnes&nbsp;of&nbsp;oil&nbsp;spilt&nbsp;into the Yellow Sea after a&nbsp;tanker&nbsp;collided with another ship&nbsp;off&nbsp;China's largest crude-receiving port earlier this week, maritime&nbsp;authorities&nbsp;said Thursday.

"The amount of&nbsp;oil&nbsp;spilt&nbsp;from the ship into the sea is about&nbsp;400&nbsp;tonnes, and the emergency disposal work is being carried out in an orderly manner," said Shandong Maritime Safety Administration in a social media post.

"The&nbsp;collision&nbsp;incident has had no impact on ships entering and leaving Qingdao port."

It added that 12 decontamination vessels were deployed to clean up the&nbsp;oil&nbsp;spill, which took place around 40 nautical miles (75 kilometres)&nbsp;off-shore from Qingdao port in northeast&nbsp;China.&nbsp;

Panamanian bulk carrier "Sea Justice" struck the Liberian&nbsp;oil&nbsp;tanker&nbsp;"A Symphony" near Qingdao around 9 am Tuesday, causing the&nbsp;tanker&nbsp;to lose "a quantity of&nbsp;oil", according to a previous statement from vessel managers Goodwood Ship Management.

"All crew members have since been accounted for, and there are no injuries."

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/oil-spills-off-chinas-qingdao-port-after-ship-collision-380789">Oil spills off China's Qingdao port after ship collision</a>

An unnamed official with the Maritime Safety Administration told Chinese state newspaper Global Times on Thursday that the cargo was labelled as "bitumen solution" but its specific content requires further testing.

"The&nbsp;oil&nbsp;leak is in full disposal now and if technological controls are in place, it will certainly keep the impact on the environment to the minimum," the official was quoted as saying.

After the&nbsp;collision, vessels were told not to go within ten nautical miles (18.5 kilometres) of the area, according to a separate notice by the Maritime Safety Administration.

Goodwood Ship Management said Thursday that "managers are continuing to work closely with the MSA on the clean up operation and the investigation into the incident."

It previously said poor visibility in the area was hampering&nbsp;oil&nbsp;spill clean-up efforts.

Around 400 tonnes of oil spilt into the Yellow Sea after a tanker collided with another ship off China's largest crude-receiving port earlier this week, maritime authorities said Thursday.

Around 400 tonnes of oil spilt into the Yellow Sea after a tanker collided with another ship off China's largest crude-receiving port earlier this week, maritime authorities said Thursday. "The amount of oil spilt from the ship into the sea is about 400 tonnes, and the emergency disposal work is being carried out in an orderly manner," said Shandong Maritime Safety Administration in a social media post. "The collision incident has had no impact on ships entering and leaving Qingdao port." It added that 12 decontamination vessels were deployed to clean up the oil spill, which took place around 40 nautical miles (75 kilometres) off-shore from Qingdao port in northeast China. Panamanian bulk carrier "Sea Justice" struck the Liberian oil tanker "A Symphony" near Qingdao around 9 am Tuesday, causing the tanker to lose "a quantity of oil", according to a previous statement from vessel managers Goodwood Ship Management. "All crew members have since been accounted for, and there are no injuries." Also read | Oil spills off China's Qingdao port after ship collision An unnamed official with the Maritime Safety Administration told Chinese state newspaper Global Times on Thursday that the cargo was labelled as "bitumen solution" but its specific content requires further testing. "The oil leak is in full disposal now and if technological controls are in place, it will certainly keep the impact on the environment to the minimum," the official was quoted as saying. After the collision, vessels were told not to go within ten nautical miles (18.5 kilometres) of the area, according to a separate notice by the Maritime Safety Administration. Goodwood Ship Management said Thursday that "managers are continuing to work closely with the MSA on the clean up operation and the investigation into the incident." It previously said poor visibility in the area was hampering oil spill clean-up efforts.

Tanker collision spilt 400 tonnes of oil off China coast: Authorities

Scientists have developed a new way to remove polluting microplastics from the environment and they are trusting bacteria for this task.&nbsp;

Bacteria naturally form a group and stick to surfaces, creating an adhesive substance called "biofilm".&nbsp;

This substance can be seen while brushing our teeth or removing dental plaque for instance.&nbsp;

Also read | <a href="http://wionews.com/entertainment/lifestyle/news-among-seafood-highest-levels-of-microplastics-found-in-molluscs-study-352659">Among seafood highest levels of microplastics found in molluscs: Study</a>

Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) researchers want to use this sort of bacteria group and create tape-like microbe nets that can catch microplastics in polluted water to make an easy, disposable and recyclable blob, reports The Guardian.

At the Microbiology Society's annual conference, these findings were presented on Wednesday and though preliminary, could still lead to sustainably reducing plastic pollution levels.&nbsp;

Also read | <a href="http://wionews.com/science/microplastics-found-in-the-placentas-of-unborn-babies-for-first-time-351801">Microplastics found in the placentas of unborn babies for first time</a>

"It is imperative to develop effective solutions that trap, collect, and even recycle these microplastics to stop the 'plastification' of our natural environments," Sylvia Lang Liu, microbiology researcher at PolyU and main researcher of this project said.

Generally smaller than 5 mm, microplastics are accidentally released into the environment during production and breakdown of items like water bottles, grocery bags, washing nylon clothes, among others.&nbsp;

Even though these particles are tiny, they cannot be biodegradable easily, thereby hanging in the environment for long and also absorbing toxic chemicals.&nbsp;

They also find themselves in the wastewater, oceans, threatening marine animals who end up feeding on them, eventually affecting the food chain and harming human health too.&nbsp; 
&nbsp;

Scientists have developed a new way to remove polluting microplastics from the environment and they are trusting bacteria for this task. Bacteria naturally form a group and stick to surfaces, creating an adhesive substance called "biofilm".

