Driven by Climate Change, Algae Blooms Behind Ohio Water Scare Are New Normal
A massive algae bloom in 2011 turned Lake Erie into pea soup.
PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER ESSICK, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Jane J. Lee
National Geographic
PUBLISHED AUGUST 4, 2014
The toxic algae bloom in Lake Erie that provoked last weekend’s tap water ban in Toledo, Ohio—where nearly half a million people were told not to use water for drinking, cooking, or bathing—is a preview of similar problems to come around the world, scientists say, thanks in part to climate change.
Northwest Ohio’s water ban was lifted Monday morning, but experts say harmful algal blooms that can turn tap water toxic and kill wildlife are becoming more common in coastal oceans and in freshwater across the United States and around the globe.
A toxic algae bloom killed record numbers of manatees in Florida early last year. Another bloom put a record number of marine mammals into California rehabilitation centers earlier this year. (See “Record Number of Seals and Sea Lions Rescued in California.”) They can also result in massive fish kills.
The blooms produce toxins that can cause neurological problems like paralysis and seizures in people, though such effects have been best documented in marine mammals and birds.
“Some of [the increase in blooms] can be attributed to global climate change,” said Timothy Davis, a research ecologist specializing in harmful algal blooms with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The algae and bacteria responsible for blooms, including the one that created Toledo’s tap water mess—a type of bacteria known as Microcystis—need warm temperatures and the nutrients phosphorus and nitrogen to grow. Microcystis is a kind of cyanobacteria, often mistakenly referred to as blue-green algae.
Climate change is creating warming waters in many parts of the world, including the Great Lakes. Global warming is also boosting storm intensities in some parts of the world, which can increase the terrestrial runoff that supplies the nutrients that feed algae blooms. (Read about our “fertilized world” in National Geographic magazine.)
The nitrogen and phosphorous in the runoff come from leaky septic tanks and from fertilizers used on farms and lawns.
Lake Erie’s shallow depths—it’s the shallowest of the Great Lakes, with an average depth of 62 feet (19 meters)—also contributed to this year’s algae blooms, said Eric Anderson, a physical oceanographer with NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. The western basin, the location of the current algae bloom, is even shallower, with an average depth of less than 26 feet (8 meters).
The Great Lakes ice extent last winter was the second largest on record, Anderson said, with ice covering Lake Erie well into April. But because Lake Erie is so shallow, water temperatures were able to recover quickly. ” Average surface water temperature in the lake has rebounded to within 1.68 degrees of the average of the last ten years,” he said.
Toxins from algal blooms are of particular concern to water managers around Lake Erie, said Anderson.
Strong winds can drive blooms at the water’s surface down into the depths of the lake, where water intake pipes can draw contaminated water into systems serving municipalities, he said.
It’s unclear whether that happened in Toledo. Samples from other plants that also draw their water from Lake Erie lacked the microcystin toxin that prompted Toledo’s tap water ban, raising questions about how the toxins got into the city’s water.
Not every algae bloom produces toxins. Some kinds of Microcystis blooms—like the one in Lake Erie—produce toxins, while others don’t.
About half of the Microcystis blooms around the world aren’t toxic, said Davis, but “it looks like climate change might be driving these blooms to more toxic strains.” Researchers are still trying to figure out why that may be happening.
Toxic algal blooms can seriously impact the health and economies of coastal and lakeside communities. The microcystin that was found in Toledo’s water can cause vomiting, nausea, dizziness, diarrhea, or numbness.
When these blooms run out of steam and die, bacteria feasting on the decaying matter can suck almost all the oxygen out of the water. This can result in another ecological problem: “dead zones,” or areas of the ocean devoid of life.
Increases in algae blooms are also expanding dead zones around the world. The Gulf of Mexico hosted one last summer about the size of Connecticut. (See “World’s Largest Dead Zone Suffocating Sea.”)
