The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has decided to allow farmers who purchased dicamba-based products to use them this year, despite a June 3rd ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that canceled the product’s approval. Bayer’s XtendiMax, BASF’s Engenia, and Corteva Agriscience’s FeXapan can now be used in specific circumstances after the EPA received feedback from farmers who had already purchased the herbicides.

At the height of the growing season, the Court’s decision has threatened the livelihood of our nation’s farmers and the global food supply…Today’s cancellation and existing stocks order is consistent with EPA’s standard practice following registration invalidation, and is designed to advance compliance, ensure regulatory certainty, and to prevent the misuse of existing stocks.”

Andrew Wheeler, EPA Administrator

According to the order, distribution or sale of the dicamba-based herbicides are still prohibited unless for proper disposal or returns. Those who purchased the herbicides before the June 3rd cancellation are still able to use them. All of use of these systems must cease by July 31st.

The Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) have already filed a motion asking the Ninth Circuit Court to hold Wheeler and the EPA in contempt for allowing farmers to use the product in defiance of the court’s decision.

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It’s mind-boggling to see the EPA blatantly ignore a court ruling, especially one that provides such important protections for farmers and the environment…We’re asking this court to restore the rule of law at the Trump EPA.”

Stephanie Parent, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity

A new study from New Zealand shows that heavy cannabis smoking can cause a lung disease called “Bong Lung”. Research from thousands of different people shows that heavy cannabis smokers can experience bronchitis and irreversible lung damage. Research also showed that if a cannabis user quits smoking, bronchitis can improve, but oftentimes the destruction of lung tissue remains.

Photo by Esteban Lopez on Unsplash 

The bronchitis that people get, the really nasty bronchitis, does tend to improve if you stop (smoking cannabis). But as lung doctors, what we sometimes see in people who don’t stop smoking cannabis is lots of destruction of the lung tissue, and that is irreversible.

-Bob Hancox, a professor at the University of Otago 

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The abstract of the study does point out that there is a difference between the lung conditions of cannabis smokers versus the lungs of tobacco smokers. An author of the study also mentions that smoking cannabis and tobacco would not be advised as those who smoke both are like to “get the worst of both substances”.

Oxitec, a biotech company, has made plans to release millions of genetically modified mosquitoes in both Florida and Texas in an attempt to stop the spread of diseases like Zika and dengue. This has already been approved by the EPA, but a group of biologists, ecologists, bioethicists, and sustainability researchers has concerns about the effect these mosquitos could have on the surrounding ecosystems.

In theory, releasing gene-hacked mosquitoes into the wild is a valid way to kill off or reduce local populations: by engineering sterile breeds of the insect, scientists can drastically reduce the number of bugs born in the next generation. The concept has worked in a laboratory setting. But when officials in Brazil tried it for real, the plan reportedly backfired spectacularly — giving rise to super-resilient genetic hybrids.

SCIENTISTS FIGHT PLAN TO RELEASE GENE-HACKED MOSQUITOES IN TX, FL

Scientists who have raised concerns are worried the EPA has not imposed strong enough measures to monitor the experiment and prevent damage to the ecosystem. Scientists wrote “Genetic engineering offers an unprecedented opportunity for humans to reshape the fundamental structure of the biological world,” However, they pointed out than much of our ecosystems remain understudied and extremely complex.

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New Jersey has become the first state to mandate climate change education in its kindergarten through 12th-grade curriculum. The state will implement that requirement in September of 2021. New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy partnered with 130 educators and led the push to incorporate climate change into the state’s education standards.

The adoption of these standards is much more than an added educational requirement; it is a symbol of a partnership between generations…Decades of short-sighted decision-making has fueled this crisis and now we must do all we can to help our children solve it. This generation of students will feel the effects of climate change more than any other, and it is critical that every student is provided an opportunity to study and understand the climate crisis through a comprehensive, interdisciplinary lens.”

Tammy Murphy, First Lady of New Jersey

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Climate change education is woefully unaddressed in the United States. Despite the effects climate change has on people worldwide, a 2019 NPR/Ipsos poll found that only 42% of teachers are teaching climate change. The demand is there, with 4 in 5 teachers and parents saying that students need to be taught this information. Climate change is here and continuing to escalate. States will do their students a grave disservice if they fail to adequately confront this issue.