Scientists have developed a new way to remove polluting microplastics from the environment and they are trusting bacteria for this task. Bacteria naturally form a group and stick to surfaces, creating an adhesive substance called "biofilm". This substance can be seen while brushing our teeth or removing dental plaque for instance. Also read | Among seafood highest levels of microplastics found in molluscs: Study Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) researchers want to use this sort of bacteria group and create tape-like microbe nets that can catch microplastics in polluted water to make an easy, disposable and recyclable blob, reports The Guardian. At the Microbiology Society's annual conference, these findings were presented on Wednesday and though preliminary, could still lead to sustainably reducing plastic pollution levels. Also read | Microplastics found in the placentas of unborn babies for first time "It is imperative to develop effective solutions that trap, collect, and even recycle these microplastics to stop the 'plastification' of our natural environments," Sylvia Lang Liu, microbiology researcher at PolyU and main researcher of this project said. Generally smaller than 5 mm, microplastics are accidentally released into the environment during production and breakdown of items like water bottles, grocery bags, washing nylon clothes, among others. Even though these particles are tiny, they cannot be biodegradable easily, thereby hanging in the environment for long and also absorbing toxic chemicals. They also find themselves in the wastewater, oceans, threatening marine animals who end up feeding on them, eventually affecting the food chain and harming human health too.

Bacteria can be the answer to remove microplastics from environment

How is it linked to population growth? How should the world tackle it? Watch 'Mission Sustainability - Population vs Planet'

Climate Change: The biggest environmental challenge of our times

Climate change is the punching bag of world politics and is the footnote of every joint diplomatic statement.

When rivals cannot find common ground, they talk about climate instead.

That's what the US and China are doing as they can't agree on anything, so they are discussing climate change.

Watch |&nbsp;

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-can-the-world-unite-against-climate-change-379350/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

The same is the case with Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attended US President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">Joe Biden's </a>climate summit, but he is silent on a proposed one-on-one meeting.

Politicians love to call themselves allies of nature, but can they unite to deal with climate change?

The question arises as their track record is not impressive.

Also read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/no-nation-can-solve-this-crisis-on-their-own-says-biden-as-he-opens-virtual-climate-summit-379286">'No nation can solve this crisis on their own,' says Biden as he opens virtual climate summit</a>

Look at the Wuhan virus pandemic, thousands of people are dying every day.

It's been more than a year and we are still waiting for a coordinated global response.

We talk about a globalised world, but when the tragedy struck it was every country for itself.

From travel bans to now vaccines, every decision has been unilateral.&nbsp;The world has more than enough resources to crush this pandemic.

But there is neither a plan nor a joint approach. While Europe has extra vaccines, and Sub-Saharan Africa on the other hand has none.

When most of the world was staying at home, people in Yemen and Syria were fleeing from bombs.

Ideally, this should not have happened as, to avoid the virus there needs to be social distancing for individuals, not countries.

The Wuhan virus is a pressing issue, but climate change, on the other hand, is a long-term problem.

And we know how much politicians love the backburner.

If it's not on their calendar, it is not a pressing matter.

That's one reason why climate change is relegated to talking shops.

But why is climate action such a difficult issue?

A United Nations survey found that 64 per cent of people believe climate change is a global emergency.

The number sounds impressive, 60 per cent of people also believe the earth is round.

Science is not a matter of opinion, it is based on facts.

But politicians have used climate change to rally their support base.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;did that during his presidency and Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro continues to do it in Brazil.

Denying climate change has become a political strategy and scientists have not been able to bust these theories.

They say the bigger tsunamis and hurricanes are caused by climate change. But proving this link is difficult.

For instance, the oceans are rising, that's a fact, but it's not something you can see by going to the beach every day.

So the first challenge is to accept the problem. The second one is to accept responsibility.&nbsp;

Temperatures aren't rising themselves, so who triggered climate change in the first place?

Most of the pollution we see today is courtesy the West.

Even now, they make up more than half the global emissions. So it is a crisis that the West created, but now they want the whole world to solve it.

And this has created friction between the global north and south.

A lot of these people don't know where their next meal is coming from. Climate change is not their top priority and that should hardly be surprising.

If the choice is between fighting poverty and climate change, it is a no-brainer for the developing world.

So the solution lies in the developed world footing the bill.

They must transfer technology to developing nations, something which was the spirit of the 1992 Rio Declaration. It called for common, but differentiated responsibilities.

Is the West doing that? It isn't.&nbsp;Instead of transferring technology and money, it is outsourcing its pollution to the global south. And then telling countries to set up better targets. There is also no denying that our modern lifestyle is part of the problem and we prefer cars over walking or biking.

We pack most of our groceries in polythene, instead of paper. These may appear small, but imagine seven billion people doing the same every day.&nbsp;

Climate change is unlike any challenge humanity has faced because unlike pandemics and wars, here we have a warning.&nbsp;

We have time to prepare for the impending disaster, but we are not exactly making good use of it.

We're arguing and grandstanding, instead of acting.

We end this argument with this observation that with masks and vaccines, we can beat the Wuhan virus. But when the oceans rise, there is no fix.

When the air becomes unbreathable, masks will not work.

So it's time for world leaders to pull up their socks as we have had more than enough summits on climate change.

What we need now is concrete and legal action.

Climate change is the punching bag of world politics and is the footnote of every joint diplomatic statement. When rivals cannot find common ground, they talk about climate instead.

