I Don’t Think You’re Ready, For This Jelly

In Sweden, jellyfish populations overwhelmed and clogged a nuclear power plant’s pipes. These pipes turned out to be extremely important as they cool the plant’s turbines, and the nuclear power plant had to shut down. A year before, the same thing happened in California. In less extreme cases, yet still costly, large amounts of jellyfish have clogged fishing nets and damaged fishing gear. All of these jellyfish problems have raised eyebrows, and when scientists looked into jellyfish populations, they found that jellyfish are blooming more often, earlier, more intensely, and staying longer.

Around the world, jellyfish populations are booming. While this may not seem like such a big deal, it is yet another sign of climate change and environmental degradation, one that is costing various industries millions of dollars. In addition, the jellyfish feed on plankton, crustaceans, small fish, and fish eggs, which are all food resources of which larger mammals such as whales rely on. Jellyfish are thriving in places the don’t usually thrive, and this is seen as a sign that oceans around the world are stressed or unhealthy.

***Jellyfish population trends. Red indicates an increase with a high degree of certainty, while orange indicates an increase with a low degree of certainty. Blue indicates a decrease. Green represents a stable or variable population. Grey indicates no data.***

In areas where jellyfish populations have boomed causing nuclear power plants to shutdown, scientists have found that the species is causing the damage is the common moon jellyfish. This species of jellyfish thrives in areas of the ocean that have been “overfished or have bad conditions.” Bad conditions refers to anything from toxic chemicals, fertilizers, and too much trash in the oceans. Overfishing leaves lots of open space for the jellyfish to thrive, and when the fish are gone, jellyfish have the chance to dominate the ecosystem. It seems as though we have another case where humans have exploited the environment and caused detrimental effects.

What You Can Do To Help

One of the biggest problems with the booming jellyfish populations is that no monitoring exists to track the jellyfish populations. Data gained from the monitoring is needed for scientists to figure out how to address the issue. Luckily, a website and apps for iPhones and Androids have been created where the public is able to report where jellyfish are blooming. The scientists will use this data to figure out where jellyfish are, how often the blooms are occurring, and for how long. Without the help of the public, this research would be too expensive. With more research occurring, scientists will be able to find and implement ways to curb the jellyfish explosion. If you see jellyfish, report it!

Photo Cred: cbc.ca

As always: comments, questions, concerns or even random thoughts? I would love if you shared them with me so please comment below!

Some Not So Humble News!

The Humble Bumble was a blog post I wrote which described why bees are so important to humans, and how these bees are threatened from the use of pesticides. At the end of this post I has stated that Health Canada would reevaluate the measures it had taken to combat pesticides harming bees if these measures proved insufficient. In addition, I stated that the measures were indeed not enough and that further action was needed.

It is with great pleasure that I can now inform you that Ontario is looking to restrict the use of bee-killing pesticides!

Ontario’s Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal has said that Ontario wants to ““move away from the widespread, indiscriminate use of neonicotinoid-based pesticides.” These are the pesticides which have been deemed unsafe by many scientists and ecologists world-wide. Leal is considering implementing a licence system to control the use of the pesticide. This is not quite the ban which Europe has itself done. The licence system is one where the province hopes to reduce the use of the pesticide to only areas where there is ‘demonstrated need’.

The article that was released shows that there is growing evidence against neonicotinoid-based pesticides which links the pesticides to killing bees. The increased media attention has grown since the provincial election in June where the topic has been much discussed, and more big names have been reviewing their stances on the use of these pesticides. Rona, Canadian Tire, and Home Depot are now reassessing their need to use the pesticides and Health Canada is monitoring the situation.

This is a great step forward in protecting our bees and gaining more awareness on the issue. Hopefully this will lead to more adaptation, monitoring, and elimination of the harmful pesticides we use in Canada!

PhotoCred: http://www.salon.com/2013/12/14/can_bees_be_trained_to_sniff_out_cancer_this_designer_says_yes_partner/

As always: comments, questions, concerns or even random thoughts? I would love if you shared them with me so please comment below!

The Humble Bumble

Bumble bees are incredibly important to our food systems. It has been estimated that a third of the food which humans consume each and every day relies on the pollination which bees provide. Examples of foods which require the pollination of bees includes avocados, soybeans, apples, strawberries, blueberries, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash, sunflowers, cucumbers, citrus fruit, peaches, kiwis, cherries, cranberries, melons and many more. In addition, bees pollinate clover and alfalfa, which is used to feed cattle, and cotton and flax, which is used to make clothes. This means there are many implications for meat, dairy, and clothing industries as well. Essentially, honeybees are a main reason why mankind is able to enjoy a diet that consists of more than just water.