Sources:

• New Jersey Is Now the 1st US State to Require Schools to Teach Climate Change – Global Citizen
• Most Teachers Don’t Teach Climate Change; 4 In 5 Parents Wish They Did – NPR

With the recent mass protests around the country and world, many are concerned about another surge in coronavirus cases. Some are concerned about the lack of social distancing, and asymptomatic carriers who might protest without symptoms. Many protesting are still wearing masks and trying to maintain their distance, however, experts however say a surge in cases is unlikely.

“For those expecting an explosion of cases from protests, I doubt that,” wrote Howard Forman, professor of radiology at the Yale School of Medicine, in a recent tweet. “Outdoor events are seemingly low risk.”

Experts: Protests Unlikely to Cause Huge Wave of COVID Cases

Outdoor events are low-risk with fresh air constantly circulating in the outdoors, and the wind blowing. The virus is not as much of a risk outdoors as it is indoors. Howard Forman also pointed out that the biggest risk at these protests is being arrested. Public health experts have continued to warn people about the risks associated with massive gatherings.

In an article by futurism, they sum it up pretty well,

There are a countless number of questions that remain about the risks involved in gathering in large groups during a global pandemic. But one thing is clear: demonizing protesters for making their voices heard about systemic violence that has endangered Black lives for centuries is the wrong way to go.

Experts: Protests Unlikely to Cause Huge Wave of COVID Cases

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President Trump has opened the only national marine monument in the Atlantic to commercial fishing. The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument was established in 2016 by President Obama and includes nearly 5,000 acres of the coast of New England. The monument is noted for its biodiversity, and opening up the area to commercial fishing will have a devastating effect on that ecosystem.

Opening up the nation’s only marine national monument in the Atlantic will help no one but a handful of fishers while risking irreparable damage to the marine wildlife that have no other fully protected areas off our eastern seaboard…Ancient and slow-growing deep sea corals, endangered large whales and sea turtles, and an incredible array of fish, seabirds, sharks, dolphins, and other wildlife—these are the species and habitats that will pay the price.”

Bob Dreher, senior vice president of Conservation Programs at Defenders of Wildlife

The area is home to four seamounts, 3 underwater canyons, more than 54 species of deep-sea corals, and is a frequent feeding ground for whales, sharks, seabirds, dolphins, turtles, and other species. Many of the corals are more than 1,000 years old.

President Trump’s decision comes a day after he signed an executive order removing the need for environmental review before going forward with projects like pipelines and highways. The opening of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument to commercial fishing, leaving more than 1,000 species open to the damage caused by the industry, is only the latest of the President’s systemic dismantling of environmental protections in the United States.

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Sources:

• Trump Illegally Eliminates Protections for First and Only Monument in the Atlantic Ocean – NRDC
• Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument – NOAA Fisheries

At the start of the pandemic, scientists were widely talking about a silver lining in a shut down of the economy: the massive drop in emissions. Emission decreases peaked in early April, showing a 17% decline in global greenhouse gas emissions.

China Nantong Energy’s coal-fired power station in Jiangsu Province, China /BARCROFT MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

The continuing rise in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere may sound surprising in light of recent findings that the pandemic, and the associated lockdowns, had led to a steep drop in global greenhouse gas emissions, peaking at a 17 percent decline in early April.

Earth’s carbon dioxide levels hit record high, despite coronavirus-related emissions drop

Despite the drop in emissions, CO2 levels are the highest they’ve ever been in human history. Until we reach zero emissions CO2 levels will continue to rise. Our annual growth of greenhouse gas levels was around 0.8ppm per year in the 1960s. The growth rate doubled in the 1980s and has reached 2.4ppm within the last decade’

“The buildup of CO2 is a bit like trash in a landfill. As we keep emitting, it keeps piling up,” said Ralph Keeling, who directs Scripps’s carbon dioxide monitoring program, and whose late father, Charles David Keeling, began measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii in 1958.

Earth’s carbon dioxide levels hit record high, despite coronavirus-related emissions drop

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