Category: Pollution

Preventing Future Pandemics Requires Sweeping U.S. Action on Wildlife Trade

/ activist360 / Leave a comment

WASHINGTON— Conservation groups released a sweeping action plan today for the United States to dramatically crack down on wildlife trade, which is the most probable cause of the global coronavirus pandemic. Among other proposals, the action plan recommends that the United States end live wildlife imports, curtail all other wildlife trade until stricter regulations are adopted, and take a global leadership role in controlling wildlife trade to stop future pandemics.

Image of END WILDLIFE TRADE An Action Plan to Prevent Future Pandemics
END WILDLIFE TRADE An Action Plan To Prevent Future Pandemics

Over the past 40 years, most global pandemics — including HIV, SARS, Ebola and Zika — have been zoonotic, meaning that they jumped from wildlife to people. The coronavirus likely originated from a live wildlife market in China — potentially passed from a bat, to another animal, to a human. Wildlife markets typically sell many different types of live wildlife, including both legally and illegally sourced animals.

“If we’re going to avoid future pandemics, the United States and every other nation needs to do its part to stop the exploitation of wildlife.

…

“The loss of life and other devastating impacts of the coronavirus make it clear that the meager economic benefits of commodifying wildlife are simply not worth the risks.”

—Brett Hartl, Government Affairs Director at the Center for Biological Diversity

Irresponsible wildlife trade is a global problem. Importing more than 224 million live animals and 883 million other wildlife species every year, the United States is one of the world’s top wildlife importers. It also remains a common destination for illegally traded species. The United States and other nations have made only half-hearted efforts to address the impacts of wildlife trade and lack capacity to address trade effectively.

Today’s action plan, released by the Center for Biological Diversity and the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), proposes actions under four broader categories that Congress and federal agencies should implement to prevent future zoonotic pandemics:

  • Lead a global crackdown on wildlife trade;
  • Strengthen U.S. conservation laws to fight wildlife trade;
  • Invest $10 billion in U.S. and global capacity to stop wildlife trade, while helping communities transition to alternative livelihoods; and
  • Resume the U.S. position as a global leader in international wildlife conservation.

“This pandemic has made clear: wildlife trade is not only a threat to biodiversity—it’s also a threat to global public health.

…

“China’s response to the COVID-19 crisis took quick action to restrict wildlife trade. In contrast, the U.S. has failed to take a single step towards minimizing this threat. That should change now.”

—Elly Pepper, deputy director for International Wildlife Conservation at the NRDC
Long-tailed pangolin (M. tetradactyla) by Brett Hartl / Center for Biological Diversity. Image is available for media use.

Biodiversity loss, high rates of deforestation, and vast increases in agricultural development are leading to an increase in human encroachment into previously undisturbed habitat and contact with wildlife. As people move deeper into these last natural areas of the planet, scientists believe that infectious diseases will continue to emerge. Experts predict that new diseases will emerge from wildlife to infect humans somewhere between every four months and every three years.

###

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.7 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world’s natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Chicago; Bozeman, Montana; and Beijing.

Cargo Shipping & Pollution

/ activist360 / Leave a comment

Cargo shipping creates huge amounts of air and marine pollution. What’s being done to change this given the large number of everyday goods that travel this way?
—JJ, Newark, NJ

The vast majority of goods we use and enjoy have spent at least some time traveling on cargo ships. In fact, such ships facilitate more than 80 percent of global trade. Unfortunately, these huge ships that ply the world’s oceans and waterways burn lots of fossil fuels—some individual ships burn upwards of 100 tons of oil a day. If the global cargo shipping industry were a country, it would rank sixth overall in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (higher than South Korea, Iran, and Canada).

Some 80 percent of goods for sale around the world make their way from point A to B on a cargo ship, so cleaning up this industry is key to greening the overall economy. Credit: Chuttersnap, Unsplash.

Cargo ships have several other negative environmental effects as well. They also emit large amounts of fine particles, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide—all bad for us and our environment. As if the emissions weren’t bad enough, cargo ships also run into marine life at an alarming rate: Ship strikes are one of the leading causes of death for many of the world’s whale species.

But as bad as all this sounds, cargo shipping is one of the most efficient and eco-friendly ways to get items from point A to B. Big ships emit only about half as much CO2 as trains, one-fifth as much as trucks and only one-fiftieth of what airplanes would emit to transport the same load.

Nonetheless, environmental concerns continue to dog cargo shipping. In response, shipping companies have started to employ innovative strategies to save fuel and reduce pollution, such as so-called “slow steaming” whereby ships can burn less fuel and reduce emissions by traveling more slowly than usual.

Transitioning to cleaner fuels—such as liquified natural gas (LNG)—is another obvious short-term solution, but it can only get us so far. Another band-aid fix is the installation of exhaust scrubbers, which spray a fine mist of water to remove pollutants from ships’ exhaust before they can make their way up into the atmosphere. But scrubbers require energy, which leads to more fuel being burned. Also, the wastewater they generate is sometimes dumped into the ocean, which negatively affects marine organisms.

Longer term, environmental advocates are hoping for the wholesale decarbonization of the shipping industry. Plans are on the table for clean-burning hydrogen-powered cargo ships. Meanwhile, the first electrically-propelled cargo ship, Norway’s Yara Birkeland, is nearing completion. This 260-foot long vessel will carry chemicals and fertilizer on a relatively short 30-mile route.

Despite these advances, cargo shipping will continue releasing large amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere for the foreseeable future. Though battery-powered ships are finally moving off the drawing board and into the water, their range is simply too limited to allow for mass replacement of existing cargo fleets. The energy density of batteries will need to increase by a factor of ~30 before such replacements can begin taking place en masse. Given the likely slow pace of change, buying local is probably the average citizen’s best option for reducing shipping-based emissions in the short term.

CONTACTS: “The environmental cost of shipping stuff is huge…,” “CO2 emissions for shipping of goods,” “Shipping and climate change,” The uncounted cost of shipping’s environmental impact.

EarthTalk® is produced by Roddy Scheer & Doug Moss for the 501(c)3 nonprofit EarthTalk. Send questions to: question@earthtalk.org.