It doesn’t take very long for aquatic systems like Lake Erie to get thrown off balance, Davis said. But it will take patience and long-term management to get the lake healthy again.
“The biggest thing that people need to be aware of is that there’s no short-term solution,” he said. “Our lakes and coastal systems are out of balance.”
So is the climate.
Divest from Fossil Fuel Industry or Suffer the Consequences
The following text is written by Lisa Neff and Published in Wisconsin Gazette.com, July 24,2014:
Over the Barrel
Activists champion efforts to divest from fossil-fuel industry.
Meet Planet Enemy No. 1: The fossil-fuel industry.
And meet the new sheriff in town: The growing movement to divest ownership of fossil-fuel stock.
The divestment concept is not without precedent. In the 1980s, people around the world withdrew support from companies — and more than a few artists — who did business with South Africa. The campaign spread from college campuses and eventually 155 campuses, 80 municipalities, 25 states and 19 nations took economic action against the apartheid regime. Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said the end of apartheid would not have come without international pressure, specifically “the divestment movement of the 1980s.”
Today, the Nobel Peace-Prize winner has called for an “anti-apartheid style boycott of the fossil fuel industry.”
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, also endorsed the movement in a speech in May at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
“The scientific data on climate change is overwhelming, the experience of the affected overpowering. The few who still deny the science and argue for inaction of course have the right to hide their face in the sand, but the sand is warming rapidly, and they will soon have to face their children,” Figueres said.
She had praise for others: the institutional investors moving capital away from fossil fuels, the parties involved in the development of a “fossil free” investment index, the creation of a global finance lab in London and the activists in the campus and church campaigns driving divestment from fossil fuel assets.
Commitments to change
That movement, according to GoFossilFree.org, has resulted in commitments to the going fossil-free campaign from 11 colleges and universities, 37 faith-based groups, 26 foundations, two counties and 28 cities. Included on the commitment list are the First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee; Dane County, believed to be the first county in the United States to support the fossil-fuel movement; and Bayfield and Madison, among the first cities in the U.S. to adopt divestment resolutions.
Monona could join the league. The city sustainability committee unanimously approved a proposed resolution earlier this month that the city council is expected to take up this summer. The resolution, which doesn’t go as far as activists had hoped, would set as priorities the reduction of fossil-fuel consumption in municipal operations and the education of residents and business owners about “the importance of reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuels.” The resolution also suggests a variety of ways to work toward that goal,” including shareholder advocacy, fossil fuels divestment and reinvestment in renewable energy.
“I’m very proud of Monona for taking this step to not only acknowledge the reality of climate change but to take action on reducing its own fossil fuel use,” stated Monona resident Beth Esser. She’s co-coordinator of 350 Madison, an environmental action group at the forefront of the movement in the state.
Esser added, “This resolution solidifies the city’s commitment to addressing the harsh realities of our need to quit using fossil fuels if we want to preserve a livable future for our children and our grandchildren.”
Fossil-free advocates also are campaigning throughout the University of Wisconsin system, on the campuses of private schools such as Carthage College and Lawrence University, and for changes in the state retirement fund.
Campaigners in some cases want a pledge that institutions or foundations will freeze any new investment in fossil-fuel assets and divest within five years. Others are promoting resolutions to support the cause, which received a nod from President Barack Obama in mid-June, when he told graduates at the University of California-Irvine, “You need to invest in what helps, and divest from what harms.”
Do the math
Divestment advocates maintain that math is crucial to the argument for going fossil free. The fossil fuel industry has enough coal, oil and gas reserves to produce, if burned, 2,795 gigatons of CO2, according to the Carbon Tracker Initiative, a team of London financial analysts. That’s five times more CO2 than can be released to maintain 2 degrees of warming. And most governments agree that any warming above 2 degrees Celsius would be unsafe.
“The fossil-fuel industry’s business model is built on using up reserves that should not be used. We cannot invest in this recklessness,” said Gregory Ercherd, who is involved in the fossil-free movement in Portland, Oregon. “We have moral, ethical obligations to divest from fossil fuels.”
