True Left

Kenya outlawed single-use plastic bags in 2017, but there are still no laws requiring corporations that profit from single-use plastic bottles to clean up what they produce.

Space rockets may not be very environmentally friendly.

Space launches can have a hefty carbon footprint due to the burning of solid rocket fuels. Many rockets are, however, propelled by liquid hydrogen fuel, which produces ‘clean’ water vapour exhaust, although the production of hydrogen itself can cause significant carbon emissions. Rocket engines release trace gases into the upper atmosphere that contribute to ozone depletion, as well as particles of soot.

Rocket launches are nonetheless relatively infrequent, meaning that their overall impact on our climate remains much smaller than aviation’s. But it’s not just our immediate environment: ‘space junk’ is a growing concern as disused satellites and other objects accumulate in our planet’s orbit.

We utilized a technique that examines how old a person is at a cellular level compared with their chronological age. We found that some young people were older at a cellular level than would have been expected based on their chronological age. Racial discrimination accounted for much of this variation, suggesting that such experiences were accelerating ageing.

Huge islands of garbage floating on some rivers in the Balkans are causing an environmental emergency and threatening a regional hydropower plant.

Plastic bottles, rusty barrels and other waste could be seen clogging the Drina River near the eastern Bosnian town of Visegrad on Tuesday. Upstream, the Drina's tributaries in Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia carried even more debris after swollen waterways spilled over into landfills.

The Balkan nations have poor waste management programs, and tons of garbage routinely end up in rivers, including the occasional washing machine or computer screen. A broken barrier this week caused a massive buildup of garbage on the Drina that has threatened Bosnia's Visegrad dam.

Officials say that between 6,000 and 8,000 cubic meters of waste are pulled out of the river each year near Visegrad. Although the problem is not new, Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro have done little to address the problem even as they seek to join the European Union.

An environmental activist from the Eco Center group, Dejan Furtula, said the garbage in the Drina also is a hazard for the the local community because waste removed from the river is dumped on a local landfill, which is often on fire and produces toxic liquid that flows back into the Drina.

“We are all in danger here, the entire ecosystem,” he said.
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At the Visegrad dam, efforts began Tuesday to clear away the clogging garbage and to avoid potential damage to the power system. In southwest Serbia, the Lim River has created a similar problem at the Potpecko accumulation lake.

A Bay Area company is being urged to make changes to its state-of-the-art solar plant since thousands of birds have been burned to death by its panels.

A deadly dolphin disease might be tied to the climate crisis.