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Dark woods inspire fantasies: Country diary 100 years ago
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 8 July 1916
Surrey
Sun and rain, coming almost together, have extended the branches and enlarged the leaves in the great woods that spread over many acres beyond our commons. You are housed now in their recesses under dark green roofs through which the eye cannot penetrate; there is a mysterious shaking and rustling by the wind overhead, and this helps to strengthen or inspire the fantasies which in these dim solitudes are created by the mind. Big toadstools which were not there two days ago cluster round the trunk of a decaying beech; the long spindle legs of an insect crawling over the table-like top of one of them are as if they belonged to some new lesser inhabitant of the world, and when the gauze of his wings spreads out and they tremble ever so lightly, a curious process fills this cool enclosure with all kinds of living things.
The verge of the wood brings realities again. A pair of pigeons start up from near the orchard on the far side flying not angularly, like the rooks, but straight and true, going high over the taller elms, showing white and grey and pale purple, now distinct in each part, then all mingled as it were together; there is nothing else quite so beautiful under the sun as the plumage of the larger kind of birds when they are on the wing. In the corner of a near field, which is half of turnips and half of mangold in their now juicy leafage, a group of young birds, scuttering rather than flying, scramble toward the hedge – it is a covey of young partridges. Presently a cock pheasant comes out of the ditch chuckling; and above where he was whole bodies of small gnats play in the shade. They seem to mix, whole parties of hundreds of them, in confusion, and yet as you watch, all appear to assort together in their own groups again.
Continue reading...Pollution guidelines leave a blind spot for assessing the impact of coal and oil
Coal’s impact on the Great Barrier Reef by causing climate change is one of the reasons why environmentalists oppose the development of coal fields and exports in Queensland. But fossil fuels could have a more direct impact on the reef and the waters around it, through chemicals produced during their production and distribution.
When coal dust is released in the marine environment it can damage marine ecosystems. Coal contains a number of different chemicals, but it is polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are known carcinogens, that are of most concern.
Some components of coal PAHs cause biochemical changes in fish and can lead to cancer. The coal dust has a very slow degradation rate and will build up in the ecosystem from the continuous input.
Coal dust also absorbs chemicals in the coastal zone and transports things like pesticides and herbicides offshore. Oil spills are another source of PAHs in the marine environment.
It is currently impossible for Australia to assess the impact of these chemicals in marine sediments, because our sediment guidelines are out of date. They need to be updated to match the standards used elsewhere, such as in the United States.
Coal dust and Great Barrier Reef marine lifeI have previously looked at how far these chemicals can travel from coal ports. I found they can be detected in suspended sediments all the way to the shelf break 200km offshore. (I also published a corrigendum to this paper to correct data errors and to explain how sediment guidelines need to be updated.)
I used the Australian and the US Environment Protection Authority (EPA) sediment quality guidelines to assess the concentration of PAHs in the sediments and suspended sediments on the Great Barrier Reef. The guidelines are meant to indicate “trigger values” for the concentration of possible toxins. If trigger values are reached then sources should be curtailed.
My study showed the concentrations were below toxic levels as then defined by the US guidelines. But it is impossible to know based on the Australian guidelines because these guidelines don’t target the PAHs contained in coal or oil. To explain why, we have to go into a bit of chemistry.
The composition of the PAHs can indicate the source from coal, oil or combustion processes.
The US guidelines use 34 key PAH groups (a total of about 290 individual compounds) and are currently the best available for assessing oil pollution incidents.
The Australian guidelines do not assess the PAHs that are the major contributor to PAHs in coal and oil. The Australian guidelines specify only 20 “parent” PAHs. These guidelines are more relevant to combustion products.
When is it toxic?The Australian guidelines consider PAHs reach toxic levels at 10-50 milligrams per kilogram of sediment. But research suggests this is way too high.
Modern assessments of oil spills now rely on the PAH content of oils in addition to the total oil content.
PAHs make up about 1% of total oil content. If you applied these guidelines to an oil spill, the toxic level of 10mg PAH per kg of sediment would equal 1,000mg of oil per kg. This oil content would kill everything in marine sediments.
For example, I and a colleague published a detailed study of fiddler crabs after the West Falmouth oil spill. We determined that total oil concentrations of 100-200mg oil per kg of sediment were toxic to juvenile crabs. Concentrations of 1,000mg per kg were toxic to adults and/or caused a number of impacts before the crabs died.
As PAHs make up around 1% of most oils, this means that the trigger values should be 1mg PAH per kg (with a maximum of 5mg per kg). And this assessment must include the PAHs that are commonly found in oil and coal.
Commercial Australian labs don’t assess all these PAHs yet, but neither did the American labs until it became necessary for assessing major oil spills such as the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska and the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. We should not wait for the next disaster to upgrade our capability.
Cleaning up coal portsWe also need the ports to reduce their inputs. Townsville port has reduced the dust emission from its powdered zinc and lead loadings.
The train cars are covered and one at a time enter a shed which is under negative pressure. The powder is dumped in a hopper, transported to the conveyors and loaded onto the ships with no or little dust escaping the process.
The cars are then rinsed before leaving the shed. Water is retained and filtered so no dust leaves the area.
Why can’t coal be handled the same way? Improvement in loading metal powders was brought on by public objections to the previous operations.
This would eliminate coal piles in the coastal zone which blow dust all over nearby cities such as Gladstone and leach into coastal creeks. We also need the Australian sediment quality guidelines for PAHs brought up to 21st-century standard.