Climate change is the punching bag of world politics and is the footnote of every joint diplomatic statement. When rivals cannot find common ground, they talk about climate instead. That's what the US and China are doing as they can't agree on anything, so they are discussing climate change. Watch | The same is the case with Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin attended US President Joe Biden's climate summit, but he is silent on a proposed one-on-one meeting. Politicians love to call themselves allies of nature, but can they unite to deal with climate change? The question arises as their track record is not impressive. Also read | 'No nation can solve this crisis on their own,' says Biden as he opens virtual climate summit Look at the Wuhan virus pandemic, thousands of people are dying every day. It's been more than a year and we are still waiting for a coordinated global response. We talk about a globalised world, but when the tragedy struck it was every country for itself. From travel bans to now vaccines, every decision has been unilateral. The world has more than enough resources to crush this pandemic. But there is neither a plan nor a joint approach. While Europe has extra vaccines, and Sub-Saharan Africa on the other hand has none. When most of the world was staying at home, people in Yemen and Syria were fleeing from bombs. Ideally, this should not have happened as, to avoid the virus there needs to be social distancing for individuals, not countries. The Wuhan virus is a pressing issue, but climate change, on the other hand, is a long-term problem. And we know how much politicians love the backburner. If it's not on their calendar, it is not a pressing matter. That's one reason why climate change is relegated to talking shops. But why is climate action such a difficult issue? A United Nations survey found that 64 per cent of people believe climate change is a global emergency. The number sounds impressive, 60 per cent of people also believe the earth is round. Science is not a matter of opinion, it is based on facts. But politicians have used climate change to rally their support base. Donald Trump did that during his presidency and Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro continues to do it in Brazil. Denying climate change has become a political strategy and scientists have not been able to bust these theories. They say the bigger tsunamis and hurricanes are caused by climate change. But proving this link is difficult. For instance, the oceans are rising, that's a fact, but it's not something you can see by going to the beach every day. So the first challenge is to accept the problem. The second one is to accept responsibility. Temperatures aren't rising themselves, so who triggered climate change in the first place? Most of the pollution we see today is courtesy the West. Even now, they make up more than half the global emissions. So it is a crisis that the West created, but now they want the whole world to solve it. And this has created friction between the global north and south. A lot of these people don't know where their next meal is coming from. Climate change is not their top priority and that should hardly be surprising. If the choice is between fighting poverty and climate change, it is a no-brainer for the developing world. So the solution lies in the developed world footing the bill. They must transfer technology to developing nations, something which was the spirit of the 1992 Rio Declaration. It called for common, but differentiated responsibilities. Is the West doing that? It isn't. Instead of transferring technology and money, it is outsourcing its pollution to the global south. And then telling countries to set up better targets. There is also no denying that our modern lifestyle is part of the problem and we prefer cars over walking or biking. We pack most of our groceries in polythene, instead of paper. These may appear small, but imagine seven billion people doing the same every day. Climate change is unlike any challenge humanity has faced because unlike pandemics and wars, here we have a warning. We have time to prepare for the impending disaster, but we are not exactly making good use of it. We're arguing and grandstanding, instead of acting. We end this argument with this observation that with masks and vaccines, we can beat the Wuhan virus. But when the oceans rise, there is no fix. When the air becomes unbreathable, masks will not work. So it's time for world leaders to pull up their socks as we have had more than enough summits on climate change. What we need now is concrete and legal action.

Climate change: The action is missing despite the high-profile summits

In an effort to raise awareness on&nbsp;climate change and offset its effects on the environment, The Jurni, a highly curated newsletter on travel and culture, based in London/New Delhi has&nbsp;launched&nbsp;a unique initiative this Earth Day. 
 
The Jurni has gamified the concept of carbon offsetting flight emissions in a rather clever way, wherein readers are given the opportunity to help offset carbon emissions from air travel.&nbsp;

Carbon offsetting is an activity that reduces the carbon emissions caused by humans to be released into the atmosphere, a known cause for global warming. 
 
As the urgency of the climate crisis looms, founder and CEO of The Jurni, Priyam Sharma states, “The pandemic changed the way we felt about the world and what matters now more than ever.”

“Because travel is core to The Jurni, we are re-envisioning what greener, more mindful tourism looks like,” the company’s website says. 
 
<img alt="The Jurni" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="c3440ace-9689-4c9e-93ab-dab6b7d3d440" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/The%20Jurni2.jpg" />

As part of this initiative, once you subscribe to The Jurni’s free newsletter, you are invited to select from popular domestic flight routes you would like to offset, learning about how much CO₂ is emitted per flight and contribute to The Jurni’s goal of offsetting 100 metric tonnes of carbon for 2021. 
 
Here’s the clever bit: every flight is associated with referrals so each time anyone signs up, The Jurni plants trees with the support of their charity partner, The Air Foundation, to help offset travel, allowing readers to not just dream of distant lands, but a more hopeful future. &nbsp;

Focused on culture and travel, this&nbsp;newsletter was launched in 2020 and has been a true pandemic success story. Often described by readers as ‘clever’ and ‘addictive’ The Jurni has seen exponential, organic growth and is changing the morning habits of the global Indian millennial, and now with a much-needed cause.

&nbsp;

In an effort to raise awareness on climate change and offset its effects on the environment, The Jurni, a highly curated newsletter on travel and culture, based in London/New Delhi has launched a unique initiative this Earth Day.

In an effort to raise awareness on climate change and offset its effects on the environment, The Jurni, a highly curated newsletter on travel and culture, based in London/New Delhi has launched a unique initiative this Earth Day. The Jurni has gamified the concept of carbon offsetting flight emissions in a rather clever way, wherein readers are given the opportunity to help offset carbon emissions from air travel. Carbon offsetting is an activity that reduces the carbon emissions caused by humans to be released into the atmosphere, a known cause for global warming. As the urgency of the climate crisis looms, founder and CEO of The Jurni, Priyam Sharma states, “The pandemic changed the way we felt about the world and what matters now more than ever.” “Because travel is core to The Jurni, we are re-envisioning what greener, more mindful tourism looks like,” the company’s website says. As part of this initiative, once you subscribe to The Jurni’s free newsletter, you are invited to select from popular domestic flight routes you would like to offset, learning about how much CO₂ is emitted per flight and contribute to The Jurni’s goal of offsetting 100 metric tonnes of carbon for 2021. Here’s the clever bit: every flight is associated with referrals so each time anyone signs up, The Jurni plants trees with the support of their charity partner, The Air Foundation, to help offset travel, allowing readers to not just dream of distant lands, but a more hopeful future. Focused on culture and travel, this newsletter was launched in 2020 and has been a true pandemic success story. Often described by readers as ‘clever’ and ‘addictive’ The Jurni has seen exponential, organic growth and is changing the morning habits of the global Indian millennial, and now with a much-needed cause.

Carbon offset your travel with 'The Jurni'

Taking a step towards tackling climate change the French national assembly approves the creation of an ecocide offense as part of a battery of measures aimed at protecting the environment. The ecocide measure was passed by 44 votes to 10 in the lower house of the Parliament and if it becomes law it will apply to the most serious cases of environmental damage at national level.

