Study of Mercury Pollution in Northeastern U.S.

Chemical and Biological Control of Mercury Cycling in Upland, Wetland and Lake Ecosystems in the Northeastern U.S.

EPA Grant Number: R827633 Title: Chemical and Biological Control of Mercury Cycling in Upland, Wetland and Lake Ecosystems in the Northeastern U.S.

Project Period: November 1, 1999 through October 31, 2002 (Extended to October 31, 2003)

Description:
Widespread contamination of mercury in remote aquatic environments due to atmospheric deposition, and consequent high concentrations in the biota, demand an improved understanding of the mechanisms of mercury transformations and cycling in lake/watershed ecosystems. Previous studies have reported elevated concentrations of mercury in the water column and in fish in lakes in the Adirondack region of New York. Concentrations of mercury in fish tissue have been shown to increase with decreasing pH, suggesting a link between mercury accumulation and surface water acidification. Lakes which receive drainage from wetlands are characterized by high concentration of methylmercury because of elevated rates of methylation that occur in these environments but low bioconcentration of mercury in fish due to the supply of dissolved organic carbon which decreases the bioavailability of methylmercury. Recent paleolimnological studies have shown marked (3.5x) increases in sediment mercury deposition since 1850, suggesting that increases in atmospheric mercury deposition have contributed to the regional contamination of mercury. Moreover, these studies suggest that watershed retention of mercury has decreased markedly over the last 60 years, from 95% retention of atmospheric mercury deposition in the 1930s to 75% retention today. As a result there is an acute need to clarify the chemical and biological processes regulating the transport, fate and bioavailability of mercury in soft-water lake/watersheds of the northeastern U.S., and to develop and apply a simulation model to depict these processes.

Objective:

A detailed project was conducted on the biogeochemistry of mercury (Hg) at Sunday Lake, a forested wetland/lake/watershed in the Adirondack region of New York. The overall objective of this study was to improve understanding of the inputs, transport, transformations, and fate of Hg in upland forest, wetland, and lake ecosystems. The specific objectives of the research project were to: (1) quantify patterns of transport and transformations of mercury species in an upland northern hardwood forest through adjacent wetlands to the aquatic environment; (2) evaluate the processes and mechanisms controlling methyl Hg (CH3Hg+) concentrations and transport in pore water and surface water in wetlands; (3) evaluate historical patterns of Hg dynamics in soft-water lakes; and (4) develop and apply a lake/watershed Hg cycling model to a lake/watershed ecosystem.

Summary/Accomplishments:

Watershed measurements were taken, and a watershed mass balance study was conducted, including measurements of wet deposition, throughfall, litterfall, soil, soil water, vegetation, wetland porewater, hydrology, surface water chemistry, and aquatic biota. Sediment cores also were collected from eight lakes in the region to investigate historical patterns of Hg deposition. Finally, a Hg cycling model was developed and applied to Sunday Lake watershed.

Wet Hg deposition was 10.3 μg/m2-year, with 0.6 percent occurring as methyl Hg. Forest vegetation was important in mediating the inputs of Hg to the forest floor. Inputs of total Hg from litterfall and throughfall greatly exceeded wet Hg deposition, suggesting that dry deposition is 70 percent of the total Hg input to this forest ecosystem. The pathway of Hg inputs differed between coniferous and deciduous plots. Total Hg inputs at the coniferous plot largely occurred via throughfall, whereas litterfall dominated Hg inputs at the hardwood plot. Concentrations and fluxes of total Hg were elevated in forest floor leachate, with soil solution concentrations decreasing in the mineral soil. Likewise, soil concentrations of Hg were highest in the forest floor (13-188 ng/g) and decreased with increasing depth in the mineral soil. Concentrations of Hg in surface waters ranged from 1.9 to 4.6 ng/L, with methyl Hg concentrations from 0.2 to 2.53 ng/L. Atmospheric Hg deposition was retained in the watershed. Sunday Pond is a sink for inputs of total Hg. The watershed, particularly riparian wetlands, and the lake were net sources of methyl Hg to downstream surface waters. Concentrations of Hg increased with each trophic level in the aquatic food chain. Mercury bioconcentration factors were lower in zooplankton and in fish than have been reported in other studies, probably due to binding of methyl Hg with high concentrations of organic solutes.

Concentrations of total Hg and 210Pb date were determined in sections of sediment cores collected from eight lakes in the Adirondacks. Although there were lake-to-lake variations, on average, sites showed a 5.8-fold increase in sediment Hg deposition from background values (before 1900) to peak values. Hg deposition peaked (from 1973 to 1995) and decreased in recent years. Current sediment Hg deposition is 3.5 times background values. For a given year, sediment Hg deposition increased with increasing watershed area to lake surface area. Conducting this analysis for preanthropogenic conditions, we estimated the deposition of Hg to the surface of a perched seepage lake (i.e., watershed area to lake surface area of one) was 3.4 + 1.0 μg/m2-year. For modern conditions, we determined the deposition of Hg to the surface of a perched seepage lake was 8.6 + 2.4 μg/m2-year; a value similar to current estimates of wet Hg deposition. Using sediment deposition data across the project lakes, it appears that the retention of Hg in Adirondack lakes and watersheds has been decreasing over the past 200 years. The mechanism responsible for this decline is unclear.