Do we have to wait until we have another incident like the Montara platform explosion in the Timor Sea in 2010 before we update our guidelines and response times?
Kathryn Burns received funding from the Australian Institute of Marine Science for chemistry studies in the Great Barrier Reef lagoon 2008-2010, and retired in 2011.
Dartmoor beauty spot is battleground for Britain’s threatened woodlands
It is an idyllic spot. Sylvan slopes dip down to a babbling river fringed by alder and willow that winds through organic pasture where hens peck, sheep graze and bees hum.
The ethos is sound – to restore the woods to their ancient glory, to create a small, sustainable business producing timber and firewood, and to teach vanishing forestry skills to anyone keen to learn. They also try to have fun here at the Hillyfield woodland farm, near the village of Harbourneford in Devon, holding a “Woodland Olympics” with axe-hurling, wood-chopping relay races and logging with a horse rather than modern machinery.
Continue reading...The eco guide to electric vehicles
It’s the future: EVs are making a greener dream come true
“You lot [earth lovers] won’t be happy till there’s rose petals coming out the exhaust,” a car industry insider complained to me.
I’d settle for an electric vehicle. Not emission free (you have to factor in the source of the electricity), but a technology that can make a real dent in climate-change emissions. My next car needs to be an EV – and so does yours.
Continue reading...'Grown' drones and hypersonic speeds
The lion herding sheep in Russia's Dagestan
Juno mission: British rocket engine ready for Jupiter task
Farmers forecast food price rises and job losses in life after the EU
As England’s largest agricultural jamboree, the Royal Norfolk Show normally functions as a shop window for the country’s farming prowess. But this year it also offered a glimpse of the problems facing a post-Brexit nation. In the showground, amid displays of fresh fruit, vegetables and prize-worthy bulls, the talk was of how farmers would find the workers to harvest their crops in a world cut off from Brussels and free movement of labour.
In the wake of the Leave vote, there was now a “serious question mark” over the fruit industry’s ability to staff harvest season, warned Laurence Olins, who chairs British Summer Fruits, the sector’s trade association.
Continue reading...State of play
The 20 photographs of the week
Suicide bombs at Atatürk airport, the Somme centenary commemorations, England crashing out of Euro 2016, the recapture of the city of Falluja – the best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week
Continue reading...A fitting last stronghold for the whinchat
Rosebush, Pembrokeshire Views from this bleak saddle take in the headlands that ruckle the northern coast of Pembrokeshire
Bwlch Gwynt – “wind-pass” - lies between the two westernmost summits of Mynydd Preseli’s moorland ridge. The name fits perfectly with this bleak saddle marred by extensive forestry clearcut. Views distract attention from the ruined immediate landscape. They spread wide, take in Ramsey, the craggy crest of Ynys Bery off its southern tip, isolated rocks of the Bishops and Clerks in the sea beyond, and all the magnificent headlands – Dinas, Strumble, Penmaen Dewi – that ruckle the northern coast of Pembrokeshire.
Stonehenge’s bluestone menhirs were dragged from Preseli millennia ago in a dumbfounding, still-incomprehensible feat of megalithic engineering. But the oriental end of Preseli’s seven-mile whaleback whence they came (they’ve been identified as originating from the spiky outcrop of Carn Goedog) has a different character to its occidental heights. Here the ridge reaches its 536-metre highest point at Foel Cwmcerwyn, two miles distant from and 140 metres above the road that crosses through the bwlch.
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Brexit, air pollution and a swimming centipede – green news roundup
The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox
Continue reading...MEPs urge UK to honour new EU deal to halve deaths from air pollution
A post-Brexit Britain could choose whether to adopt new pollution limits to cut emissions of five key pollutants, including NOx and PM2.5
A post-Brexit UK government should respect a new EU deal designed to halve the number of premature deaths from air pollution, MEPs have said.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
Fruit bats, Joshua trees and thousands of flamingos are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Children at nearly 90 London secondary schools exposed to dangerous air pollution
Westminster, Tower Hamlets and Southwark have highest number of secondaries in breach of legal limits of NO2, new research for the mayor reveals
Children at nearly 90 secondary schools in London breathe illegal and dangerous levels of air pollution, a report for the mayor reveals.
Former mayor Boris Johnson was accused in May of burying a report that showed hundreds of primary schools were in areas that breached EU pollution limits in 2010, prompting calls for greater action to clean up the capital’s air.
Continue reading...Orangutans return home after Indonesia forest fires
The War on Science with change how you see the world | John Abraham
Shawn Otto’s new book is a must-read
Every so often a book comes along that changes the way you view the world. The War on Science: Who’s Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About It by Shawn Otto is one of those rare books. If you care about attacks on climate science and the rise of authoritarianism, if you care about biased media coverage or shake-your-head political tomfoolery, this book is for you.
Vietnam blames toxic waste water from steel plant for mass fish deaths
Taiwanese firm Formosa Plastics that owns the plant says it will pay $500m towards clean up and compensation
Vietnam’s government has said toxic discharges from a Taiwanese-owned steel plant were responsible for massive fish deaths that have decimated tourism and fishing in four provinces and highlighted the risks of rapid growth in foreign investment.
An estimated 70 tonnes of dead fish washed ashore along more than 200 km (125 miles) of Vietnam’s central coastline in early April, sparking rare protests across the country after the Taiwanese company denied any wrongdoing.
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