Bees help humans by pollinating plants and making these plants able to reproduce and grow. Unfortunately, pesticides used for agriculture often unintentionally kill bees which are necessary for crops to reproduce. This has resulted in reductions in the number of wild bee colonies world wide. As a result, scientists have petitioned for two commonly used pesticides to be banned around the world to minimize the amount of mass killings of bees which harms the planet’s ecosystem.

These scientists hold that “life would be awful” without bees for the reasons outlined above. With these pesticides, bees are being killed which will result in a lot less fruit and vegetables humans like to eat, any plant or animal that relies of these plants or seeds would be at risk, and soil and water environments are polluted. In fact, “more than 90 per cent of the pesticide goes into the environment rather than the crop”, and these pesticides build up until groundwater and streams become contaminated. This contamination in turn has negative effects on other environments, plants, and animals, such as terrestrial animals like worms who live within the contaminated soil.

Health Canada found pesticides on 70% of dead bees last spring, but believes this to be due to the bees being “exposed to the dust that’s kicked up during the planting process”.  The Canadian Government has been monitoring these effects and has created measures for minimizing bee exposure to pesticides. These measures include reducing dust from coated seeds, safer seed planting practices, and labels with enhanced warnings. In addition, Health Canada has stated that if these measures turn out to be insufficient, they will reevaluate the situation and take new measures to minimize bee risks.

However, these measures are not enough. Europe has linked these pesticides to the death of honeybees and as a result has decided to ban the use of the pesticides. In addition, it has been found that reducing dust coated seeds has not reduced the risk to bees. While not everyone agrees with the EU’s decision, until the risks of these pesticides are understood, they should not be used in order to ensure that the bees are not placed in irreparable risk.

Photo Cred: whyfiles.org

As always: comments, questions, concerns or even random thoughts? I would love if you shared them with me so please comment below!

Earth Hour

Last year, when Earth Hour came rolling around, I was criticized for supporting the cause/initiative/date/event. Here’s why:

• Even if every person in the entire world turned off all residential lighting, it would be the same as China stopping its CO2 emissions for less than four minutes
• Earth hour causes emissions to increase because any significant reduction in electricity demand will result in a surge from firing up coal or gas stations to re-establish electricity supplies later
• Using one candle for light cancels out any CO2 reduction you saved from turning out the lights and using two candles means that you effectively emit more CO2 due to the fact that candles are 100 times less efficient than incandescent light bulbs
• Electricity has reduced indoor air pollution from stoves and electricity has created a vast amount of benefits by mechanizing the world

But alas after hearing these great arguments I am still on the Earth Hour bandwagon.

Earth Hour is not about cutting a significant amount of energy through encouraging people and companies to turn off their lights for an hour. No, it is an awareness campaign. The World Wildlife Fund even shows right on their Earth Hour website page by not keeping track of how much energy is saved. I have been reminded a couple of times by my Marketing Professor that an event is not necessarily a waste of time because it loses money, but rather if it raises significant awareness for your cause, then it can be priceless.

Awareness campaigns can often seem like a complete waste by making you spend time and money on telling people about or convincing people to support your cause, instead of actually doing a concrete something. Earth Hour is a great example of this as its value is in making people aware of earth’s environmental crisis. Earth Hour aims to unite people to protect the planet by asking them to commit to reducing their environmental impact by doing something that isn’t overwhelming: turning off a light. Small steps can lead to big change.

Now that we are all aware, we have another 8759 hours left to, little by little, reduce our environmental impact. HERE are nine way to reduce your impact.

As always: comments, questions, concerns or even random thoughts? I would love if you shared them with me so please comment below!

Santa’s Revenge

Santa’s Revenge is the theory that persistent weather patterns in mid-latitude areas, such as this extraordinarily long, harsh, record breaking snowy, and freezing winter that we are experiencing in Southern Ontario, is a result of climate change warming the Arctic.

The picture above shows me on February 26th, in downtown Toronto beside Lake Ontario braving the -16 degrees Celsius weather mixed with extreme winds to make it feel like negative 1 billion (an exaggeration due to annoyance). In fact, it was so cold that the Great Lakes were more frozen than any other time in the past 35 years (92.2 percent ice coverage).

An article has now been published which gives new evidence to suggest that the link between the Arctic getting warmer, and the mid-latitudes experiencing persistent weather. This theory has been debated time and time again, but the fact is that it has extreme implications for severe weather occurrences, food security, and water use in the northern hemisphere that would have large economic impacts.

Here are a couple of quotes from the article:

-“It’s starting to get harder to say that something isn’t happening”

-“Events like the extended cold spell… are very consistent with the kind of pattern we expect to see related to the Arctic warming so fast.”

