In the brink of extinction - many freshwater fish

Tiistai 12.12.2023 klo 17.23 - Mikko Nikinmaa

When I did my Ph.D. thesis 40-45 years ago, the topic: effects of temperature and hypoxia on respiration of rainbow trout, was hardly noticed by the general public. In 1976 we, biology students arranged a theme evening about the pollution of the Baltic  Sea and invited media. Nobody came, and when I asked a newspaper reporter why that was the case, he answered that the topic had no general interest. I wish the situation were the same today: fish would not suffer from pollution, increased temperature and decreased oxygen level. Unfortunately that is wishful thinking.

IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) has recently updated its Red List with very worrying information of fish, particularly freshwater fish. A quarter of the freshwater species is in immediate danger of extinction. The most important proximate cause is pollution, but toxicant effects cannot be separated from temperature increases and eutrophication, which causes oxygen lack. All of the previous problems increase parasite loads and cause fish diseases. In addition, overfishing and building of waterways, which has destroyed spawning sites or made it impossible to reach them, decreases fish populations.

Below I give a couple of examples of how all of the above cause the disappearance of specific species. First, eels are critically endangered species, which are characterized by their catadromous way of life and long spawning migrations. They grow and reach maturity in freshwater. Their migration from sea to freshwater feeding sites is critically dependent on smell sensing, which is dramatically disturbed by pesticides and metals. Consequently, those types of pollution may be an important cause of declining eel populations. Second, burbot is a coldwater fish. It spawns in the middle of winter, and it is ice-fished in January-February to get the fish and its eggs for soup. Now that the temperature is increasing, burbot is already living at the high end of its temperature tolerance, and may soon become extinct. Another group of coldwater fish is salmon and its relatives. In addition, it requires clear water with high oxygen content. Since both an increase in temperature and eutrophication decrease the oxygen level, salmon and its relatives may become extinct. Lampreys have succeeded in temperate waters for 500 000 000 years. Many of the species live in sea as adults, but spawn in rivers. Because of building of waterways, e.g. hydroelectric power plants, their long saga may be coming to the end. Finally, aquarium hobby is very popular throughout the world. Many of the ornamental fish do not reproduce in captivity, and are thus fished wild. This has made many species endangered because of overfishing.

 

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: environmental pollution, climate change, overfishing, eel, salmon, oxygen, hypoxia

Russia and environmental protection

Lauantai 20.5.2023 klo 15.21 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Russia has now banned Greenpeace, because it demanded that Russia should take actions to combat environmental pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change. That actually says it all about the environmental policy of the present Russian government. Since Greenpeace dares to say that Russia should do something in terms of environmental protection, it is a hostile entity, and shall be banned. This attitude is typical for the Russian dictatorship. No-one is allowed to say anything that could suggest that Russia is not acting completely right. I suppose that all the talk about environmental pollution and climate change is just Western propaganda and lies. Russia is handling all environmental problems perfectly. To say anything else is hostility against Russia.

It doesn’t matter that Greenpeace is also criticizing environmental actions in Europe and North America. That criticism is founded according to Russian government, since Western countries do not carry out environmental protection admirably as Russia does (according to Russian government). It does not matter that environmental standards of Russian industry are low. It is only Western lies that environmental actions are only done, if a company is acting against agreements it has undersigned. It doesn’t matter that Russia is doing virtually nothing to change from fossil fuel-dependent society to fossil fuel-free one. It doesn’t matter that after Western tankers stopped shipping Russian oil, the standard of tankers has decreased increasing the probability of oil spills in the Baltic Sea.

I am afraid that only a revolution in Russia could change it to a more responsible country. Russian imperialism should end, maybe even the small ethnic areas, which now form Russian federation, should become sovereign nation states to enable fruitful dialogue and actions for environmental protection.

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: climate change, fossil fuels, environmental pollution, environmental actions

Another war victim - the environment

Torstai 27.4.2023 klo 17.09 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Among military professionals, toxicologists are an important group. They evaluate especially the environmental toxicity of ammunition. Apart from the actual bullets the explosives are of important concern. The information obtained can be summed up in short: the toxicity of ammunition is likely to affect the ecosystem in the vicinity of military practice grounds, shooting range, and military operations.

EU has banned lead shots in shotguns in wetlands because of the significant toxicity of lead to animals living there. It is not just overreaction by animal welfare people, but hundreds of articles show that lead from shotgun ammunition causes poisoning in aquatic areas. However, in comparison to the warfare carried out in the last years, the use of ammunition in hunting is minor. One would thus expect that the effects of chemicals in ammunition to the biota in the areas where war is fought is much larger than that of lead in wetlands.

We are daily reminded about the thousands of rounds of ammunition that are shot in Ukrainian soil. Shooting as such affects wildlife, but the toxic chemicals, explosives and metal – especially lead – ions, will make the environment quite unhealthy to animals (and also plants) for years to come. It is also significant that rains leach the toxic substances to areas, which otherwise would not experience significant contamination.