“And we have a spiritual obligation,” added Ercherd, observing the surge in support for the movement this summer among religious institutions. The Unitarian Universalist General Assembly voted to divest. The University of Dayton in Ohio became the first Catholic institution to join the movement. Quaker, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Episcopal denominations have voted to divest. And, in early July, the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, a fellowship of more than 300 churches in 150 countries, endorsed divestment.
“This is a remarkable moment for the 590 million Christians in its member denominations: a huge percentage of humanity says today ‘this far and no further,’” McKibben said after the vote.
Serene Jones is president of the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, which is committed to divesting its $108.4 endowment of fossil fuel funds. She said earlier this month, “Scripture tells us that all of the world is God’s precious creation, and our place within it is to care for and respect the health of the whole. As a seminary dedicated to social justice, we have a critical call to live out our values in the world. Climate change poses a catastrophic threat, and as stewards of God’s creation we simply must act.”
Portfolio for the planet
“There’s no threat greater than the unchecked burning of fossil fuels,” according to Bill McKibben, leader of the environmental grassroots movement known as 350.org.
“The (fossil-fuel) industry alone, holds the power to change the physics and chemistry of our planet, and they’re planning to use it,” he wrote.
Earlier this year, 350.org and two asset management firms — Green Century Capital Management and Trillium Asset Management — released a guide people through divesting.
“Since fossil fuel corporations are determined to burn their carbon reserves, which are five times the amount that scientists say our planet can safely absorb, there is a growing concern that investors may face a ‘carbon-bubble’ if carbon restrictions are put into place,” said Leslie Samuelrich, president of Green Century Capital. “With so many unknowns in the future, why not avoid the widely reported possible risk of stranded assets?”
“Actions taken by individuals and municipalities to transition away from fossil fuels send an important message to industry and political leaders and encourage further efforts regionally nationally,” said Adam Gundlach, a Monona resident and fossil-free advocate. “The transition becomes a reality with each decision we make and each step we take toward a sustainable existence.”
Some other resourse on the Web:
350.org: http://350.org
GoFossilFree: http://gofossilfree.org
350 Madison: http://350madison.wordpress.com
Green Century: http://greencentury.com
Fossil-free faq
WHAT IS DIVESTMENT? It is the opposite of an investment. It is getting rids of stocks, bonds, investment funds.
WHAT DOES THE DIVESTMENT MOVEMENT WANT? For institutional leaders to freeze any new investment in fossil fuel companies and to divest from direct ownership and any commingled funds that include fossil fuel public equities.
HOW CAN DIVESTING IMPACT MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR COMPANIES? The top 500 university endowments hold nearly $400 billion. Plus, there are state pension funds, as well as investments from churches, synagogues and mosques.
INVESTING IS ABOUT MAKING MONEY. IS DIVESTING RISKY? Fossil fuel companies, presently, are extremely profitable. But they also can be risky investments — energy markets are volatile and their business models rest on emitting more carbon into the atmosphere than civilization can handle.
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Pollution Found to be the Largest Killer of Humans in the Developing Countries
According to a new analysis by the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP), pollution is the largest factor in disease and death in the developing world, killing more than 8.4 million people. Lisa Neff, Senior Editor of Wisconsin Gazette.com states new data from the World Health Organization indicates 7.4 million deaths in a single year were due to pollution of air, water, sanitation and hygiene.
Pollution causes nearly 3 times more deaths a year than malaria, HIV/AID and tuberculosis, claims GAHP. Analysis by GAHP attributes an additional 1 million deaths to toxic chemical and industrial waste. It is already unconscionable that the least developed of the world’s countries will experience the most suffering from global-warming-caused climate changes in their countries, in spite of them burning the least quantities of fossil fuels because they are not “developed”; yet now we see these people are already having to fight off probably the worst side effect that is being created by developed world — pollution of the planet and everything living on or in it!
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