The Hg biogeochemistry data collected in this project were used to develop and calibrate the Mercury Cycling Model for headwater drainage lakes. Hypothetical calculations have been conducted to evaluate the response of Sunday Lake to decreases in atmospheric Hg deposition.

The Redox Cycle of Mercury in Natural Waters
EPA Grant Number: R827915 Title: The Redox Cycle of Mercury in Natural Waters Investigators: Morel, Francois M. Institution: Princeton University EPA Project Officer: Stelz, Bill Project Period: October 11, 1999 through October 10, 2002 (Extended to October 10, 2003)

Description:
The objective of this project is to elucidate the parameters that control the flux of elemental mercury from natural waters to the atmosphere. To this end it is proposed to undertake a series of iterative laboratory and field experiments focused on the principal chemical and biological redox mechanisms that transform mercury between its divalent, Hg(II), and elemental, Hg(0), forms. The experimental plan is designed to test three complementary hypotheses based on preliminary data and the literature.
Hypothesis 1. Biological reduction of Hg(II) to Hg(0) is normally effected as a two electron transfer reaction by transmembrane metal reductases in photosynthetic microorganisms, phytoplankton, and cyanobacteria.
Hypothesis 2. Chemical reduction of Hg(II) occurs in two distinct one-electron transfer reactions: i) reduction of Hg(II) to Hg(I) which requires a high energy reductant (typically formed in the light) such as the superoxide anion or an organic radical (probably a semiquinone); ii) reduction of Hg(I) to Hg(0) by organic matter.
Hypothesis 3. Likewise, the oxidation of elemental mercury requires first oxidation of Hg(0) to Hg(I), likely effected by the same radicals, superoxide or semiquinones, and then oxidation of Hg(I) to Hg(II) by oxygen which is facilitated by chloride complexation of the ionic mercury species.

Final Report

Summary/Accomplishments:

The ultimate question in mercury research is how biogeochemical processes and transformations help influence methylmercury exposure to humans and wildlife. We have responded to this challenge by studying three poorly understood processes critical in determining mercury levels in aquatic organisms. Primarily, we studied water column photooxidation, a mechanism that can cause an increased retention time for mercury in the waterbody, leading to an increased likelihood for it to be methylated. Our laboratory also focused on better understanding the physiology and biochemistry of mercury methylation in sulfate-reducing bacteria, the key organisms in freshwater and coastal systems that create the bioaccumulating neurotoxin, methylmercury. Finally, we have sought to better understand the possible sources of methylmercury to open ocean fish, the prime exposure route of mercury to humans.

The oxidation of volatile aqueous Hg(0) in aquatic systems may be important in reducing fluxes of mercury out of aquatic systems. Through laboratory and field experiments on St. Lawrence River water samples, we identified parameters (i.e., chloride concentration, semiquinone inclusion) that regulate the photooxidation of Hg(0). Elemental mercury oxidation was found to be mediated chiefly by ultraviolet (UV) radiation as: (1) “dark” oxidation was not found to be statistically significant; (2) visible light induced a significant but slow photooxidation (k=0.09h-1); and (3) visible plus UV radiation led to a faster photooxidation (k=0.6-0.7 h-1), mainly because of UVA induced reactions. Doubling UV radiation did not increase the reaction rate of Hg(0) photooxidation in natural water samples, indicating that some factor other than photon flux was rate limiting and suggesting that the reaction involves intermediate photo produced oxidant(s). The addition of methanol, a OH scavenger, decreased mercury photooxidation rates by 25 percent in brackish waters and by 19 percent in artificial saline water containing semiquinones, indicating that OH may be partially responsible for Hg(0) oxidation. Photooxidation rates were not affected by oxygen concentrations and did not decrease when samples were heat-sterilized, treated with chloroform, or filtered prior to exposure to light. In the St. Lawrence River, a typical photooxidation flux rate would be 300 pmole m-2 h-1, compared to volatilization flux of 7 pmole m-2 h-1. In coastal waters, the dominant Hg(0) sink is likely to be photooxidation rather than volatilization from the water column during summer days, even in periods of high winds.

Sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) in anoxic waters and sediments are the major organisms that transform inorganic mercury –which otherwise would be buried and removed from the watershed- into the bioaccumulating neurotoxin, methylmercury. Although a considerable amount of work has addressed the environmental factors that control methylmercury formation and the conditions that control inorganic mercury bioavailability to SRB, little work has been undertaken analyzing the biochemical mechanism of methylmercury production. The acetyl-CoA pathway has been implicated as key to mercury methylation in one SRB strain, Desulfovibrio desulfuricans LS, but this result has not been extended to other SRB species. To probe whether the acetyl-CoA pathway is the controlling biochemical process for methylmercury production in SRB, five incomplete-oxidizing SRB strains and two Desulfobacter strains that do not use the acetyl-CoA pathway for major carbon metabolism were assayed for methylmercury formation and acetyl-CoA pathway enzyme activities. Three of the SRB strains also were incubated with chloroform to inhibit the acetyl-CoA pathway. All species that have been found to have acetyl-CoA activity, including complete oxidizers that require the acetyl-CoA pathway for basic metabolism, methylate mercury. We have identified, however, four incomplete-oxidizing strains that clearly do not utilize the acetyl-CoA pathway for mercury methylation. Mercury methylation is independent of the acetyl-CoA pathway and may not require vitamin B12 in some and perhaps many incomplete-oxidizing SRB strains.

Although the bulk of human exposure to mercury is through the consumption of marine fish, most of what we know about mercury methylation is from studies of freshwaters. We know little of where and how mercury is methylated in the open oceans, and there is currently a debate whether methylmercury concentrations in marine fish have increased along with global anthropogenic mercury emissions. Measurements of mercury concentrations in Yellowfin tuna caught off Hawaii in 1988 show no increase compared to measurements of the same species caught in the same area in 1971. On the basis of the known increase in the global emissions of mercury over the past century and of a simple model of mercury biogeochemistry in the equatorial and subtropical Pacific Ocean, we calculate that the methylmercury concentration in these surface waters should have increased between 9 and 26 percent over this 27 year span if methylation occurred in the mixed layer or in the thermocline. Such an increase is statistically inconsistent with the constant mercury concentrations measured in tuna. We conclude tentatively that mercury methylation in oceans occurs in deep waters or in sediments.

Microbiological and Physicochemical Aspects of Mercury Cycling in the Coastal/Estuarine Waters of Long Island Sound and Its River-Seawater Mixing Zones
EPA Grant Number: R827635 Title: Microbiological and Physicochemical Aspects of Mercury Cycling in the Coastal/Estuarine Waters of Long Island Sound and Its River-Seawater Mixing Zones

Investigators: Fitzgerald, William F. , Visscher, Pieter T. Institution: University of Connecticut EPA Project Officer: Stelz, Bill
Project Period: October 1, 1999 through September 30, 2002
Description: The primary exposure of humans to methylHg (MMHg) is through the consumption of marine fish and fish products, yet the marine environment has been largely ignored and under sampled. Estuaries and adjacent coastal waters are major repositories for riverborne/watershed derived Hg species. Increased knowledge and understanding concerning the biogeochemical behavior and fate of Hg in important productive nearshore regions such as Long Island Sound (LIS) is a critical need. One of the most striking findings from our preliminary work is the presence of significantly large emissions of elemental Hg (Hg ) from the waters of LIS to the local/regional atmosphere. We postulate that Hg cycling in natural waters (i.e., LIS) plays a key or governing role in controlling the overall aquatic biogeochemistry of Hg and the bioavailable Hg species. We are proposing a three-year comprehensive physicochemical and microbiological marine program to investigate reactions and processes controlling Hg emissions, cycling, and bioavailability in Long Island Sound and its watershed/coastal water interface. Using prior Hg mass balance studies as a framework, we are proposing a experimental (large field and laboratory effort) and theoretical design (modeling) that will allow the results to be applicable to other regions of the coastal zone.

Final Report

Microbiological and Physicochemical Aspects of Mercury Cycling in the Coastal/Estuarine Waters of Long Island Sound and Its River-Seawater Mixing Zones

Objective:

Consumption of marine fish and seafood products is the principal pathway by which humans are exposed to the very toxic organomercurial, monomethylmercury (MMHg). Consequently, there is an urgent need for increased knowledge and understanding of the marine biogeochemical cycling of mercury (Hg) and the impact of anthropogenically related Hg inputs. Biologically productive, nutrient-rich near-shore regions, which support major commercial and recreational fisheries, are of special interest. Accordingly, our U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Hg research was focused on Long Island Sound (LIS), its watershed, and river-seawater mixing zones. This major natural resource provides a valuable analog for other near-shore/urban marine ecosystems. Our process reaction-focused investigations will allow the results to be applied in other marine regions. Such an approach was essential, given the complexity and variability of fertile estuaries and adjacent coastal waters, which are major repositories for natural and pollutant riverborne/watershed-derived substances such as Hg. The specific objectives of this research project were concerned with several major features of the aquatic biogeochemistry of Hg, particularly elemental mercury (Hg0) cycling and emissions, MMHg production in sediments, interactions between terrestrial watersheds, rivers, and near-shore marine waters, and the role of organic matter (OM) in governing the availability of Hg for competing methylation/reduction reactions.