It is impossible to set numbers to the contamination caused by military operations. However, one may bear in mind that contamination issues are still significant in Vietnam, about 50 years after the end of the war. I am afraid that the environmental impact of Russian attack on Ukraine will be even worse than that of Vietnam war, as the amount of ammunition used daily is larger than in Vietnam.

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: ammunition toxicity, Ukrainian environment, lead toxicity, explosives

Russia is a problem - also environmentally

Sunnuntai 19.3.2023 klo 15.41 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Massive forest fires, melting permafrost with immense release of subterranean natural gas. No information about the environmental conditions in more than half of the arctic areas. The economy almost totally dependent on the exports of fossil fuels and mining products, which are produced with minimal concern about the environment in order to reduce production expenses. Shelling Ukrainian soil with ammunition; the compounds reaching the ground are known to be highly toxic.

That, in short, is Russia today. We have only read the news about the war Russia has started, but for the world the Russian – or at least Putin government’s – attitude to environmental questions may be even more detrimental. Whereas it is generally accepted that climate change is causing massive devastation of habitable areas, sinking coastal cities and island countries, Putin’s government appears to clap hands, as increasing temperatures will probably enable commercial shipping in the Arctic Ocean North of Siberia through the Northeastern Passage.

In the age of Soviet Union, terrible environmental disasters happened without any information about them in the Western world. For example, hundreds of thousands people died or were relocated when a nuclear arms storage site blew up. Chemical weapons were dumped in sea bottom as unknown sites. Western scientists had no way of checking what happens, because they had no contact with Russian scientists. The situation today is definitely not better, and maybe even worse, than at the time of Soviet Union. Putin’s Russia is closed like North Korea, virtually all the intellectuals which could alert of the existence of environmental problems have either been forced to emigrate or are in prison, and the government is anti-environmental. In view of this, the change of Russian government is needed in addition to stopping the war also for enabling sustainable life on the Earth.

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: sustainable life, climate change, environmental pollution, chemical weapons, arctic

Another disappointing climate meeting

Maanantai 21.11.2022 klo 15.47 - Mikko Nikinmaa

We know what should be done. We have the methods and technology to do it. There would even be enough funds to do it. Yet, combatting climate change remains at the stage of lip service. Politics does not enable climate actions to be done. It is very funny that the same politicians, who are so worried about our children inheriting debt are not really worried about giving our children an Earth, where only some places are truly inhabitable (or in the worst case not even that; the bleakest scenario has the Earth going the Venus way with average temperatures above 100 degrees Celsius).

Country leaders quarrel as to who should pay. Naturally, climate actions should not cost at all. Surprisingly many politicians do not accept the existence of climate change despite the heat waves, droughts, surprising floods, wildfires and melting glaciers. Oil-producing countries try to delay the transfer to not using oil, China tries to convince others that it is a developing country, which needs to get financial support to carrying climate actions. Small, rich countries have large groups of people saying that we need not do anything, as our contribution is necessarily so small that it does not affect world’s climate at all. Maybe a lot of the reluctance of politicians to do anything is due to the fact that they are overwhelmingly over 50 years old, and are living in the past. In their childhood climate change was not an issue.

So I, as an old-age pensioner, hope that there is a rapid generation shift in political leaders of the world. To me it appears that only people who have grown with acknowledging that climate change can seriously affect their life will be able to carry out the necessary actions even if the Gross National Product decreases because of them.

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: COP27, climate change, environmental politics

Physiological studies should be in the centre of climate change biology

Tiistai 12.4.2022 klo 15.49 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Climate change, and other environmental changes, affect the functions of organisms. The changes in populations and ecosystems follow these functional changes. If the functions of some organisms are not disturbed, the environmental change does not affect the ecosystem, if immigration and emigration can be accounted for.

These simple facts indicate that functional studies, i.e., physiology, should be in the centre of environmental biology. Indeed, a stone could have exactly the same molecules as an organism, but without functions it would still be a stone. However, physiological studies are marginalized in climate change research and environmental biology – there are less than 1/10th of published physiological articles as compared to ecological articles within environmental biology. Furthermore, studies on animals account for less than 1/3rd of the physiological studies.

In short, one carries out extensive ecological surveys and population genetic studies and observes that something has happened. This is the major problem with the research, it shows what has already occurred, but fails to evaluate why and how. With climate change research it is obvious that temperature increase plays a role, but only physiological studies can clarify, what the affected pathways are. Also, physiological investigations can answer in real time, if a disturbance is adequate to cause a perturbation in populations and ecosystems.

Climate change research as well as other environmental biology should be predictive. This requires that physiology becomes a central, not a marginal discipline. Studies require intensive, time-demanding work, which is often technically quite demanding. Because of this, the number of scientists working on physiological questions should be drastically increased. Only this makes it possible to turn environmental and climate change biology to predictive science, which is required to combat environmental problems.

