Poisoned.
The ice fields of the north (top) carry surprisingly high concentrations of mercury in their surface crystals (bottom).
Credit: University of Michigan
Posted on 02/26/2008 1:38:13 AM PST by neverdem
Poisoned.
The ice fields of the north (top) carry surprisingly high concentrations of mercury in their surface crystals (bottom).
Credit: University of Michigan
By Phil Berardelli
ScienceNOW Daily News
25 February 2008
The shimmering ice crystals spread across the Arctic landscape may look beautiful, but new research reveals that they carry an ugly secret: They contain surprisingly high concentrations of mercury, even when mercury is almost totally absent in the atmosphere. The researchers who made the discovery hope their findings will encourage stricter standards on mercury emissions that drift north.
The form of mercury that emanates from smokestacks of incinerators and power plants is relatively benign in the air. But after falling to the ground, it is converted by bacteria into methylmercury, a highly toxic compound that tends to work its way up the food chain. Few people were worried that this might be a problem in the Arctic, because sunlight was expected to break down mercury particles trapped in surface ice. Recent research had shown, however, that the deadly metal was lingering in Arctic ice, leaving scientists puzzled about where it was coming from or how it was accumulating.
To answer this, a group of U. S. scientists took surface samples from nearly 300 sites around Point Barrow, Alaska, and from kites they flew above gaps in the Arctic sea ice off the Alaskan coast. What they found alarmed them: In some places, mercury concentrations exceeded levels recorded near coal-burning plants. And the amounts evaporating from the seawater exceeded what had been recorded as falling from precipitation by as much as a factor of 10.
In the 1 March issue of Environmental Science & Technology, the team concludes that most of the methylmercury in Arctic ice comes from water vapor that’s evaporating from the ocean through openings in the sea ice, not from precipitation. They know this, geologist and co-author Joel Blum of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, said in an e-mail, because they also condensed out mercury from vapors collected from open ocean waters. As far as the ultimate sources of the mercury, Blum says they remain unknown. Despite that mystery, says Blum, "The only significant solution would be to reduce global mercury emissions."
It's surprising that the researchers have found such high concentrations from seawater evaporation, says retired environmental chemist Steve Lindberg, formerly with Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The problem, he says, is that "we still don't know the exact chemistry that generates the mercury” that gets deposited by the seawater. It will be important, says Lindberg, to collect additional data and generate models that try to answer these questions.
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The number of retarded polar bears is on the rise. We must destroy western civilization now, before it’s tragically too late.
Lets see if I got this right?
Mercury is occurring naturally in the environment, so we must shut down factories to save the environment from mercury that’s not coming from factories.
How’d I do? Did I get close?
This looks like a fortune to be made.
Free mercury mine. If you can stand the cold.
Why are the polar bears more important than the bacteria ?Is the author suggesting we should kill off the bacteria? That seems like a radical value jugdement to me!
The other question is, is the source China? It wouldn’t be surprising if it were... And if that’s the case China needs to reduce their mercury pollution, not the rest of the world.
Course all the hubbub could be BULL SPERM...
Can we build nuclear plants NOW?
The smokestacks of our factories are clean rooms compared to what the Chinese spew, but the environmental wackos say nary a word about the Chicoms. We all know why—the wackos are leftists whose agenda is political, not environmental. The Chicoms are their comrades; we're their enemies.
So when water is distilled, the Mercury goes along for the ride?
Incandescents banned over "waste" heat (not so at this latitude, the need for artificial light is greatest in winter where the days are much shorter, and the heat is welcome as well).
Now, mercury is in abundance so next up will be the CFL bulbs, which contain mercury.
Okay, I get it. They really do want us sitting in the dark and the cold.
I wonder how much comes from the decayed carcasses of salmon who died after the spawning run, and then is carried downstream?
How’d I do? Did I get close?”
Almost. The factories that are not responsible for these emissions will still need to cap and trade their CO2 emissions to offset this new finding.
Even environmentalists need to make a living.
“I wonder how much comes from the decayed carcasses of salmon who died after the spawning run, and then is carried downstream?”
Well, I know salmon (why’s that got that l in it?) swims fast and mercury is called quick silver, but I really don’t think they’re related.
“Even environmentalists need to make a living.”
Only cause we let em.
Ok, half hearted attempt at a serious question.
Do we wait until AFTER these numbnuts start killing off huge numbers of humans to save their momma gaia?
It’s not like this isn’t falling exactly into the usual pattern of every other mass murdering socialist utopianism of the last 100+ years.
When sacred cows collide, you get hamburger.
One of the difficulties of being a Greenie is that you have so many things that you just can’t talk about.
For instance, Recycling is supposed to be an unalloyed good, but the reality is that most “recycling” is actually bogus “Waste to Energy” conversion, which is a fancy term for incineration. Every program in the country that balyhoos fabulous waste recovery numbers is relying on incineration to make it all work.
But incineration just takes the heavy metals that would have gone safely into a landfill and sends them up the smokestack. Scrubbers are good, but will only get you so far. Massive amounts of mercury escape these incinerators every day. If any other industry had this level of mercury emissions, they would be shut down immediately.
So the Greenies either have to condemn incineration, and eviscerate their carefully constructed recycling programs, or look the other way, and let the mercury spew into the environment. If you guessed that they took the expedient, unprincipled way out, you win the Kewpie Doll. They make up some cock-and-bull story about how the mercury deposits on the landscape as a harmless compound, but then admit that this “harmless” compound leads to bioaccumulation of mercury in fish and wildlife, which does not sound so harmless at all.
The Green Weenies are going to have to choose. Either they are going to have to give up on recycling or let mercury despoil the environment. They cannot have one without the other. This is just the first example of how the “ideals” of environmentalism have become ossified into special interests that accomplish the exact opposite of what was intended. Expect much more of this as the Environmental Movement matures.
It may not apply here, and may just be a quirk of global wind circulation (from Chinese or Russian power plants)--who knows. My bet is that if more grant money leads to more studies with similar results, there will be yet another push to use the information to shut down industry in the US, and not elsewhere.
It’s not like this isn’t falling exactly into the usual pattern of every other mass murdering socialist utopianism of the last 100+ years.”
Why do you think there is such a push for socialized medicine?
Yeah. I suspect the decaying fleet at Vladivostok and the usual culprits of completely unrestrained pollutant dumping by most of the pac rim nations.
We could, maybe, harness the power of ecoactivism and graft some ecotards together to form filters for the waters as they pass back down stream.
It’s not like they have a nervous system or are evolved enough to self aware, so they’d hardly know they were supposed to be suffering.
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