Our work was conducted in the local coastal waters of LIS, a large (3,200 km2) embayment in the northeastern United States. LIS is the subject of numerous biogeochemical investigations and a long-term monitoring program of its waters (Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection [CT DEP], 2003). Current and historic pollution, including sewage (Buchholtz ten Brinck, et al., 2000), has perturbed LIS significantly. As a consequence, it has longitudinal gradients in pollutant Hg (Varekamp, et al., 2000; Hammerschmidt and Fitzgerald, 2004), dissolved oxygen and nutrients (CT DEP, 2003), as well as sediment geochemistry and microbial activities (Knebel and Poppe, 2000; Mecray and Buchholtz ten Brinck, 2000; Poppe, et al., 2000). Such gradients in LIS are expected to encompass the range of water column and sediment characteristics found in most other coastal regimes. Thus, information on the biogeochemistry of Hg and MMHg in LIS is directly applicable to comparable coastal marine sediments and systems.

Previous measurements of sources and sinks of Hg in LIS have been validated by several independent measurements, resulting in well-constrained mass balances for total Hg and MMHg in LIS (Vandal, et al., 2002; Balcom, et al., submitted, 2003). The principal sources of total Hg (241 kg yr-1) to LIS are rivers (~136 kg yr-1; 56 percent of total inputs), water pollution control facilities (WPCFs) (~11 kg yr-1; 5 percent), the East River (~68 kg yr-1; 28 percent), and direct atmospheric deposition (~26 kg yr-1; 11 percent). Principal external sources of MMHg to LIS (~5 kg yr-1) include rivers (~3 kg yr-1), the East River (~1.4 kg yr-1), and direct atmospheric deposition (~0.7 kg yr-1). In situ sedimentary production was predicted to be the major source of MMHg in LIS (Langer, et al., 2001), and Hammerschmidt, et al. (submitted, 2003) have estimated a sediment-water flux of 11 ± 4 kg MMHg yr-1 (65 percent of total inputs). Although direct atmospheric Hg deposition to LIS is small (~26 kg yr-1), modest leaching (25-30 percent watershed delivery; 90-108 kg Hg yr-1) of the LIS-wide atmospheric deposition normalized to its watershed area accounts for 65-80 percent of river Hg inputs (Balcom, et al., submitted, 2003).

Summary/Accomplishments:

Hg-Organic Interactions
Spring runoff contributes large amounts of Hg to rivers (watershed leaching) that is tightly bound to dissolved and colloidal organic ligands and particulate matter, which are largely unreactive (not reducible with Sn[II]; Rolfhus, et al., 2003; Lamborg, et al., 2003). Complexation of inorganic mercury cations (Hg[II]) by natural organic compounds has been posited as an influential and often controlling feature of the aquatic biogeochemical cycling of this toxic metal and was one of the working hypotheses for the present study. The high affinity of Hg for OM is characterized by stability constants that are typically five or more orders of magnitude greater than most other metals (e.g., Mantoura, et al., 1978). Complexation of Hg by organic ligands exerts control on important, speciation-dependent, biogeochemical transformations such as methylation, reduction/evasion, and solubility/adsorption (e.g., Barkay, et al., 1997; Benoit, et al., 1999a; Benoit, et al., 2001a; Rolfhus and Fitzgerald, 2001; Turner, et al., 2001; Lamborg, 2003). Although many studies suggest that the majority of Hg present in natural waters is complexed with organic ligands, little quantitative information currently exists regarding the abundance and strength of such Hg-complexing agents in natural waters. We have developed a new method for the determination of the concentration and conditional stability constants of dissolved organic matter (DOM) towards Hg using an in vitro reducible-Hg titration approach (Lamborg, et al., 2003).

Long Island Sound. We found the concentration of Hg-binding organic ligands in LIS and its environs to range from less than 1 to greater than 60 nN, and that the conditional stability constants (affinities of the OM for Hg) are very high (logK’ = 21-24; Lamborg, et al., 2003). Only one ligand class was found in the natural waters tested (i.e., rivers, seawaters, bog waters, sewage, and sedimentary porewaters). Concentrations, affinities, and kinetics implicate multidentate binding sites as the principal chelation moieties for Hg. Recent spectroscopic investigations of Hg binding to soil organic material have pointed to multidentate associations involving sulfur and oxygen bonds to Hg (Xia, et al., 1999; Hesterberg, et al., 2001). In freshwaters, greater than 99.9 percent of Hg is found in organic complexes (Lamborg, et al., 2003), and although the fraction of Hg in organic complexes varies in salt waters, coastal waters also are dominated (> 50 percent) by organic forms. These findings are significant, as the organically complexed pool is likely to have much different biogeochemical reactivity, and can, therefore, affect Hg biogeochemistry on local, regional, and global scales.