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: ecophysiology, ecology, environmental pollution, temperature

COP26 Summit

Maanantai 1.11.2021 klo 16.06 - Mikko Nikinmaa

The Glasgow Climate Summit has started with most world leaders present. Undoubtedly, we will hear many promises of climate deeds. However, words do not often translate to actions. If the words promising climate deeds had become reality, we possibly would not have the present climate emergency. Further, there are three important world leaders missing, Xi from China, Putin from Russia and Bolsonaro from Brazil. Although reasons for their absence have been given, it shows their preferences: and climate is not their number one.

What is really interesting is that commercial sector seems to be more eager to apply new climate-friendly technologies than many governments. This is likely due to the companies understanding that the new approaches give them an advantage in an area that is definitely becoming important. On the other hand, many politicians are afraid of losing the support of their conservative funders and voters. It is really surprising that almost half of the populations in European and North American countries think that climate change is not a serious problem despite the Arctic heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires and hurricanes.

In the coming two weeks, it is likely that one of the border lines will again be between the developed and developing nations. Hitherto China has always considered itself to belong to the group of developing nations, which do not need to carry out as drastic climate actions as developed world. For most of the developing nations the carbon footprint per capita is much smaller than that of developed nations: and average European has ten times greater carbon footprint than the average African. How can we rich Europeans say that the poor Africans are not allowed to have the same energy use as we are. However, this argument does not apply to China any more. An average Chinese has a bigger carbon footprint than a European. This means that the energy use for high material standard of living can be diminished, like it has been done in Europe for the past 30 years. Thus, China should stop claiming that it needs to increase its carbon footprint to reach the same standard of living as Europe.

One of the pressing problems with manufactured goods is that much of the energy-demanding and polluting industry has been removed from Europe and relocated in Asia or Africa, where energy and environmental laws are nonexistent or much more lenient than in Europe. Yet, the markets are almost completely here. This being the case, the Climate Summit should generate a mechanism by which the end user would be responsible for the carbon (and other environmental) footprint of any imported product. One could, e.g., require that any product sold/imported to Europe would have a carbon/environmental tax collected towards improving the energy/environmental standards in the place of production to European levels. Naturally this would increase the prices, but wouldn’t it be fair, as the consumer of the product would pay the cost required to combat climate change and other environmental deterioration.

The above would also make the following statement, used by the people who are not willing to do anything to combat climate change, invalid. “Why should we do anything, things are done here already. Climate actions should be done in places, which cause the problem.” If the costs of climate actions were included in the use of imported products, we would only pay for the climate actions caused by us.

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: climate change, carbon tax, china, environmental standards

Population Growth and Climate Change

Keskiviikko 28.7.2021 klo 19.00 - Mikko Nikinmaa

When one says that stopping population growth is an important component of combatting climate change and deterioration of environment in general, one is often accused of being racist or if not that, claimed to be just another person from rich industrialized countries trying to shift the focus from our overconsumption to the poor countries, who use hardly any resources. However, I would say that people claiming that population growth should not be discussed when addressing climate change and environmental deterioration are themselves not considering the poor people and their social justice, and are instead effectively saying: “Yes, we in rich countries should decrease our consumption, but people in the poor countries should not strive to increase their standard of living to enable sustainable life.”

Recently, Wolff, Ripple and Crist wrote in Sustainability Science (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-00951-w; April 2021) about the need of stopping population growth in combatting climate change and environmental deterioration. They and I are aware that the compulsory decrease of childbearing is not the way to go forward, because that is both racist and colonial thinking of the rich. But there are two major ways with which the number of children can be decreased and which improve the quality of life of those concerned. First, women’s status in many of the poor countries should be improved. It is very unfortunate that often the macho male superiority persists and women are hardly anything but childbearing machines; the status of males can depend on the number of children. In the patriarchal societies, women can be raped, forced to marry as children and only go out if accompanied by a male. Second, and associated with the first, women’s education should be improved. Wherever these actions have been done, birth rate has decreased radically. To a smaller extent the same happens with male education, so improving education is a very good way of affecting population growth. However, education is strongly suppressed by authoritarian societies like the Taliban, ISIS and Saudi societies.

Social equality within the poor societies is a great problem, but inequality between rich North and poor South is an even bigger problem. It is terrible that some billionaires spend millions to go to a short space flights for fun instead of using the money for education in poor countries. Well, greed is the major cause of climate change and environmental deterioration. Also, it is quite terrible to read that many people would like to decrease developmental aid, at the same time saying that immigration from poor countries should be stopped and the causes of emigration taken care of in the poor countries themselves. How can the causes be fixed, if funds for it are not allocated? And it does not suffice to say that developmental aid should be stopped, because the money should be used for our own poor. Our own poor would be rich people in the poor countries. Besides, the same people are ready to spend a lot in policing and border control to prevent immigration. The money needed for that would decrease, if inequality between rich North and poor South would decrease by increasing developmental aid.