French national assembly approve the creation of ecocide bill as part of measures to protect environment

Climate Change: The biggest environmental challenge of our times. How is it linked to population growth? How should the world tackle it? Watch 'Mission Sustainability - Population vs Planet'.

In Bahasa Indonesia, environmental activist Samsudin visits villages to teach children about coastal erosion and how mangrove trees can help preserve the environment. He uses puppets to illustrate his conservation fairy tales and his young audience participates in the stories.

Environmentalist fights Indonesia's coastal erosion with fairy tales, puppet shows and mangrove saplings

An Indonesian environmentalist is using fairy tales, puppet shows and mangrove saplings to teach children about coastal erosion and how mangrove trees can help preserve the environment.

Indonesia: Environmentalist fights coastal erosion with fairy tales and puppet shows

Indonesia is home to over a fifth of the world's mangrove forests, which naturally help keep out high tidal waters.

Environmentalist battles to save Indonesia's mangroves

Plants absorb a vast amount of toxic mercury gas in the atmosphere and help reducing the pollutant worldwide by depositing the element into soils, said researchers.

The process is similar to the absorption of carbon dioxide emissions by plants, said the team from University of Massachusetts Lowell, in the US.

Hundreds of tonnes of mercury each year are emitted into the atmosphere as a gas by burning coal, mining and other industrial and natural processes.

When the plants shed leaves or die, the mercury is transferred to soils where large amounts also make their way into watersheds, threatening wildlife and people who eat contaminated fish, the researchers explained, in the study published journal Nature Reviews - Earth &amp; Environment.

Exposure to high levels of mercury over long periods can lead to neurological and cardiovascular problems in humans, according to Daniel Obrist, Professor at UMass Lowell.

There is no safe level of mercury for humans, according to the World Health Organization. Exposure to the hazardous element can lead to irritability, speech and visual impairment, hypospermia, kidney failure and Alzheimer’s disease, among others.

For the study, the team collected 200 published studies with data on mercury levels in vegetation from more than 400 locations around the world.

They found about 88 per cent of the mercury found in plants originates from plants’ leaves absorbing gaseous mercury from the atmosphere.

Globally, vegetation can take up more than 1,300 tonnes of mercury each year, accounting for 60 to 90 per cent of it being deposited over land, according to Jun Zhou, Research Associate at UMass Lowell.

The study represents the largest comprehensive review of the uptake of mercury in vegetation and its impact on mercury cycling around the world. The work moves scientists toward a greater understanding of how mercury cycling works, Zhou said.

(With inputs from agencies)

Plants absorb a vast amount of toxic mercury gas in the atmosphere and help reducing the pollutant worldwide by depositing the element into soils, said researchers.

Plants absorb a vast amount of toxic mercury gas in the atmosphere and help reducing the pollutant worldwide by depositing the element into soils, said researchers. The process is similar to the absorption of carbon dioxide emissions by plants, said the team from University of Massachusetts Lowell, in the US. Hundreds of tonnes of mercury each year are emitted into the atmosphere as a gas by burning coal, mining and other industrial and natural processes. When the plants shed leaves or die, the mercury is transferred to soils where large amounts also make their way into watersheds, threatening wildlife and people who eat contaminated fish, the researchers explained, in the study published journal Nature Reviews - Earth & Environment. Exposure to high levels of mercury over long periods can lead to neurological and cardiovascular problems in humans, according to Daniel Obrist, Professor at UMass Lowell. There is no safe level of mercury for humans, according to the World Health Organization. Exposure to the hazardous element can lead to irritability, speech and visual impairment, hypospermia, kidney failure and Alzheimer’s disease, among others. For the study, the team collected 200 published studies with data on mercury levels in vegetation from more than 400 locations around the world. They found about 88 per cent of the mercury found in plants originates from plants’ leaves absorbing gaseous mercury from the atmosphere. Globally, vegetation can take up more than 1,300 tonnes of mercury each year, accounting for 60 to 90 per cent of it being deposited over land, according to Jun Zhou, Research Associate at UMass Lowell. The study represents the largest comprehensive review of the uptake of mercury in vegetation and its impact on mercury cycling around the world. The work moves scientists toward a greater understanding of how mercury cycling works, Zhou said. (With inputs from agencies)

Plants help reduce toxic mercury from environment, says study

Lights out! Countries observe Earth hour for environmental protection

Face masks and gloves have become a part of our daily life since the COVID-19 pandemic struck. But carelessly discarded items of PPE have become an increasing risk for the wildlife & environment. WION tells you how.

Discarded PPE is clogging beaches in California

The whirring sound of a chainsaw fills the air and a dead longan crashes to the ground under the watchful eye of wood craftsman Ricci Wong. Wong's non-profit organization, HK Timberbank, collects dead trees and turns them into one-of-a-kind furniture and household products for Hong Kong residents to enjoy.

NGO gives dead and dying Hong Kong trees a second life

Once considered "crazy" by fellow villagers, Indonesian eco-warrior Sadiman has successfully turned barren hills green after 24 years of effort and created water resources in a drought prone mountainous area.

"Drain all the energy I have": Elderly Indonesian eco-warrior turns arid hills green

Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel has paid a nearly $2 billion fine for a massive oil spill in the Arctic last year. In a statement, the firm said that it has paid the penalty for damage caused to the environment in May 2020.

Russian mining giant pays $2 bn fine for Arctic Oil spill

A cleaner in France has now turned into a star on social media due to his posting of messages pertaining to the environment.

France: Street sweeper becomes TikTok celebrity

Already in a league of their own when it comes to sustainability in sport, innovative English soccer club Forest Green Rovers will trial a kit made from coffee bean waste on Saturday (Feb. 27).

