The boat rocks lightly. A fisherman stares down at his net in the water patiently. When he pulls it up, the catch could be described as meager, at best. One would expect overfishing to be the culprit of lower fish catches these days. Or maybe climate change. But, there is one threat lurking beneath the water’s surface that could be causing some serious issues for fish and fishermen—microplastics.

A recent study conducted by Oona M. Lonnstedt and Peter Eklov at Uppsala University in Sweden shows just how much of a threat microplastics can be. Lonnstedt and Eklov studied Eurasian perch larvae, a freshwater perch native to Europe and northern Asia, which is fished for food and game.

Example of Eurasian perch larvae used in study.

The researchers found that microplastics are making fish stupider and lazier. Microplastics inhibited the fish larvae’s abilities to avoid and detect predators. They also reduced their activity levels, how many hatched from their eggs, and their body size.

Microplastics are pieces of plastic less than 5mm in length, which is a little less than the width of a wooden pencil. Plastic is not biodegradable, so over time it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics.

Scientists suspect these pieces of plastic will last hundreds to thousands of years or more in the environment. That potato chip bag that blew out of my hand on a whale watching boat ten years ago? It’s still in the water, but not so visible to us anymore.

Lonnstedt and Eklov’s research comes at a time when microplastics are raising international concern for their potential health effects in marine organisms and humans. In February, another study revealed that microplastics impair oyster reproduction. Other studies are finding that microplastics are showing up in much of our seafood and even sea salts. There is concern among scientists that if we ingest enough microplastics we may experience health effects similar to those shown happening in marine creatures, like infertility.

Almost half of the human population depends on fish for protein or on fishing for their livelihoods. In 2013, 3.1 billion people depended on fish as a primary source of animal protein. 12% of the world’s population depends on fisheries for their income. More than 90% of these people are small scale fishers.

According to Lonstedt and Eklov’s research, the fish populations people depend on could be in serious jeopardy if microplastic concentrations continue to increase.

For their study, Lonnstedt and Eklov reared Eurasian perch larvae in aquariums with three different microplastic concentrations: no microplastic particles, a current environmentally realistic concentration of microplastics, or a high concentration of microplastics. The larvae placed in high microplastic concentrations were less healthy and more likely to be killed by predators.

Eurasian fish larvae from study that has filled its belly with microplastics, the small clear dots.

When placed in a simulated natural environment with juvenile pike fish, a natural predator to young perch, all of the perch fish larvae that grew in high concentrations of microplastics were killed after 24 hours, compared to two-thirds of perch reared in an average microplastic concentration. Those reared in water with no microplastics did the best: only one half of the fish died.

Most surprisingly, Perch reared in the highest level of microplastics seemed to actually prefer eating plastic particles rather than their natural food. Plastic is not nutritional so, not surprisingly, these young fish were significantly smaller and weighed significantly less.

Though more research needs to be completed, this study indicates that microplastics could have wide-ranging effects on fish populations and, consequently, entire food webs if other fish larvae react similarly to microplastics.

This is bad news for fish and people. Many communities depend on fish as a means to survive and for their livelihood. If fish actually prefer eating plastic over their natural food sources, that means when we eat seafood, we will be consuming more microplastics too.

We create and throw away more plastic everyday. This study highlights the need for better management of plastic waste and the importance of further research on microplastics, an unseen, but all too real threat for fish, fisheries, and ourselves.

Responsible for a whopping 39 percent of US carbon emissions, buildings are silent contributors to climate change.

Surprisingly, researchers think the solution to these emissions lies in the ocean.

A new study funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government found that the tuna’s metabolism could serve as a model for how the layout of modern buildings can disperse human body heat in more efficient ways, decreasing fossil fuel use. The “tuna model” is an example of biomimicry, the design of systems and materials based on examples found in nature.

Conducted by researchers and architects as part of the Redesign of the Integration of Building Energy from Metabolisms of Animals (RIMA), the study modeled the annual heat generation, heat loss, and total energy use of two different floor plans within the same building—the Gamesa Headquarters in Pamplona, Spain – in three different climates. Simulations found that the rearrangement of office building floor plans in favor of the tuna model can save 16-39% of building’s annual energy demand. That’s huge.

Why does the tuna model reduce energy demand? Some species of tuna can regulate their interior temperature so efficiently that their bodies can be warmer than the water around them — often by 10 degrees Celsius. It is unusual for fish to be so warm because their heat usually escapes through the gills before the rest of the body can be warmed.