In addition, the immigration problem, heat waves, floods, forest fires, loss of biodiversity etc. are problems that get only worse if one does not think globally. Environmental globalism, which aims to decrease global inequality, is the key to combat climate change and environmental deterioration. 

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: social inequality, environmental deterioration, developmental aid, immigration

Carbon taxes first, then environmental taxes

Torstai 15.7.2021 klo 19.23 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Both European Union and USA are planning to introduce carbon taxes on imports from third countries with more lenient standards in coal use in production. Since these two areas are the most important users of, e.g., steel, which is among the products that will be taxed for coal use, also production in third countries will certainly soon fulfill US and European standards to avoid taxation.

This is a first step, which is hopefully followed by taxing all imports to Europe, which do not follow European environmental standards. Such measures will also affect companies having headquarters in Europe, as a lot of production has been relocated to areas with less strict environmental standards and lower wages. Such a change would be beneficial both to the third countries, as the environmental impacts of factories remaining there would be markedly reduced, and to the European countries, as some production would certainly return Europe because the costs in the “cheap countries” would increase towards European costs.

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: climate change, environmental pollution, environmental economics

The times they are a-changin'

Maanantai 12.7.2021 klo 18.49 - Mikko Nikinmaa

A change is the most terrible thing that the human mind can envision. This is actually the reason, why climate actions are so difficult to carry out. Many if not most people think that we cannot accept changes to our way of life, since they would mean that things will become worse. Whenever questionnaires about climate attitudes are made, they show this resistance to change to be a problem even to the people making the questions. Generally, a question asked is: “Do you think you have been required to give up something because of climate actions?” This question as such indicates that change is negative, and the best thing would be if one could continue with the old ways. Instead, the question should be: “Do you envision that combatting climate change have or will require changes in your way of life?”

The times they are a-changin’. But the changes do not necessarily mean that the quality of life decreases, maybe it would improve; a little less hurry, a little less competition, a little more time to do whatever one wishes. Maybe we could use less resources, buy only one third of the clothes we buy today etc. This may sound socialistic, but it is difficult for me to see that some companies earn billions (in €, £ or $) yet out of those profits only 1-2 % is tax revenue, while at the same time a person earning 50000 pays often 30-40 % of the income in taxes. And both the income differences have increased and taxes of the rich generally decreased while those of the normal taxpayer have increased throughout rich countries. If one required the richest 1 % of population to spend 5 % of their yearly profits to climate actions and if 20 % of the world’s military spending was used to improve the quality of life of poor people, most present problems would be solved. The likelihood that military force would be required anywhere would be markedly reduced.

The times they are a-changin’. What was good in 1960’s is not appropriate now. We have the means to combat climate change and social inequality of people, but to do that a radical change in our attitudes is required.

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: climate change, environmental economics

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Keskiviikko 24.2.2021 klo 16.55 - Mikko Nikinmaa

People throw all kinds of thrash all around the place. As a school boy I did a little survey of  trash in roadsides and swimming strands in South Wales. Already at that time the cigarette ends  were very common. And they are a major source of microplastics. With the tide they are washed to the ocean, and start their long-lasting voyage in the sea.

Similarly, people throw all the wrappings, bags and everything else out of the car windows after they have eaten in the car. The car needs to be tidy, but the roadside doesn't since it is soon out of sight. Similarly, bikes, refridgerators etc are just dumped into rivers and lakes, as they sink to the bottom and are out of sight. All kinds of trash are flowing via short pipes to the ocen as long as they are not visible. When the trash is seen, the length of pipes is increased. Different poison barrels are just sunk from boats to the bottom of lakes and seas - out of sight, out of mind.

Environmental crimes, dumping of toxic material, plastic etc, are hardly ever investigated. It is  commonly considered that environmental contamination is not a crime. This attitude has now resulted in the massive plastic waste gyres in the ocans. What has earlier been out of sight has now become visible. Further, the toxins that have been dumped all around the place, start causing effects on organisms. So, it is not out of sight, out of mind any more, since harmful effects are visible.

What should be done is to start collecting all the trash, and make environmental crimes punishable. If both of those things were done the out of sight, out of mind attitude would soon disappear. That would be important for the sake of the environment. 

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: trash, plastic pollution, environmental contamination

And he is not even US President yet

Keskiviikko 25.11.2020 klo 14.19 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Despite the fact that Trump tried to steal the presidential election (what else can one say, when he got 6 million votes less than Biden, and has not accepted defeat – claiming fraud without any evidence), President-elect Biden has gone forward with his transition team.

What he has done so far indicates that we are changing from environment-hostile to environment-friendly government in USA. It is quite clear that climate change is an important focus of government. This is shown by the appointment of a climate envoy, John Kerry, in the government. It is notable that as a State Secretary John Kerry signed the Paris Climate Accord. It appears that the Biden government has already realized that it cannot continue the “living in the past”-mode of USA, since it would also mean that the competitive edge of American industry decreases. Even the car industry has started to realize this. General Motors reversed its position in the Federal (Trump) Government vs. California court case, where the government says that California may not impose stricter environmental standards for exhaust fumes than are the legislation elsewhere in USA.