This soccer shirt is made using waste coffee grounds

Oil spill on Israel's Mediterranean shore causes 'disaster'

Several international law experts are seeking to approve a new crime, "ecocide", which will allow authorities to take action against environmental destruction.&nbsp;

These experts plan to submit a draft report of their law to the International Criminal Court's governing body, reports ABC News.&nbsp;

Watch |&nbsp;

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/covid-19-lockdowns-positive-impact-on-environment-348993/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

If approved, environmental crimes will become ICC's fifth jurisdictional responsibility, some of the others being, genocide, crimes against humanity, aggression crimes and war&nbsp;crimes.&nbsp;

Also read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/restoring-environmental-rules-rolled-back-by-trump-could-take-years-358684">Restoring environmental rules rolled back by Trump could take years</a>

The group says that climate change has no border and damage to local ecosystems can have massive global consequences.&nbsp;

"In this day and age, it's no longer possible to say that one is destroying large swathes of nature without realising what one is doing," Jojo Mehta, a member of this group, says.&nbsp;

She and an expert panel assembled by her, want governments, companies and individuals should be held accountable for the damage to the environment done under their nose.&nbsp;

Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg has supported the implementation of the law and French President Emmanuel Macron have also hinted at incorporating ecocide into&nbsp;the domestic law of the country.&nbsp;

Calling the environmental damages "sins of ecology", Pope Francis has said that his understanding of ecocide is the "massive contamination of air, land and water resources, the&nbsp;large-scale destruction of flora and fauna, and any action capable of producing an ecological disaster or destroying an ecosystem." 
&nbsp;

Several international law experts are seeking to approve a new crime, "ecocide", which will allow authorities to take action against environmental destruction. These experts plan to submit a draft report of their law to the International Criminal Court's governing body, reports ABC News.

Several international law experts are seeking to approve a new crime, "ecocide", which will allow authorities to take action against environmental destruction. These experts plan to submit a draft report of their law to the International Criminal Court's governing body, reports ABC News. Watch | If approved, environmental crimes will become ICC's fifth jurisdictional responsibility, some of the others being, genocide, crimes against humanity, aggression crimes and war crimes. Also read | Restoring environmental rules rolled back by Trump could take years The group says that climate change has no border and damage to local ecosystems can have massive global consequences. "In this day and age, it's no longer possible to say that one is destroying large swathes of nature without realising what one is doing," Jojo Mehta, a member of this group, says. She and an expert panel assembled by her, want governments, companies and individuals should be held accountable for the damage to the environment done under their nose. Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg has supported the implementation of the law and French President Emmanuel Macron have also hinted at incorporating ecocide into the domestic law of the country. Calling the environmental damages "sins of ecology", Pope Francis has said that his understanding of ecocide is the "massive contamination of air, land and water resources, the large-scale destruction of flora and fauna, and any action capable of producing an ecological disaster or destroying an ecosystem."

International lawyers propose 'ecocide' to criminalise environmental destruction

After working for years at a recycling center in the Shetland Islands, at the northernmost reaches of the British Isles, Paul Moar is used to helping the public get rid of unwanted items.

But when an older man walked into the recycling center in Lerwick, the capital of the archipelago in the North Atlantic, carrying two large bags heaving with old photograph slides, he quickly realized that this intended trash might be worth keeping.

In the bags, he found a wealth of old pictures of the Shetland Islands taken in the 1960s and ’70s — old farmers shearing sheep by hand, views of dirt roads winding between small stone houses, and fishers rowing small dinghies ashore.

“My jaw hit the ground,” said Moar, a local history buff. “Some of them were these amazing snapshots into island life, and other ones were just scenic photos,” he said. “But I knew I’d stumbled on a little bit of treasure.”

In the days since, Moar has worked on digitizing the 300 images, tracked down the photographer and shared dozens of the pictures online. There, they have proved a sensation for residents of the islands, which have a population of just 22,000 or so, who have helped piece together when they were taken, identified the people in the photographs and shared their own memories of the islands.

In the process, they’ve become an unexpected bright spot in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and restrictions that have left people feeling isolated.

“I certainly was in the right place at the right time,” Moar said, adding that the photographs offered a rare, intimate glimpse into everyday life decades ago in an island community.

“I think it’s giving people a little ray of light, you know, at a dark time,” Moar said. “It’s been lovely, not just to save the photos, but to see people enjoying it as much as they have.”

Through a neighbor, Moar reached out to Nick Dymond, the local resident who dropped off the bags and who took the photographs, and with his permission, uploaded a number of the images to a Shetland memories Facebook group.

Overnight, dozens of people were leaving messages and helping to identify the people featured, chiming in with notes on family homes and sharing memories of places they spent time as children.

“That must be 40 years ago when we were so young!” wrote Gillian Okill, after someone tagged her in one of the pictures.

“My dad’s boat on the right, named after me,” Mairi Thomson wrote alongside a photograph of the harbor.

“If only those days were back again,” Frank David Simmons wrote about one image, where he shared memories of farming with limited machinery.

One member of the Facebook group where Moar first shared the images said it was “giving everyone such a boost in these dark times.”

Moar said his own passion for the history of the islands — where his family can trace ancestors back to the 1400s — was what had initially drawn him to save the pictures.

The rugged Shetland Islands sit about 110 miles north of mainland Scotland, some 190 miles west of Norway. More than half of the islands’ residents live within 10 miles of Lerwick, and the rest are scattered in communities across 16 other inhabited islands — though there are around 100 small islands in total in the archipelago.

Dymond, 77, was surprised by the fuss over his old photographs but said in a phone interview that he was happy that others were able to enjoy them.

“I was just doing a clear out,” he said of his decision to take them to the dump. “I had these three large boxes of slides in my very small house for, well, 30 years or close to it.”

Dymond was a prolific photographer who loved to document his travels, including to places such as India, Kenya and Russia, but he said he had never made the switch to digital and no longer had the slide projector to view his old pictures.

“I can’t do anything with them, and I’ve already seen all the things that I’ve taken photographs of,” he said with a chuckle. “But I realized other people are enjoying them.”

Dymond is originally from Bedford, England, but in the 1960s, he made his home on the Shetland Islands. He first moved to Fair Isle, the southernmost island in the group, and in the 1970s, he began leading bird and wildlife tours in the summers. He served as a warden for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, a charity, and later wrote a book on birding in the islands.

Dymond said that viewing the photographs was a journey back into small moments of his life that he had not thought of in some time.

“There’s ones that sort of bring back memories for me in a personal way,” Dymond said of the images. “And it’s a bygone era. Some people won’t know who the people in the photographs are, and they are trying to find out, and there are a few that I don’t know either.”