Ligand activity through the salinity gradient of the Connecticut River (CTR) indicated that a majority of the ligands in LIS would be of terrestrial origin. Ligand distributions through the CTR estuary suggest pseudoconservative mixing (higher concentrations in fresher waters) of ligand derived from the CTR watershed (Lamborg, et al., 2003). Furthermore, the ligand:dissolved organic carbon (DOC) ratios for a variety of end member waters for LIS indicate that offshore (continental shelf) waters and sewage (East River) possess very ligand poor DOC. Therefore, a substantial percentage of the Hg binding compounds present in the coastal waters of LIS are allochtonous in origin (Lamborg, et al., 2003). We have constructed a first-order mass balance for ligand and DOC in LIS (Lamborg, et al., submitted, 2003), based on measurements of ligand concentrations, DOC analyses, and some estimated DOC fluxes. The principal sources of ligands to LIS are riverwater (47 percent; terrestrial OM) and phytoplankton DOC exudation (31 percent), and the only significant loss term identified is tidal exchange with the low DOC/low ligand waters of the continental shelf. The seasonal variations in ligand abundance (lowest during winter and highest during summer and spring) are a reflection of the importance of river flow and primary production, as these sources are strongest in the spring and summer in LIS (Lamborg, et al., submitted, 2003).

Halting Global Warming

October 3, 2015

Exactly two months ago President Obama announced a plan to limit the amount of carbon that power plants dump into the atmosphere, the single biggest pollutant contributing to climate change. Likewise, at the United Nations, President Putin announced plans to reduce by 2030 Russia’s greenhouse emissions to 70-75% of the 1990 level. Meanwhile, President Xi Jinping announced a “cap and trade” program to reduce China’s output of greenhouse gases.

While positive, these measures will not halt –much less reverse- global warming. Incidentally, global warming is a better descriptor than “climate change” as the latter might cause the uninformed to think that cooling is simultaneously occurring. In any case, the situation is so grave that the great die-out currently under way -the only one in the history of our planet caused primarily by human action- may soon threaten our food supply. For that reason we are compelled to accept that whatever measures are finally undertaken will necessarily have to match the scope and magnitude of the problem. And therein lies the crux of it. The so-called Industrial Revolution enriched some nations and elites within them so much that they now wield enough power to veto any measures they wish on the mistaken assumption that their wealth can and will perpetually insulate them and their descendants from the ravages of global warming.

Not Mentioned
President Obama mentioned drought as one of the manifestations of climate change, and he is of course correct. But in that context neither he nor his peers have publicly discussed, much less acted, on the clear threat that chronic shortages of water constitute to the security of the U.S. and the world. To be sure, this is only tangentially related to global warming because the depletion of the world’s great aquifers is not new, only ignored. Desperately needed long-term infrastructure projects have long been shunned in favor of foreign interventions, short-term bottom-line results, and bureaucratic struggles. Wars and refugees, which go in tandem, are frequently a consequence of drought. Witness Syria, which according to a Harvard University study is a case in point.

President Putin has proposed pooling the efforts of countries with advanced scientific knowledge and the creation of a special forum under the auspices of the United Nations to consider issues related to climate change, an admirable approach. But a basic understanding of the formula of water does not require degrees in any discipline. It consists of just two elements, and only one –oxygen- constitutes a significant portion of our atmosphere. The other –hydrogen, found in great abundance in our oceans- is a non-polluting energy carrier whose only byproduct, when burned, is pure water.

At this point we shouldn’t be talking about ways to cap the amount of pollution that power plants will be permitted to dump into the atmosphere. Given the severity of the emergency –that is what it really is- and the fact that the entire concept of centralized generation of electricity is an obsolete relic dating back over 100 years to the invention of the incandescent light bulb, we should be discussing how to (not if) best finance installing solar panels or their equivalent on every existing and future roof of every building in cities with abundant sunlight expressly to mothball all power plants, including nuclear. A properly designed system powered solely by solar energy and gravity would generate a surplus of electricity to produce hydrogen by hydrolysis of seawater. The hydrogen could then be burned anywhere, even in deserts far from shore, to produce drought-proof pure water and additional electricity to support economic growth. That should make our deserts green to help recycle the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and eventually cool the world.

The outline of a plan to make this (and much more) a reality already exists.