These positive changes have happened already, before Biden administration has started. So, one can have high hopes that in the next four years USA resumes its standing as one of the nations trying to be forward-looking in environmental questions.

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: climate change, environmental protection, auto industry

Environmental effects are complex; that is the problem

Torstai 15.10.2020 klo 14.19 - Mikko Nikinmaa

In any natural environment all animals, here I am focusing on fish, experience changes in temperature, parasite infections etc. On top of that become all the anthropogenic contaminants, metals, pesticides, flame retardants, pharmaceuticals, personal care products and so on. The complex cocktail can affect organisms directly and indirectly, and a change in any variable can affect the growth, health and survival of them.gudgeon.jpg

Because it is very difficult to study, how the environmental heterogeneity and its changes affect animals, most studies use a defined set of abiotic conditions and one pollutant. While this gives much valuable information, it should be remembered that for example a change in temperature, oxygen level, age of animal, salinity of water and the presence of other contaminants can influence the observed result. Occasionally, one gets the surprising finding that what we think as a pollutant and thus expect a negative effect actually increases the tolerance to an environmental change. For example, when we studied the effects of oil pollution on the thermal tolerance of juvenile fish (rainbow trout and European sea bass), we observed that the oil-exposed fish, if anything, tolerated high temperature better than control specimens (Anttila et al 2017, Environ Sci Pollut Res DOI 10.1007/s11356-017-9609-x). Recently, Petitjean et al (Science of The Total Environment Volume 742, 10 November 2020, 140657) have studied gudgeons in six French rivers, and observed clear interactions between the metal loads and temperatures the fish experience: an increase of metal load at high temperature reduces growth. Naturally, this survey conducted in natural environment cannot differentiate between direct and indirect effects of metals. It remains as a possibility that, e.g., the prey organisms of the fish are affected initially, whereby their availability decreases, decreasing the growth of fish.

Here I have focused on temperature, because we are currently undergoing a giant-scale natural event, climate change. It would be much simpler to evaluate, how temperature increase as such affects living functions, than take into account how temperature change affects responses to the mixture of environmental contaminants. The temperature effects can be completely opposite for different contaminants.

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: climate change, environmental pollution, toxicant, cocktail effects, fish, temperature

Because variability in redox signalling is important in temperature acclimation, toxicants causing oxidative stress may affect animal life in climate change situation in unknown ways.

Maanantai 14.9.2020 klo 16.53 - Mikko Nikinmaa

One of the most important disturbances caused by toxic chemicals on animals is oxidative stress. Chemicals with no structural similarity such as metals (Cu, Fe) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) can affect reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Redox balance plays a role in rhythmic functions, such as circadian (daily) rhythms, affects temperature acclimation and responses to low oxygen. As a consequence, many normal functions such as feeding and reproductive rhythms, activity patterns etc. can be affected by environmental disturbances. Further, the effects on normal physiological functions may occur at concentrations of chemicals, which do not appear to exert clear toxicity, but because for example feeding times are affected, subject animals to increased predation pressure or other indirect effects.

A further complicating factor is the pronounced individual variability, which normally helps populations to survive through unfavourable conditions. This can be an important component of temperature acclimation. Since ROS signalling plays a role in temperature acclimation, environmental chemicals affecting ROS level can influence the capability of animals to acclimate to new temperatures, and also affect the important component of population acclimation, individual variability.

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With the present climate change, the light-dark rhythms at a given temperature will be affected, making temperature acclimation more demanding than earlier. The level of difficulty is further increased by environmental chemicals, which affect redox balance. The complex interactions between environmental toxicants, individual variation, temperature/hypoxia acclimation and rhythms are far too poorly understood. This makes it impossible for us to predict how the occurring environmental changes affect animal populations in nature. It is possible, if not even likely, that we see disturbances in conditions that have been considered safe based on traditional toxicology

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Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: oxidative stress, individual variation, environmental contamination

American Presidential Race: Biden for the Environment

Torstai 16.7.2020 klo 19.14 - Mikko Nikinmaa

When I stayed a year in California, one of its greatest sides was the diverse environment. Seeing elephant seals, Yosemite, Sierra Nevada, redwood was great. The worst smogs were long past. Thinking back to the time 40 years ago it seems that in the presidential election this November one makes a choice between degradation and conservation of the environment (among many other things).

Trump has always put money first, regardless of what is destroyed IMG_20170727_0036.jpgwhile making money. This has been very obvious with the Covid-19 pandemic: the economy of the states was opened before the peak of infections was past. One sees the result now, whereas Europe is starting to recover also economically, USA is going back deeper into recession with increasing number of Covid-19 cases. The short-sighted thinking of economic growth would probably also hurt American economy, if Trump were able to carry out his environmental agenda – loosening restrictions, allowing pollution, increasing coal use, giving benefits to oil industry etc. Going in the past with the climate change looming is not an option, the future technologies are the ones offering profits, not the ones resorting to old technologies.

