Lawn Chemicals And Canine Cancer, Q&A With EarthTalk

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Is it true that lawn chemicals can cause canine cancer, and if so, how can I protect my dog?
–Bill W., Ithaca, NY

Unfortunately, the answer may very well be yes. A 2012 study published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal, Environmental Research, found that exposure to certain lawn care products, such as the nearly ubiquitous herbicide 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2 4-D for short), increases dogs’ chances of developing Canine Malignant Lymphoma (CML) by 70 percent. When ingested repeatedly, 2 4-D acts as an endocrine disruptor, mutating a dog’s white blood cell count allowing malignant tumor cells to replicate unchecked. While obviously worrisome for dogs and those of us who love them, the implications for people aren’t good either, given the similarities between the onset of CML in canines and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in humans.

Dog on lawn
Maybe you shouldn’t let your dog run free at the park — or in your neighbor’s yard — if carcinogenic chemicals are used on the lawn. Credit: Brett Sayles, Pexels.

A 2013 study in another peer-reviewed journal, Science of the Total Environment, found that “exposure to herbicide-treated lawns has been associated with significantly higher bladder cancer risk in dogs.” Certain breeds of dogs (terriers, beagles, sheep dogs) are at greater risk, but needless to say lots of 2 4-D or other synthetic lawn chemicals like glyphosate (the active ingredient in RoundUp) aren’t good for dogs of any stripe. “A strong justification for the work was that dogs may serve as sentinels for potentially harmful environmental exposures in humans,” report the researchers behind the bladder cancer study.

What can you do to help prevent more dogs (and humans) from getting sick? For starters, avoid using lawn care chemicals around your home. And if you hire or manage someone else to take care of your yard, make sure they are not using 2 4-D, glyphosate or any other potentially hazardous pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. Getting rid of your lawn altogether and replacing it with regionally adapted native plants that don’t need fertilizers or pesticides to thrive is another way to protect dogs from chemicals while saving yourself the trouble of having to mow the lawn.

If you can’t live without a grassy green lawn and can’t bear to just let it go wild, opt for all-natural, organic inputs. For instance, organic compost distributed across your lawn with a shovel in a thin layer can do just as well or better at nourishing your grass as chemical fertilizers. For weed control (beyond good-old hand-pulling), a great all-natural alternative to RoundUp is BurnOut, which uses the power of food-grade vinegar and clove oil instead of glyphosate to eradicate unwanted plants.

As for protecting your dog while out on a walk, steer clear of private lawns, even if you have to leash Fido to keep him out of neighbors’ yards. And the days of letting your dog run free in parks where your municipality may use questionable landscaping chemicals are over now that we know the potential consequences. Fortunately, many enlightened cities and towns have taken steps to rid their publicly accessible lands of such hazardous treatments. But you won’t know unless you ask, so contact your local parks department to find out exactly what they’re spraying. And if you don’t like the answer, rally other dog owners to help get it changed, for dogs’ sake.

CONTACTS: “Household Chemical Exposures and the Risk of Canine Malignant Lymphoma, a Model for Human Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma“; “Detection of herbicides in the urine of pet dogs following home lawn chemical application”; BurnOut Weed and Grass Killer.

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

Paper Production, Q&A With EarthTalk

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You don’t hear much anymore about the cutting of our forests to make paper. Has this destructive practice just moved overseas where we don’t have to confront it, or have increases in recycling in recent years made paper production less destructive?
– J. W., Greenville, SC

It’s true that saving paper (and in turn saving trees) used to be a big discussion topic at home, school and office, but these days you don’t hear much about it. This is likely because paper recycling has become ubiquitous; most of us are now well-versed in how to sort recyclable paper from other “waste.”

According to the American Paper and Forest Association (AF&PA), upwards of two-thirds of all paper consumed in the U.S. was recovered for recycling in 2018. What this means is that a lot of the paper we use now gets made with recycled materials that don’t cause more logging and deforestation.

A big player in this march forward has been the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international non-profit that sets standards on forest products and then certifies and labels those that meet the standards as eco-friendly. Another major factor has been the establishment of guidelines set forth and agreed to by 200 governmental and other entities in 2014’s New York Declaration of Forests (NYDP), an international agreement to “end natural forest loss” by 2030.

Despite this progress, deforestation for paper still continues unabated in Indonesia and other parts of the developing world where government oversight is non-existent and profit incentives are too great for illegal loggers to ignore. Some 10 percent of global deforestation (a major driver of climate change) is due to logging for wood products including paper, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

UCS reports that clearing tropical forests and replacing them with mono-cultural plantations of so-called “fastwood” trees like acacia, partly to make virgin paper, accounts for more deforestation across Indonesia than more infamous environmental bogeymen like palm oil production and coal mining. “This is particularly harmful because about a quarter of fastwood plantations were cleared on carbon-rich peat soils,” reports UCS, “adding significantly to global warming pollution.”

The forests of Indonesia are still falling to feed the world’s demand for paper products. Credit: Tom Fisk, Pexels

Beyond recycled paper itself, there are some promising alternatives to wood pulp as a feedstock for paper production. Some well-known alt-paper feedstocks include fiber crops like bamboo, kenaf, hemp, flax and jute, agricultural scraps such as sugarcane bagasse, corn husks or straw, and textiles left-over in the production of fabrics and rope. A newer entrant in the green paper alternatives playing field is calcium carbonate—literally rock dust—which is made by pulverizing construction waste and fusing it together with plastic before compressing it with massive rollers into its final paper-thin form.

What about, you might ask, the rapidly-growing digital age we find ourselves in now? Isn’t that saving trees? Yes, but consider the electricity load of all the computers, tablets and phones, as well as the server farms and network switching facilities that keep your e-mail inbox full and your Facebook feed full of new content. They’re largely powered by coal and other fossil fuels. Our addiction to digital information might just be taking a larger toll on the planet than if we still got our information the old-fashioned way—from actual books, magazines, newspapers and printed reports.

CONTACTS: AF&PA; UCS; FSC; New York Declaration of Forests.

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

Oceanographer John Englander Discusses Sea-Level Rise

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John Englander is an oceanographer, consultant, and leading expert on sea-level rise. His broad marine science background, explorations to Greenland and Antarctica, and research provide him the ability to see the big picture of sea-level rise and its societal impacts.

In this clip, John points out that various tipping points appear to be cascading. Some examples he cites include the Arctic sea ice melting quicker. It is responsible for changing weather patterns and could be involved with slowing down the ocean currents.

He points out that the number of people that are vulnerable to flooding as sea-level rises is difficult to define. If sea-level becomes one meter higher or one point one meters higher, the extra 10 centimeters is hard to extrapolate or project onto how many homes would flood. Today, satellite images provide a more accurate picture of the height of the terrain the topography. In prior years, tree canopy looked like land and flooding projections were more conservative. Now, artificial intelligence and machine learning, help us decipher the actual land height and acknowledge that more people are vulnerable to flooding.

He points out that even if we could somehow magically stop all carbon dioxide emissions, we would still have the effects of the heat already stored in the atmosphere. All the strange weather patterns, the fires, and droughts, will not go away immediately even if we could reduce carbon dioxide emissions to zero. Therefore, we have to be more resilient to these extreme weather events.

John works with businesses, governmental agencies and communities to understand the risks of increased flooding due to rising seas, extreme tides, and severe storms, advocating for “intelligent adaptation”.