The anatomy of a tuna. The dark muscle encircles the spine.
Credit: http://www.fao.org/fishery/topic/16082/en

However, a tuna avoids this heat loss through a process know as “countercurrent heat exchange”. The tuna’s heat is generated within dark muscle, a long strip of red muscle that runs along both sides of the spinal column.

This muscle has a complex vascular system where blood flows in arteries and veins that are in close proximity and are parallel to each other. The heat generated by the muscle warms the blood, and its excess heat is transferred to the cooler blood returning to the muscle before the warmer blood reaches the gills. Thus, this process allows heat to be efficiently transferred and retained within the tuna’s body rather than be lost to the exterior environment.

Illustration of countercurrent heat exchange process.
Credit: RIMA study

How can this help us design more efficient buildings? In the study, enclosed spaces like offices or meeting rooms functioned as a building’s “dark muscle”; the more people that are in a room, the more heat is generated. That heat, especially when combined with heat given off by lighting fixtures and building machinery, can add up. Tapping into the natural heat generation of the human body decreases the building’s demand for external heat (often generated by fossil fuels) and the building’s total energy footprint.

What the tuna teaches us is that the key to maximizing body heat retention in buildings lies with the placement of these enclosed spaces.

In most office buildings, private offices and meeting rooms are located along the perimeter of a floor, near the windows. This layout, while desirable for its office views, is energetically problematic because the valuable body heat generated within them is likely to escape through the window before it can heat other areas of the floor – just like heat escapes through a fish’s gills.

The two floor plans modeled in the simulation. The tuna model (a) features closed office spaces placed together in the central ring, and the average office layout (b) features decentralized office spaces.
Credit: RIMA study

In the tuna model, however, the office spaces and meeting rooms are placed in a centralized ring around the interior core of elevators, just like tuna’s muscle wraps around its spine. Placing the offices in close proximity to each encourages a countercurrent heat exchange to take place. As expected, the tuna model resulted in more efficient use of the building’s internal heat, while the decentralized office layout exhibited greater demand for heat and total energy.

Using the metabolism of the tuna as a model for the energy systems of buildings has major implications for the way humans think about and interact with their built environment. While sustainable construction materials like living concrete and biomimetic building exteriors are important steps down the path towards a greener and cleaner city, they do not incorporate human services into the equation. With the tuna as our guide, perhaps we can swim against the tide of climate change and design cityscapes with both humans and nature in mind.

An image of mountain top removal in Appalachia. Photo by Mario Tama

Environmentalists have described the Clean Air Act as a “genuine American success story.” No other law has done more to generally improve human health than the amendments passed in 1990, which limited harmful pollutants that can cause heart disease, bronchitis, asthma and other respiratory sicknesses. While these widespread public health improvements are clear, in Appalachia the Clean Air Act has a mixed legacy. Surprisingly, some Appalachian communities are dying at an earlier age due to unforeseen consequences of the 1990 amendments. The Clean Air Act is benefiting the many at the expense of the few.

A recent study brings this untold story of the Clean Air Act to light. It shows that mortality rates are increasing in coal-mining communities in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. All of these states saw an increase in mountain top removal coal mining after the introduction of the 1990 amendments, which promoted the use of clean low-sulfur coal to curb acid rain. Sulfur dioxide is released into the atmosphere when coal burns and transforms stored sulfur into a gas. Once in the atmosphere, sulfur dioxide reacts with nitrogen oxide and water to form acid rain. Acid rain has many ecological effects, but its greatest impact is on water systems and forests.

Coal companies responded to the Clean Air Act amendments by seeking low-sulfur coal in the mountainous Central Appalachian Region of the United States. Coal companies access this coal with a method called mountaintop removal, which is a more efficient method of coal mining that uses fewer workers and accesses more coal than conventional mining. Despite these advantages, mountain top removal is highly damaging to local environments—it pollutes tap water and exposes nearby families and neighborhoods to toxic dust.

Makayla Urias holds contaminated water samples taken from her home, which is surrounded by mountaintop removal coal mining. Cathie Bird

While the sweeping changes of the Clean Air Act improved health outcomes for many people, we cannot forget the people who have borne the costs of mountain top removal mining in Appalachia. Makayla Urias—an 8-year-old girl from Pike County, Kentucky (pictured on the right)— is one child among many living in Appalachia whose home is threatened by mountain top removal and may not have the chance to live a full life.