Luckily the democratic candidate John Biden is taking a completely opposite stand. He recently gave out a plan of putting 2 trillion dollars to environmental actions, if getting elected. (Being able to do this requires that also the senate will have democrats in majority). He also realizes that the environmentally sustainable technologies are the ones that can be profitable in future.

The American presidential race is also important for the rest of the world, since USA is the most important energy and natural resource consumer. What is the direction at the top in USA will affect the possibilities for any global environmental agreements.

 

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: climate change, energy consumption, environmental conservation

What is our heritage to future generations?

Maanantai 13.7.2020 klo 16.28 - Mikko Nikinmaa

As a child, one of my favourite books was a book of wild animals – I read all the stories of antelopes in Africa and looking at the photographs hoped that one day I would be able to go there. Almost every day I went birdwatching: curlews, whinchats, ruffs and ortolan buntings were common. As a scientist I was able to see sea otters, elephant seals, 

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echidnas, and finally was able to fulfil my childhood dream, see antelopes in Africa. The incredible variety of animal life in different parts of the world is something that I hope our grandchildren and their descendants are able to see. The hopes of a nature lover for a heritage to future generations may be somewhat different from those of economic circles.

As the major reason for nations not taking loans, politicians usually state that we don’t want to leave future generations debt. This has also been stated as a reason why the European Union should not give grants to the hardest hit nations. If the big relief package of the European Union is not accepted, the Union can break up. For the environment this would be a catastrophe, because EU is the only major economic player, which has environmental questions reasonably high in its agenda. The European nations as relatively small individual nations would be forced to accept the conditions that USA and China, and to some extent Russia, Brazil and India, demand. For the environment, this would be terrible news.

We have now come to a situation, where environmental conditions and national debt are choices of our heritage to future generations. If loans are taken in order to invest on actions that improve the future state of environment, I am quite sure that future generations would say: “Please, take loan. It is only money, whereas sustainable environment is much more.” I am also quite sure that they would say: “Please, accept the European Recovery Plan, it is the only way to maintain a responsible environmental player as a major economic factor.”

It is not leaving debt to future generations any more, it is choosing if we give them a liveable environment or no debt. I think debt is better than spoiled Earth.



Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: Biodiversity, national debt, sustainability, environmental investments

Physiological studies add a predictive component to modelling fish stocks

Perjantai 3.7.2020 klo 18.00 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Mirella Kanerva, Kristiina Vuori and us others have recently published a study about the  fitness of salmon during their feeding migration in different parts of the Baltic Sea (Kanerva et al. Environmentally driven changes in Baltic salmon oxidative status during marine migration, Science of the Total Environment, in press, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140259). The study is logi.jpgextremely difficult, since it tried to evaluate, how the physiological status of a commercially important fish species in natural environment is affected by food, water temperature and environmental pollution. It is noteworthy that we were able to show that factors affecting the oxidative status of the fish affected the fitness and seawater survival of the salmon. It was also possible to show that increased toxicant load, elevated temperature and cyanobacterial blooms already in the present Baltic Sea induce changes, which are measurable with physiological parameters, and are likely to affect recruitment of salmon.

The point about physiological measurements being able to predict changes in fitness and recruitment is revolutionary for fisheries biology. This is because earlier one has based all the models for stock estimations on retrospective observations on catches and spawning success. The findings of our study indicate  that physiological expertise can add a predictive component to recruitment models.

Our results also indicate, which parts of the Baltic Sea are most contaminated affecting the oxidative status of salmon. It is no surprise that effects are observed in the Gulf of Finland. However, these findings show that similar parameters could be used elsewhere to evaluate, if environmental contamination is serious enough to affect preferred fisheries species. Again, this adds a predictive component to earlier estimations based on retrospective data.

Hitherto, fish physiology has remained a small field, but our results indicate that it could play a major role in modelling fish stocks, because it adds a predictive component to models and thereby gives possibilities for more rapid fisheries decisions than are currently possible.

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: fisheries biology, stock estimation, environmental pollution, oxidative stress

World Seas are in peril: Hypoxia in Baltic Sea as an example

Perjantai 5.6.2020 klo 18.40 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Human activities have affected world seas in various ways. A three-volume book on environmental evaluation of world seas has just been published by Elsevier (World Seas: an Environmental Evaluation). In two volumes it evaluates the environmental statuses of different sea areas and in one volume the major environmental problems affecting marine environments. The book’s aim is both to evaluate the present statuworld_seas.gifs and to evaluate the future of the seas. It would be impossible to give a comprehensive review of the book’s contents, so I take one environmental problem, hypoxia, in one sea area, the Baltic Sea as an example.