President Putin on Climate Change

09/29/1915

Transcript of an excerpt of his speech at the United Nations 70th Session, 09/28/2015

“The issues that affect the future of all people include the challenge of global climate change. It is in our interest to make the U.N. Climate Change Conference to be held in December in Paris a success. As part of our national contribution, we plan to reduce by 2030 the greenhouse emissions to 70-75% of the 1990 level. I suggest however, we should take a wider view on this issue. Yes, we might diffuse the problem for a while by setting quotas on harmful emissions or by taking other measures that are nothing but tactical, but we will not solve it that way.

We need a completely different approach. We have to focus on introducing fundamentally new technologies inspired by nature which will not damage the environment but would be in harmony with it. Also, that would allow us to restore the balance between the biosphere and technosphere, upset by human activities. It is indeed a challenge of planetary scope, but I’m confident that humankind has intellectual potential to address it. We need to join our efforts. I refer first of all to the states that have a solid research basis and that have made significant advances in fundamental science. We propose convening a special forum under the U.N. auspices for a comprehensive consideration of the issues related to the depletion of national resources, destruction of habitat, and climate change. Russia would be ready to co-sponsor such a forum.”

 

President Obama’s Clean Power Plan

09/29/2015

On August 3, 2015, in the East Room of the White House, President Obama announced the Clean Power Plan

Here is a transcript of the video.

“Our climate is changing. It’s changing in ways that threaten our economy, our security, and our health. This isn’t an opinion; it’s a fact, backed up by decades of carefully collected data and overwhelming scientific consensus. And it has serious implications for the way that we live now. We can see it, and we can feel it: hotter summers, rising sea levels, extreme weather events, like stronger storms, deeper droughts, and longer wildfire seasons –all disasters that are becoming more frequent, more expensive, and more dangerous. Our own families experience it too.

Over the past three decades asthma rates have more than doubled, and as temperatures keep warming, and smog gets worse, those Americans will be at even greater risk of landing in the hospital. Climate change is not a problem for another generation, not anymore. That’s why on Monday my administration will release the final version of America’s Clean Power Plan, the biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken to combat climate change.

Power plants are the single biggest source of the harmful carbon pollution that contributes to climate change. But until now, there have been no federal limits to the amount of net pollution those plants can dump into the air. Think about that. We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury and sulfur and arsenic in our air and water, and we’re better off for it. But existing power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of harmful carbon pollution into the air we breathe. For the sake of our kids, for the health and safety of all Americans, that’s about to change. We’ve been working with states and power companies to make sure they’ve got the flexibility they need to cut this pollution, all while lowering energy bills, ensuring reliable service, and paving the way for new job-creating innovations that help America lead the world forward.

If you believe like I do, that we can’t condemn our kids and grandkids to a planet that’s beyond fixing, then I’m asking you to share this message with your friends and family. Push your own communities to adopt smarter, more sustainable practices. Remind everyone who represents you that protecting the world we leave to our children is a prerequisite for your vote. Join us, we can do this. It’s time for America, and the world, to act on climate change.”

Native American Elder on The Environment

09/29/2015

Here is a transcript (of this video) by a wise Native American elder explaining why we must live in harmony with the environment.

“The leadership that we’re looking for has to come from business. Very, very important now because business carries more authority and they carry the economics of the world. Today we’re bound together much closer than we were so many years ago, 1000 years ago. We’re neighbors and we’re bound together by electronics, we’re bound together by technology, and the world has become “a market.” And it’s this market that we have to deal with, and it’s this idea of boundless and endless resources. And when you say “resources” you’re talking about our relatives, you’re talking about our family. Fish are our family; it’s not a resource, it’s family, and requires all the respect. The structure of the world is such that it functions on natural law, and the natural law is a powerful regenerative process. It’s a process of regeneration that continues and grows, and it’s endless. It’s absolutely endless… if everyone agrees to the law and follows the law. But if you challenge the law, and you think you’re going to change the law, then you’re bound to failure, and in that failure will be a lot of pain, because the natural law has no mercy. It is only the law.

The Earth is all-powerful. It wasn’t made for human beings. You see, we’re part of it. But we don’t have to be here, because the Earth has its own process. And if it becomes to the point… where you destroy yourself as human beings, and you destroy life and finally leave this Earth the Earth is not going to disappear. There’s not going to be an end of the world. That’s really a very interesting concept to us. No, the world won’t end. People’s life on it will. So it’s not the end of the world you’re talking about. It’s the end of us. And the world, no matter what damage you think you’ve done to it, will regenerate, will re-green, will redo everything that was here at one time, except there won’t be any people, because, it’s got all the time in the world.