-“Potential to drastically affect international food supplies and prices”

-“We produce the bulk of our crops at that mid-latitude area”

Climate change is extremely worrisome. With 7 billion people in the world we cannot afford to experience food security issues as many people will be left without access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. An increase in severe weather occurrences will cause more damages, more serious social disruption and more loss of human life. The economic impacts of climate change will leave many economies around the world in disarray as they try to cope with its negative effects.

“The real question is whether we can adapt and change faster than the climate.”

Photo Cred: Flavia Craciun

As always: comments, questions, concerns or even random thoughts? I would love if you shared them with me so please comment below!

Apex Predators

One species of animal can greatly influence an entire ecosystem. This cascading effect that can occur can even change the geography of an area, showing the extent of influence an animal can hold in an ecosystem.

A video has recently gone viral which shows how the introduction of wolves into an ecosystem actually changed a river’s path. This video is entitled How Wolves Change Rivers. In this video a man describes how wolves were introduced into Yellowstone National Park in the United States, and, through this reintroduction of a species into an ecosystem, how the wolves led to an increase in vegetation, and the eventual change in course of a river. Although many people are aware that wolves kill other animals, most are unaware that they can give life. Yellowstone Park was overpopulated with deer and these deer had grazed all of the vegetation, leaving bare flat lands. In this case study the wolves ate the dear in the park, which led to less deer, and made the remaining deer avoid the wolf populated areas. These avoided areas then experienced a rapid increase in vegetation growth, creating forests in places which once only held grass. Due to the increase in trees there was an increase in beavers because, well, beavers like trees. These beavers are ecosystem engineers and they in turn built dams which provided shelter for countless other species. The wolves also killed coyotes and this meant that there was an increase in mice, rabbits, hawks, weasels, foxes, badgers, ravens, and bald eagles. Now not only was there a massive increase in species throughout the park, but the river running through the park experienced less erosion, the channels narrowed, and pools formed due to the increase in vegetation and the stabilization of the river banks that this vegetation provided. The river itself changed. This process is known as a tropic cascade.

The concerning issue about this case study is the fact that wolves are only one apex predator in the world: lions in Africa, tigers in Asia. Sharks, bears, and wild dogs are example of species at the top of their particular food chains, stabilizing the ecosystem and species they live and prey on, and influencing the health of plants and animals all the way to the bottom of the tropic ladder.

The truly disturbing part is that a majority of these apex predators are facing a decline in population numbers, potentially endangering the ecosystems where they reside.

This calls for change. It’s time for us, as humans, to change our overall perception of predators. We cannot condone the mass culling of sharks as has recently been approved in Western Australia. Stop the poaching of Tigers in Asia. No more habitat destruction in Sub Saharan Africa that decimates lion populations.

Human/wildlife conflict is going to occur as population growth happens around the world. Humans need to change and start living with wildlife if we want to protect the beautiful, useful, and essential ecosystems around the world.

FYI: The picture is of a river that runs through my cottage a.k.a. The Farm, in Elphin, Ontario

Photo Cred: Anton Holland

As always: comments, questions, concerns or even random thoughts? I would love if you shared them with me so please comment below!

That’s a-moray!

There are over 200 species of moray eels around the world and for the first time ever a species of moray, the Black Ribbon Moray, has been bred! This is a great step forward in protecting and improving biological diversity throughout our marine ecosystems.

Biodiversity is more and more recognized as essential to human life, but many species are jeopardized by urbanization, habitat destruction, climate change, overexploitation of the world’s fisheries and marine ecosystems, and other human activities. The diversity of life on earth is essential for preserving the basic planetary life support systems humans require every day.  Ecosystem services, or the resources nature provides, like drinking water, crop pollination, nutrient cycling and climate regulation, all rely on biodiversity. Biodiversity is also crucial for sustainable development as all the resources and ecosystem services which nature provides contribute directly to human well-being in multiple ways. As development occurs, biodiversity needs to be monitored and protected as many economic sectors depend on biodiversity, particularly poor and vulnerable people are more severely impacted from a loss of biodiversity and biodiversity can provide solutions to societal challenges. The fact that the world’s poor rely on biological resources for up to 90% of their needs such as food, fuel, medicine, shelter, and transportation illustrates how important biodiversity if for development.

The picture displayed for this post was taken on my scuba diving trip in the Turks and Caicos islands. The diversity of animals I was able to see on my diving trips, including this beautiful fish, will no longer be there if development does not account for loss of biodiversity. The first time breeding of moray eels is a great way for humans to combat the loss of biodiversity occurring around the world and throughout marine environments. Governments around the world need to build on this initiative and integrate biodiversity considerations into their policies and strategies.