There have always been virtually anoxic bottom areas in the Baltic Sea, but they have increased markedly because of human actions. For example, the area with low oxygen (less than 2 mg/l) has increased tenfold from preindustrial times. The main reason for hypoxic/anoxic sea bottoms is that for about 50 years paper and pulp mill industry’s wastewater was entered the sea uncleaned. The biological oxygen consumption of the waste is approximately the same as that of 100 million people’s waste. Since the waste of tens of millions of people also entered the sea without treatment, the sea bottom now contains so much organic material and nutrients that even without any further wastewater or fertilizer discharges, the Baltic Sea would remain eutrophicated and have large hypoxic areas for tens of years.

Hypoxia is caused by the consumption of oxygen by organisms or organic material, if it exceeds the diffusion of oxygen from atmosphere and its transport from oxygen-rich waters. In the Baltic Sea the water is stratified, and the high-temperature, low- salinity water which is oxygen-rich does not circulate with the dense oxygen-poor bottom water. The bottoms get oxygenated water only, when pulses of oceanic oxygen-rich waters displace the bottom areas. When this happens, the low-oxygen water, which has high nutrient content, will be transported to lower depths and to  Gulf of Finland and also in small amount to Gulf of Bothnia. Because large amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen are liberated, primary production increases, and generation of hypoxia occurs in new areas. The increase of temperature causes increased oxygen consumption of all poikilothermic animals. Thus, climate change increases the likelihood of hypoxic periods. Also, if the predictions of increased rainfall during winter remain accurate, the phopshorus and nitrogen discharges during natural river flow to the Baltic increase markedly.

Although eutrophication is usually linked only to increased plant, algal and cyanobacterial growth, the end result is always hypoxia. In shallow areas eutrophication leads to intermittent hypoxia.               During the day, when there is enough light for photosynthesis, green plants and algae liberate oxygen, and the water often becomes hyperoxic. At night plants, algae, bacteria and animals all only consume oygen, rendering water hypoxic. The oxygen consumption by animals always consumes oxygen, but probably the most important reason for hypoxia is the oxygen consumption of microbes, which eat up all the dead plants, algae, cyanobacteria and animals entering the bottom. There is a group of bacteria which forms bacterial mats to bottoms with very low oxygen.

If one considers communities, hypoxia generally decreases diversity and changes species composition. As an example, at group level, fish disappear first, and are replaced by jellyfish. Among macrofauna, polychaetes survive at lowest oxygen level. With lowering of oxygen level, microfauna and microbes replace macrofauna. Hypoxia reduces the growth of animals and as a consequence fish catches are reduced. Additionally, hypoxia-tolerant species are usually of reduced commercial value. Thus, the Baltic Sea fisheries are markedly suffering from the spreading of hypoxic areas.

                 

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: climate change, environmental pollution, eutrophication

Populistic nationalism has failed miserably, profit-greedy globalism is dead: It is time for One Earth thinking

Maanantai 23.3.2020 klo 12.17 - Mikko Nikinmaa

The populistic nationalism has completely failed in all the major problems that humankind has faced during recent years. Despite this it is said that internationalism is having problems, not the populistic nationalism. The populists have utterly failed in:

1. The immigration/refugee question.

The populistic nationalism wants no immigration, as because of it resources must be used to supporting refugees instead of our own poor, sick, jobless and old people. Further, the immigrants are criminals, rapists etc – they just plan evil things all the time. The populist wants the immigrant problem to be solved in the immigrants’ home countries, but is against giving any money to foreign aid, since it would better be used in the populist’s home country.

In an ideal world, immigration would not be a problem, because everyone would be happy to stay where they live. The problem is the huge contrast with, e.g., rich Europe and poor Africa: when 25 world’s richest people have approximately the same wealth as 25 % of world’s population together, it is no wonder that poor Africans will want to migrate to rich Europe. The populist denounces such economic immigration, but in that case also the emigration of Europeans to America and Australia, the exodus of Finns to Sweden etc should be denounced, in most of those cases people were not under death threat but wanted a better life. Now the populist does not want that to be possible for other people.

Besides, many countries in Europe are suffering from so low birth rate that new people are needed. Because of the hostile attitude of populist nationalists, the integration of immigrants to western societies is quite difficult, and actually generates the breeding ground for different terrorist movements, violence and crime. The poor integration has persisted a long time, although even the populist was cheering for France in soccer world cup. This despite the fact that almost all players in French team were either themselves, or descendants of, those unwelcome immigrants. It must be acknowledged that one cannot accept the gender inequality, which is unfortunately very common, and the immigrant needs to accept the values of the society to which one is integrating. However, I am certain that if the immigrant feels welcome, and can fit within the working life, goo integration is more likely than in the hostile atmosphere created by the populistic nationalists.