One of his favorites is a photograph of a farmer kneeling to feed a lamb, taken on the tiny island of Fetlar, which had a population of just 100 during the seven years that Dymond lived there. He recognized the man, Lollie Brown, a neighbor, who died years ago.

“He was just a wonderful man,” he said. “That was a great reminder for me.”

Dymond gave permission for the slides to be donated to the Shetland Museum and Archives, and Moar plans to take them there once the site reopens after coronavirus restrictions ease.

Moar said he hoped they could serve as a reminder of the simplicity of life on the islands.

“Life is slower here,” he said. “But these old photos are certainly a window into a past era where life was, people would say, more real and more tangible.”

After working for years at a recycling center in the Shetland Islands, at the northernmost reaches of the British Isles, Paul Moar is used to helping the public get rid of unwanted items.

After working for years at a recycling center in the Shetland Islands, at the northernmost reaches of the British Isles, Paul Moar is used to helping the public get rid of unwanted items. But when an older man walked into the recycling center in Lerwick, the capital of the archipelago in the North Atlantic, carrying two large bags heaving with old photograph slides, he quickly realized that this intended trash might be worth keeping. In the bags, he found a wealth of old pictures of the Shetland Islands taken in the 1960s and ’70s — old farmers shearing sheep by hand, views of dirt roads winding between small stone houses, and fishers rowing small dinghies ashore. “My jaw hit the ground,” said Moar, a local history buff. “Some of them were these amazing snapshots into island life, and other ones were just scenic photos,” he said. “But I knew I’d stumbled on a little bit of treasure.” In the days since, Moar has worked on digitizing the 300 images, tracked down the photographer and shared dozens of the pictures online. There, they have proved a sensation for residents of the islands, which have a population of just 22,000 or so, who have helped piece together when they were taken, identified the people in the photographs and shared their own memories of the islands. In the process, they’ve become an unexpected bright spot in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and restrictions that have left people feeling isolated. “I certainly was in the right place at the right time,” Moar said, adding that the photographs offered a rare, intimate glimpse into everyday life decades ago in an island community. “I think it’s giving people a little ray of light, you know, at a dark time,” Moar said. “It’s been lovely, not just to save the photos, but to see people enjoying it as much as they have.” Through a neighbor, Moar reached out to Nick Dymond, the local resident who dropped off the bags and who took the photographs, and with his permission, uploaded a number of the images to a Shetland memories Facebook group. Overnight, dozens of people were leaving messages and helping to identify the people featured, chiming in with notes on family homes and sharing memories of places they spent time as children. “That must be 40 years ago when we were so young!” wrote Gillian Okill, after someone tagged her in one of the pictures. “My dad’s boat on the right, named after me,” Mairi Thomson wrote alongside a photograph of the harbor. “If only those days were back again,” Frank David Simmons wrote about one image, where he shared memories of farming with limited machinery. One member of the Facebook group where Moar first shared the images said it was “giving everyone such a boost in these dark times.” Moar said his own passion for the history of the islands — where his family can trace ancestors back to the 1400s — was what had initially drawn him to save the pictures. The rugged Shetland Islands sit about 110 miles north of mainland Scotland, some 190 miles west of Norway. More than half of the islands’ residents live within 10 miles of Lerwick, and the rest are scattered in communities across 16 other inhabited islands — though there are around 100 small islands in total in the archipelago. Dymond, 77, was surprised by the fuss over his old photographs but said in a phone interview that he was happy that others were able to enjoy them. “I was just doing a clear out,” he said of his decision to take them to the dump. “I had these three large boxes of slides in my very small house for, well, 30 years or close to it.” Dymond was a prolific photographer who loved to document his travels, including to places such as India, Kenya and Russia, but he said he had never made the switch to digital and no longer had the slide projector to view his old pictures. “I can’t do anything with them, and I’ve already seen all the things that I’ve taken photographs of,” he said with a chuckle. “But I realized other people are enjoying them.” Dymond is originally from Bedford, England, but in the 1960s, he made his home on the Shetland Islands. He first moved to Fair Isle, the southernmost island in the group, and in the 1970s, he began leading bird and wildlife tours in the summers. He served as a warden for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, a charity, and later wrote a book on birding in the islands. Dymond said that viewing the photographs was a journey back into small moments of his life that he had not thought of in some time. “There’s ones that sort of bring back memories for me in a personal way,” Dymond said of the images. “And it’s a bygone era. Some people won’t know who the people in the photographs are, and they are trying to find out, and there are a few that I don’t know either.” One of his favorites is a photograph of a farmer kneeling to feed a lamb, taken on the tiny island of Fetlar, which had a population of just 100 during the seven years that Dymond lived there. He recognized the man, Lollie Brown, a neighbor, who died years ago. “He was just a wonderful man,” he said. “That was a great reminder for me.” Dymond gave permission for the slides to be donated to the Shetland Museum and Archives, and Moar plans to take them there once the site reopens after coronavirus restrictions ease. Moar said he hoped they could serve as a reminder of the simplicity of life on the islands. “Life is slower here,” he said. “But these old photos are certainly a window into a past era where life was, people would say, more real and more tangible.”

A glimpse of a bygone life on Scottish islands, plucked from the trash

President Joe Biden, vowing to restore environmental protections frayed over the past four years, has ordered the review of more than 100 rules and regulations on air, water, public lands, endangered species and climate change that were weakened or rolled back by his predecessor.

But legal experts warn that it could take two to three years — and in some cases, most of Biden’s term — to put many of the old rules back in place.

“People should temper their expectations about what can be done quickly,” said Kevin Minoli, who served as a lawyer at the Environmental Protection Agency in the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. He added, “It’s very possible, more possible than not, that some of the Trump rules will still be in effect for a couple of years.”

Biden has an array of legal tools to reinstate environmental protections that were dismantled by the Trump administration. Gina McCarthy, his top domestic climate change adviser, headed the EPA in the Obama administration and served as the chief author of some of the nation’s most comprehensive climate change rules. She has now reviewed every possible option to restore those protections, according to a White House official who is familiar with her thinking but was not authorized to speak on the record.