I said, now, as you’re coming down a final stretch, you’re racing towards the finish, and there is the stone wall, and you’re not pulling your horse, you’re no stopping. In fact, you’re accelerating. I said, now that’s the way I see the use of what you call resources. You’re using them faster than they’re reproducing, and you’re headed towards that disaster, and none of you are pulling your horse. I said take the example of a car race or racing cars, they have a yellow flag. When there’s an accident or something a yellow flag comes out and everybody gets into line and they slow down, and they have sort of a common sense about that at least. I said, do you have a concept of a yellow flag? Is there a yellow flag amongst your ideas or you thinking? And one of the gentlemen, and we were all men, maybe 50-65, he said, “You know I understand what you’re saying. But to answer your question, no, we can’t. We can’t pull our horse as you say. Because, he said, “We have to show a profit. As a CEO I must show a profit. If I don’t show a profit” he said, “I’m fired. As simple as that, I’m out of a job, I have to show a profit.” I said, to who? He said, to you the stockholder. I said, Well, are you married? He said, “Yes I am.” I said do you have children? He said, “Yes I do.” I said, do you have any grandchildren? He said “I have two, two boys.” I said, when do you cease to be a CEO and become a grandfather? There was a lot of silence there… because that was a moral question. And if you don’t have a moral question in your your governing process then you don’t have a process that’s going to survive. That’s the governing law: the moral question. You must have a moral society, or you won’t have any.

He couldn’t answer the question, and neither could anyone else, because it was a moral question. That’s what we have to get back to. So, they said, well, it got kind of heavy silence there. So they said, “Well, look, you’re a, a Indian, and we keep hearing about Indian prophesies. Can you give us a prophesy, can you tell us a prophesy?” And of course, I could have told them a lot, because I know a lot of them. But at that particular moment I said, certainly I can. And I can guarantee it. They said, “Really, well what is it?” I said, next year you’ll meet, and nothing will have changed. Again there was silence.

We’re moving in a very direct line to that stone wall. I do not believe personally that we have passed the line or the point no return, but we’re approaching it, we’re approaching it. And every day that you don’t do what’s right, it’s a day that you’ve lost an option, and you’re losing your options every day.”

Renters’ Crisis 2015

[google-translator]

09/21/2015

A report from Harvard’s Joint Center on Housing Studies and Enterprise Community Partners, an affordable-housing nonprofit group, provides further documentation of the growing housing crisis. The number of renters forced to allocate 50% or more of their income for rents is at an all time high, and growing rapidly, particularly among minorities, people with low-paying jobs (Walmart, the nation’s largest employer in 2015), and senior citizens on fixed incomes.

With declining or flatlined incomes and non existent job security, home loans are designed to minimize the risk of foreclosures. This policy is not limited to banks. The government, which is in one way or another (through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA and the VA, among others) is exposed to roughly 90% of mortgage originations, simply cannot afford another real estate collapse. The result is that millions of people cannot buy homes, and consequently must either rent or live with others.

Construction of new homes for low income people, if it exists, is insignificant. The lack of financing effectively discourages big construction firms from meeting the need. In this environment, big landlords such as Colony American Homes and Starwood Waypoint are merging, a trend that may result in higher rents still.

 

Greek Debt

[google-translator]

July 7, 2015

It is in no one’s interest, including the United States, to let Greece collapse. Greece’s creditors might lose most -if not all- of what they’re owed and the Greek people would suffer immensely for an indefinite period of time. The potential social, political, economic and even military implications from that are too profound to analyze in depth in this short article. Suffice it to say however, that the presently acrimonious animosity between the parties evidently makes it all but impossible for them to come up with a constructive alternative.

 

Greece’s economy, currently shrinking, is too small relative to its debt. It needs a growth rate comparable to China’s and close to full employment to meet its obligations. In other words, it needs massive additional investment to create a new income stream with which to simultaneously service all the debt -old and new- and create well-paying jobs, not onerous conditions which will have the opposite effect.

Here’s an idea that might solve the problem to everyone’s satisfaction. Greece has two untapped assets -abundant sunlight and seawater- that could be exploited to transform the country into a major energy producer. Its many islands in the Aegean, some of which are uninhabited or sparsely populated, could be filled with dedicated solar-powered electric generators to produce hydrogen by electrolysis. The income from the sale of the hydrogen and other related byproducts (including fertilizers) would be mortgaged for a specified period of time to amortize the cost of the new investment plus existing debt, much of it to German taxpayers.

It would be a win-win scenario. It would give Greece time to implement whatever internal reforms it deems appropriate, give it a much needed economic boost, and reinstate its credit. The European Union would get a new source of clean energy from within NATO territory, reduce its reliance on fossil fuels along with its related carbon footprint, and prevent the inevitable losses that would follow a Greek collapse.