2. Climate change and other environmental problems

As a starting point one must state that one cannot prevent any environmental contaminant or climate problem to cross national borders. Thus, a nationalistic IMG_20170804_0080.jpgapproach is doomed to fail. A common claim by populist is that: “We do what is required, but those others don’t.” And in the case of small countries like Finland, Sweden and Norway that: “Our contribution to global contamination is so small that even if we stopped all our emissions, it would change the global emissions much below 1 %.” Again, the statement that European industry is cleaner than, e.g., Indian, is true, but the populist buys Indian products, because they are much cheaper than the products made in European countries. Thus, if the populist nationalist was consequent, he would spend money to make the environmental standards of factories in Asia to conform to European standards or require that production, which has been moved away, is brought back, and thereafter only buy the domestic, more expensive products. Since neither is likely to happen, populistic nationalist fails gravely in climate issues. Notably, adopting children from poor areas would be both a climate deed and an action decreasing global inequality while increasing the number of people in countries with low reproduction rate.

3. Combatting coronavirus crisis.

The spreading of coronavirus clearly shows that today it is impossible to keep any disease within one place. Yet, all the nations have reacted to the situation by closing national borders. This fits well with the populistic nationalist thinking, but is probably not the best way to contain the disease. While it is clear that closing certain areas would have been an important component of action in any case, the most appropriate areal closures would probably not have followed national boundaries. Further, it would have been much more cost-effective, if uniform testing was done everywhere, and if, e.g. European health personnel could have been moved according to needs. Also, the materials needed would have been sent where they are required, not stored within a nation in case that they are needed there later.

It is further quite important to remember that nationalism is only about 150 years old. What was Italy 200 years ago – or Germany – a collection of city states. Since populistic nationalism also fails in the most important problems that mankind has recently faced, and only appears to create hate, discrimination, inequality and always blames everyone else without even trying to create constructive solutions, isn’t it time to cast that ugly parasite from our midst so that we can try to generate a world, where everyone has a place.

Another ugly parasite is profit-greedy globalism. It has nothing to do with thinking globally. Its purpose is only to minimize expenses and maximize profits, and to avoid paying taxes of the maximized profits. The expenses are minimized on the cost of people and environment. Partly the costs are minimized by transferring production to cheap-labour countries, partly by producing materials without virtually any prevention of pollution. This way it is possible to generate profits and pay virtually no tax. I do not think it is fair that taxpayer may have to pay more than 40 % of his income as tax, but a big, successful company 0.1 %. The coronavirus crisis has now shown that this way of production is not possible in crisis situations. The supply chains have become too long, and since no stores are maintained in order to cut production costs, a final product can be 95 % ready, but cannot be finalized, because the remaining components cannot be produced, e.g. as a result of epidemy-induced breakdowns in production. Further, to save costs, the production of primary components/raw material may in profit-greedy globalism occur in one or two places in the world. If these places encounter any difficulties in production, then the final product cannot be generated.

Both the populistic nationalism and profit-greedy globalism can be combatted, if one works as united world. The One Earth-movement should work to diminish inequality – the 25 richest people in the world would hardly notice, if their wealth were halved, and used to improve the living conditions of the poor. The environmental standards of production would be brought to European level, making the environment near African and Asian places of production much cleaner than today. Some of the production would be transferred back to European countries to shorten supply chains. Rich countries would reduce their energy and resource consumption which could be correspondingly increased in developing countries, which in return decrease their population growth. These changes can make the future sustainable to the world. However, it cannot be done with nationalistic decisions, but requires united world.

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: climate change, immigration, environmental pollution, inequality

Functional changes are at the heart of encironmental biology

Maanantai 2.3.2020 klo 15.21 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Environmental changes and pollution will only have an ecological effect, if they affect the function of some organisms in the ecosystem. Consequently, any environmental effect must be primarily functional, i.e. physiological. Toxicology is studying functional disturbances.

On the basis of the above three lines, environmental (and also evolutionary) biology must be based on functional studies and explanations. In view of this, it is very inappropriate that environmental physiology remains a minor discipline in enviroFigure_11.1.jpgnmental biology and toxicology, and evolutionary biology as compared to ecology and genetics. My ecologist and geneticist friends always disagree with this, and give the following arguments. The ecologist says that many of the effects are indirect, which thus shows that only ecological studies can explain the effects. However, the effect may be indirect to the species (or group) one is studying, but there must be a functional effect on some organism in the ecosystem. If there weren’t, there would be no change. The geneticist and evolutionary biologist says that only the genetic changes will be transmitted to future generations. Thus, if an environmental change has an effect in the genome, that will be the important effect. While it is true that only genetically coded effect will be transmitted over many generations, a genetic change will only manifest itself if it affects the functions of organism in such a way that fitness (i.e. the number of offspring reaching sexual maturity) is affected. If the genetic change does not affect any functions, it is neutral both from the environmental and evolutionary viewpoint.

In fact, function (i.e. physiology) is what makes a difference between a stone and organism. A stone could have exactly the same molecules as an animal, but without functions (physiology) it would still be a stone.

Kommentoi kirjoitusta. Avainsanat: toxicology, environmental pollution, physiology

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