But those tools take time. Experts in environmental law who have spoken with top Biden administration officials said the process of rolling back the Trump-era rollbacks would quite likely fall into a few broad categories. In a limited set of cases, Biden will be able to use his executive authority immediately, for instance to cancel individual fossil fuel infrastructure projects or reinstate federal protections on distinct areas of land and water. He did that on Day One when he rescinded the construction permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried oil from Canadian oil sands across the American Midwest.

The White House announced Thursday that any new lease of drilling rights on public lands must have the personal approval of the highest-ranking officials at the Department of Interior — either the secretary or an assistant secretary.

Likewise, Biden is expected in the first months of his term to restore federal protections around at least two national monuments in Utah: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. In 2017, Trump opened nearly 2 million acres around those monuments to mining, logging and drilling — at the time the largest rollback of federal land protection in the nation’s history.

On Thursday night, the White House released a fact sheet singling out its review of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase, along with one other, Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monuments off the New England coast, to “determine whether restoration of the monument boundaries and conditions would be appropriate.”

Patrick Parenteau, a professor of law with the Vermont Law School, said the Biden administration could also act quickly to block Trump’s push to drill in Alaska. In the last days of Trump’s administration, the Interior Department auctioned off oil and gas drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

“The Biden administration can pretty quickly cancel those leases,” said Parenteau, although he noted that before doing so, the administration would quite likely want to conduct a legal review of whether it would need to compensate the companies that purchased the leases.

Biden’s team has also looked to Congress, where Democrats could potentially use their razor-thin House and Senate majorities to revoke some of the Trump administration’s last-minute regulatory rollbacks. Under the Congressional Review Act, any regulation finalized within 60 legislative days of the end of a presidential term can be overturned with a simple congressional vote.

In the early days of the Trump administration, Republicans used that law to quickly wipe out 16 Obama-era rules.

But legal experts have warned Democrats that using that law to undo environmental policies could backfire: Once Congress has used it to wipe out a regulation, the administration is legally barred from enacting a substantially similar rule. That twist would bar the Biden administration from replacing a weak Trump-era rule with a similar but more stringent one.

“They don’t want to create roadblocks to creating future regulations,” said Hana Vizcarra, a staff attorney at Harvard Law School’s Environmental and Energy Law Program, who has closely studied the Trump administration’s rollbacks.

Vizcarra cited just one such rollback as a good candidate for rapid reversal under the Congressional Review Act: a January rule that reduced protections for migratory birds by ending penalties for energy and construction companies that harm the birds and their habitats in construction projects and oil spills.

Then there are the longer-term rollbacks. It could take two years or more for the administration to restore Obama-era climate change regulations, rolled back by the Trump administration, that were designed to cut emissions of planet-warming pollution across major sectors of the economy. It could also take that long to restore rules on industrial emissions of toxic pollutants such as mercury, as well as a major rule, Waters of the United States, designed to protect wetlands and waterways.

“When it comes to restoring the vast majority of these Obama environmental policies, the rollbacks were actually done by putting in place new regulations,” Jeffrey Holmstead, a lawyer representing fossil fuel companies who served in the EPA in both Bush administrations. “In some cases that took two to three years. They will have to be replaced with new regulations. There is a legal process that has to be followed.”

The work of reinstating the federal government’s more comprehensive regulations on air, water and climate pollution will take even longer. A key reason, explained legal experts: when the Trump administration rolled back those rules, it almost never eliminated them entirely. Rather, it replaced strict federal pollution regulations with new, weaker pollution regulations.

The Biden administration, in turn, will seek to legally undo those weak regulations and replace them with tougher ones. And that legal process typically takes two years or more. For example, the Trump EPA undid the Obama administration’s single largest policy aimed at curbing climate change, a rule that forced automakers to rapidly increase the fuel economy of passenger vehicles, and, in so doing, drastically lowering their pollution of heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution. To do that, the EPA had to follow a long legal path; formally publishing a proposal to change the rule; opening it to public comments; drafting legal, economic and scientific justifications for the rule; and performing complex technical analyses of the effects of the new rule on highway safety, air quality and consumer behavior.

Although the Trump administration began its rollback of the Obama auto pollution rule within Trump’s first days of taking office, it was not completed until last spring.

The same timetable could await Biden as he seeks to reinstate the rule.

“It’s a laborious, time-consuming process,” said Richard Revesz, a professor of environmental law at New York University, who was on Biden’s short list to run the EPA.

“No one doubts the EPA’s authority to put these regulations on auto pollution back in place,” Revesz said. “But they can’t just make the Trump rules go away by executive order. They have to follow the same process — preparing all the scientific and economic analyses, and you have to get all that right.”

Revesz noted that while the Obama administration had performed such analyses a decade ago when it first put the auto pollution rule in place, much has changed since then, including the economy, the auto industry and the amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere. So Biden’s EPA staff will need to conduct all that work again, with present-day data.

And he noted that after four years in which the staff and budget of the EPA has shrunk, the agency is now being asked to do far more with far fewer resources.

“They want to do a lot, but they can’t do it all at the same time,” Revesz said. “EPA has suffered the loss of a lot of senior staff. They’ll need to prioritize. So they may not get to some of these until the end of a first term.”

Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at the Columbia Law School, said it could take even longer for the EPA to restore the Waters of the United States rule, which was designed to protect the streams, wetlands and smaller water systems that flow into larger bodies of water, such as lakes and rivers. The Trump administration replaced that rule last year with a new rule that stripped away protections of those wetlands and smaller water bodies.

“Replacing that water rule will take a very long time,” Gerrard said. “And they won’t want to rescind the Trump rule while they are working on the new rule, because then the waterways would be left with no protection.”

President Joe Biden, vowing to restore environmental protections frayed over the past four years, has ordered the review of more than 100 rules and regulations on air, water, public lands, endangered species and climate change that were weakened or rolled back by his predecessor.