Today’s Housing Crisis

Press Release (excerpt)

November 25, 2018

J o i n t C e n t e r f o r H o u s i n g S t u d i e s o f H a r v a r d Uni v e r s i t y

STATE OF THE NATION HOUSING REPORT

Cambridge, MA – The fledgling U.S. housing recovery lost momentum last year as homeownership rates continued to fall, single-family construction remained near historic lows, and existing home sales cooled, concludes The State of the Nation’s Housing report released today by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. In contrast, rental markets continued to grow, fueled by another large increase in the number of renter households. However, with rents rising and incomes well below pre-recession levels, the U.S. is also seeing record numbers of cost-burdened renters, including more renter households higher up the income scale. “Perhaps the most telling indicator of the state of the nation’s housing is the drop in the homeownership rate to just 64.5 percent last year,” says Chris Herbert, managing director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies. “This erases nearly all of the increase from the previous two decades. In fact, the number of homeowners fell for the eighth straight year, and the trend does not appear to be abating.”

The flip side of falling homeownership rates has been exceptionally strong demand for rental housing, with the 2010s on pace to be the strongest decade for renter growth in history. While soaring demand is often attributed to the millennials’ preference to rent, households aged 45–64 in fact accounted for about twice the share of renter growth as households under the age of 35. Similarly, households in the top half of the income distribution, although generally more likely to own, contributed 43 percent of the growth in renters.

The other byproduct of this surge in rental demand is that the national vacancy rate fell to its lowest point in nearly 20 years. Given the limited supply of rental units, rents rose at a 3.2 percent rate last year—twice the pace of overall inflation. “To meet this demand, construction started on more multifamily units in 2014 than in any year since 1989,” says Daniel McCue, a senior research associate at the Joint Center. “And if job growth continues to pick up, we could see even more demand, as young adults increasingly move out of their parents’ homes and into their own apartments.”

Even before the Great Recession, the number of cost-burdened households (those paying more than 30 percent of income for housing) was on the rise. But while the cost-burdened share of homeowners began to recede in 2010 (because some homes were lost to foreclosure, and low interest rates helped other homeowners reduce their monthly costs), the cost-burdened share of renters has held near record highs. In 2013, almost half of all renters had housing cost burdens, including more than a quarter with severe burdens (paying more than 50 percent of income for housing. But perhaps most troubling, cost burdens are climbing the income ladder, affecting growing shares of not just low-income renters but moderate- and middle-income renters as well. The cost-burdened share of renters with incomes in the $30,000–45,000 range rose to 45 percent between 2003 and 2013, while one in five renters earning $45,000–75,000 are now cost-burdened as well. “While affordability for moderate income renters is hitting some cities and regions harder than others, an acute shortage of affordable housing for lowest-income renters is being felt everywhere,” says Herbert. “Between the record level of rent burdens and the plunging homeownership rate, there is a pressing need to prioritize the nation’s housing challenges in policy debates over the coming year if the country is to make progress toward the national goal of secure, decent, and affordable housing for all.”

The State of the Nation’s Housing, released annually by the Joint Center for Housing Studies, provides a periodic assessment of the nation’s housing outlook and summarizes important trends in the economics and demographics of housing. The report continues to earn national recognition as an authoritative source of information regularly utilized by housing researchers, industry analysts, policy makers, and the business community.

Principal funding

The Ford Foundation and the Policy Advisory Board of the Joint Center for Housing Studies provide principal funding for the report. Additional support is provided by the Federal Home Loan Banks, the Housing Assistance Council, MBA’s Research Institute for Housing America, the National Association of Home Builders, the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO), the National Association of REALTORS®, the National Council of State Housing Agencies, the National Housing Conference, the National Housing Endowment, the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and the National Multifamily Housing Council.

The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies advances understanding of housing issues and informs policy. Through its research, education, and public outreach programs, the center helps leaders in government, business, and the civic sectors make decisions that effectively address the needs of cities and communities. Through graduate and executive courses, as well as fellowships and internship opportunities, the Joint Center also trains and inspires the next generation of housing leaders.
www.jchs.harvard.edu

 

Average Temperature for May 2015 Highest in 136 Years

[google-translator]

June 18, 2015

Report from the National Centers for Environmental Information

Excerpt

The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for May 2015 was the highest for May in the 136-year period of record, at 0.87°C (1.57°F) above the 20th century average of 14.8°C (58.6°F), surpassing the previous record set just one year ago by 0.08°C (0.14°F). This ties with February 1998 as the fourth highest monthly departure from average for any month on record. The two highest monthly departures from average occurred earlier this year in February and March, both at 0.89°C (1.60°F) above the 20th century average for their respective months.

The average global temperature across land surfaces was 1.28°C (2.30°F) above the 20th century average of 11.1°C (52.0°F), tying with 2012 as the highest May temperature on record. Most of Earth’s land surfaces were warmer than average or much warmer than average, according to the Land & Ocean Temperature Percentiles map above, with record warmth across most of Alaska, parts of tropical South America, much of southern Africa and The Middle East, and parts of northwestern Siberia. Only part of the central United States, far west central Australia, and part of Far East Russia observed temperatures characterized as “cooler than average” for May.

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