Researchers from the School of Public Health at Indiana University examined the relationship between mortality rates, mountaintop removal mining, and the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments in Appalachian communities in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Researchers surveyed the mortality rates between 1968 and 2014 using publicly available data, comparing respiratory mortality due to mountaintop removal by comparing mountain top removal counties to non-mountain top removal counties. The team also considered adult smoking rates, obesity rates, child poverty rates, and per capita supply of primary care physicians when examining mortality rates to ensure that these factors did not account for mortality rates measured in mountaintop removal communities.

Figure 1: Mortality rates from 1968 to 2014, with a divergence between counties with mountain top removal (MTR) and counties with out in years following the Clean Air Act (CAA) amendments.

The comparison revealed that mortality rates between the two groups diverged after the Clean Air Act amendments in 1990, as presented in Figure 1. This is surprising because mortality rates decreased elsewhere in the United States due to improvements in medical care. Advancements in medicine are offset in Appalachian communities by the adverse health effects of mountain top removal. The study concludes that increased mortality comes from respiratory diseases related to mountain top removal, such as bronchitis and emphysema.

The untold story of mountain top removal in Appalachian communities after the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments should serve as a cautionary tale to politicians working to address climate change. The narrow scope of the Clean Air Act amendments promoted a dangerous form of coal extraction rather than incentives to encourage development of cleaner energies. When addressing climate change, environmental policies in the United States focus primarily on limiting carbon dioxide emissions. These kinds of broad policies overlook the local exposure to poisonous toxins associated with the production and extraction of fossil fuels—as demonstrated by the communities in Appalachia.

While issues of environmental justice mostly focus on the environmental concerns that poor communities of color face, the framework of environmental justice should serve as a platform for all vulnerable and marginalized communities. Although coal-mining towns in Appalachia are largely white, both the failure of policy to protect these communities and the lack of public concern towards local air pollution demands our attention. The future lives of Makayla Urias and other children in Appalachia depend on it.

In the Canadian Arctic climate change can be added to the list of culprits melting away traditional activities just like its melting the ice caps.

The region is already challenged by high suicide rates, food insecurity and housing shortages. Climate change acts as a ‘threat multiplier’ making the people of the region increasing vulnerable to the sociocultural issues there.

Elder Josephine Ugataq smiling while showing some of the items she sews using traditional methods. photo credit: Peter Power

A new groundbreaking study explores how climate change is affecting the lives of Inuit women in Iqaluit, Nunavut specifically. Most research into the gendered effects of climate change has focused on Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, and the research on the effects of climate change on the people of the Arctic have focused on male dominated activities such as hunting, trapping and fishing. So this new study by Montreal and Ontario researchers is unique. What is the most effected aspect of the women’s lives? Key traditional activities such as berry picking and sewing.

The environment around Iqaluit is changing rapidly.  Temperatures and moisture changes during winter impact the fruiting and flowering cycles in the region. This has resulted in the berries that used to grow abundantly around the town becoming harder to find and lower in quality. The warmer temperatures have also brought increasingly dangerous ice conditions and higher costs to hunt so the number of good quality pelts for sewing has decreased significantly.

Emotionally the changes have taken a toll.  Last year [the berry harvest] was depressing”, reported one of the women interviewed. Not being able to cultivate in their children the fond memories they have of the land or being able to harvest and eat the berries they crave makes them feel disconnected from their identity.

Sewing traditional parkas, gloves and boots promotes a strong sense of cultural pride and social connection and is even celebrated as a way of healing trauma. One middle-aged homeowner spoke of sewing as “just like meditation”.  To lose the practice is simply not an option.

So women resort to a more expensive option: purchasing skins from southern furriers or suppliers. A once relatively affordable activity that provided clothing for the family and extra income is now much more expensive. The story is similar with berry picking. Instead of carrying their children along to the local berry patch, women need to go further and further away from town to find berries. Some even turn to taking expensive boat rides across the bay to where changing temperatures haven’t effect berry harvests as dramatically. 

In a region where 7 out of 10 preschoolers live in homes with not enough food to eat, the loss of an easy food source, and the impact of losing berry harvests is not to be underestimated.

With so many other pressures pushing against the culture and well-being of the Inuit communities in Nunavut, it seems most unfair that climate change is intensifying challenges. The study reveals just how personal climate change already is. It’s changing the landscape, habitats and climate of our great Canadian north. Will we let it take away our health, wellbeing and, rich cultures too?