President Joe Biden, vowing to restore environmental protections frayed over the past four years, has ordered the review of more than 100 rules and regulations on air, water, public lands, endangered species and climate change that were weakened or rolled back by his predecessor. But legal experts warn that it could take two to three years — and in some cases, most of Biden’s term — to put many of the old rules back in place. “People should temper their expectations about what can be done quickly,” said Kevin Minoli, who served as a lawyer at the Environmental Protection Agency in the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. He added, “It’s very possible, more possible than not, that some of the Trump rules will still be in effect for a couple of years.” Biden has an array of legal tools to reinstate environmental protections that were dismantled by the Trump administration. Gina McCarthy, his top domestic climate change adviser, headed the EPA in the Obama administration and served as the chief author of some of the nation’s most comprehensive climate change rules. She has now reviewed every possible option to restore those protections, according to a White House official who is familiar with her thinking but was not authorized to speak on the record. But those tools take time. Experts in environmental law who have spoken with top Biden administration officials said the process of rolling back the Trump-era rollbacks would quite likely fall into a few broad categories. In a limited set of cases, Biden will be able to use his executive authority immediately, for instance to cancel individual fossil fuel infrastructure projects or reinstate federal protections on distinct areas of land and water. He did that on Day One when he rescinded the construction permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried oil from Canadian oil sands across the American Midwest. The White House announced Thursday that any new lease of drilling rights on public lands must have the personal approval of the highest-ranking officials at the Department of Interior — either the secretary or an assistant secretary. Likewise, Biden is expected in the first months of his term to restore federal protections around at least two national monuments in Utah: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. In 2017, Trump opened nearly 2 million acres around those monuments to mining, logging and drilling — at the time the largest rollback of federal land protection in the nation’s history. On Thursday night, the White House released a fact sheet singling out its review of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase, along with one other, Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monuments off the New England coast, to “determine whether restoration of the monument boundaries and conditions would be appropriate.” Patrick Parenteau, a professor of law with the Vermont Law School, said the Biden administration could also act quickly to block Trump’s push to drill in Alaska. In the last days of Trump’s administration, the Interior Department auctioned off oil and gas drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. “The Biden administration can pretty quickly cancel those leases,” said Parenteau, although he noted that before doing so, the administration would quite likely want to conduct a legal review of whether it would need to compensate the companies that purchased the leases. Biden’s team has also looked to Congress, where Democrats could potentially use their razor-thin House and Senate majorities to revoke some of the Trump administration’s last-minute regulatory rollbacks. Under the Congressional Review Act, any regulation finalized within 60 legislative days of the end of a presidential term can be overturned with a simple congressional vote. In the early days of the Trump administration, Republicans used that law to quickly wipe out 16 Obama-era rules. But legal experts have warned Democrats that using that law to undo environmental policies could backfire: Once Congress has used it to wipe out a regulation, the administration is legally barred from enacting a substantially similar rule. That twist would bar the Biden administration from replacing a weak Trump-era rule with a similar but more stringent one. “They don’t want to create roadblocks to creating future regulations,” said Hana Vizcarra, a staff attorney at Harvard Law School’s Environmental and Energy Law Program, who has closely studied the Trump administration’s rollbacks. Vizcarra cited just one such rollback as a good candidate for rapid reversal under the Congressional Review Act: a January rule that reduced protections for migratory birds by ending penalties for energy and construction companies that harm the birds and their habitats in construction projects and oil spills. Then there are the longer-term rollbacks. It could take two years or more for the administration to restore Obama-era climate change regulations, rolled back by the Trump administration, that were designed to cut emissions of planet-warming pollution across major sectors of the economy. It could also take that long to restore rules on industrial emissions of toxic pollutants such as mercury, as well as a major rule, Waters of the United States, designed to protect wetlands and waterways. “When it comes to restoring the vast majority of these Obama environmental policies, the rollbacks were actually done by putting in place new regulations,” Jeffrey Holmstead, a lawyer representing fossil fuel companies who served in the EPA in both Bush administrations. “In some cases that took two to three years. They will have to be replaced with new regulations. There is a legal process that has to be followed.” The work of reinstating the federal government’s more comprehensive regulations on air, water and climate pollution will take even longer. A key reason, explained legal experts: when the Trump administration rolled back those rules, it almost never eliminated them entirely. Rather, it replaced strict federal pollution regulations with new, weaker pollution regulations. The Biden administration, in turn, will seek to legally undo those weak regulations and replace them with tougher ones. And that legal process typically takes two years or more. For example, the Trump EPA undid the Obama administration’s single largest policy aimed at curbing climate change, a rule that forced automakers to rapidly increase the fuel economy of passenger vehicles, and, in so doing, drastically lowering their pollution of heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution. To do that, the EPA had to follow a long legal path; formally publishing a proposal to change the rule; opening it to public comments; drafting legal, economic and scientific justifications for the rule; and performing complex technical analyses of the effects of the new rule on highway safety, air quality and consumer behavior. Although the Trump administration began its rollback of the Obama auto pollution rule within Trump’s first days of taking office, it was not completed until last spring. The same timetable could await Biden as he seeks to reinstate the rule. “It’s a laborious, time-consuming process,” said Richard Revesz, a professor of environmental law at New York University, who was on Biden’s short list to run the EPA. “No one doubts the EPA’s authority to put these regulations on auto pollution back in place,” Revesz said. “But they can’t just make the Trump rules go away by executive order. They have to follow the same process — preparing all the scientific and economic analyses, and you have to get all that right.” Revesz noted that while the Obama administration had performed such analyses a decade ago when it first put the auto pollution rule in place, much has changed since then, including the economy, the auto industry and the amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere. So Biden’s EPA staff will need to conduct all that work again, with present-day data. And he noted that after four years in which the staff and budget of the EPA has shrunk, the agency is now being asked to do far more with far fewer resources. “They want to do a lot, but they can’t do it all at the same time,” Revesz said. “EPA has suffered the loss of a lot of senior staff. They’ll need to prioritize. So they may not get to some of these until the end of a first term.” Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at the Columbia Law School, said it could take even longer for the EPA to restore the Waters of the United States rule, which was designed to protect the streams, wetlands and smaller water systems that flow into larger bodies of water, such as lakes and rivers. The Trump administration replaced that rule last year with a new rule that stripped away protections of those wetlands and smaller water bodies. “Replacing that water rule will take a very long time,” Gerrard said. “And they won’t want to rescind the Trump rule while they are working on the new rule, because then the waterways would be left with no protection.”

Restoring environmental rules rolled back by Trump could take years

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