The amount of plastic waste littering the Earth's ocean floors could be up to 100 times the quantity floating on the surface, according to a study published this week. Researchers at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO)—an
Australian government agency—and the University of
Toronto in
Canada found that up to 11 million tons of plastic are polluting the planet's ocean floors, including microplastics and larger objects like fishing nets, cups, and bags. "We know that millions of tons of plastic waste enter our oceans every year but what we didn't know is how much of this pollution ends up on our ocean floor," CSIRO senior research scientist and study co-author Denise Hardesty said in a statement . "We discovered that the ocean floor has become a resting place, or reservoir, for most plastic pollution, with between 3 to 11 million tons of plastic estimated to be sinking to the ocean floor." Study leader Alice Zhu, a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto, said that "the ocean surface is a temporary resting place of plastic so it is expected that if we can stop plastic entering our oceans, the amount would be reduced." "However, our research found that plastic will continue to end up in the deep ocean," Zhu stated. "These findings help to fill a longstanding knowledge gap on the behavior of plastic in the marine environment." “Understanding the driving forces behind the transport and accumulation of plastic in the deep ocean will help to inform source reduction and environmental remediation efforts, thereby reducing the risks that plastic pollution may pose to marine life," she added. The study is part of CSIRO's Ending Plastic Waste program, whose goal is "an 80% reduction in plastic waste entering the Australian environment by 2030." Humans produce approximately 440 million tons of plastics annually, or roughly the combined weight of every person on the planet. Plastic pollution harms not only the environment and ecosystems, but also human health and economies. Plastic use is expected to double by 2040. Negotiations on a global plastics treaty have made little progress amid lobbying by the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries. The insurance company that helped former President
Donald Trump pay a $175 million bond is coming under more scrutiny as financial experts get a better look at the contract it wrote. The Daily Beast reports that the Knight Specialty Insurance Company's bond contract "doesn’t actually promise it will pay the money if the former president loses his $464 million bank fraud case on appeal" but instead "says Trump will pay, negating the whole point of an insurance company guarantee." Experts who spoke with the publication about the contract did not hold back on how shady this arrangement seems. "This is not common," said N. Alex Hanley, the CEO of Jurisco Surety Bonds. "The only reason this would be done is to limit the liability to the surety." Hanley further told the publication that normally such bond contracts would list both Trump and the insurance company as "jointly and severally" liable, which means they would both be on the hook should Trump lose his appeal in the
New York fraud case. ALSO READ: How to fix a
Supreme Court filled with corrupt stooges for the morbidly rich Maria T. Vullo, the former Superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, told The Daily Beast that “there are many questions here, and that short piece of paper gives very little comfort." And one former regulator, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Daily Beast that "I believe this paper isn’t worth much and there are more shenanigans behind it." Another odd detail flagged by The Daily Beast is the fact that the contract seems to rule out paying additional "interests and costs" should Trump lose the case, and instead flatly says that “the liability of this bond shall not exceed the sum” of $175 million." Read the full analysis at this link . CONTINUE READING Show less A French water charity sounded the alarm Monday about pollution in the river Seine, which is set to be used for swimming during the Olympic Games. Surfrider Foundation said it had analyzed six months of tests undertaken by a laboratory and had concluded that the river water remained polluted and potentially dangerous. In an open letter, the Biarritz-based charity said it "wanted to share with stakeholders its rising concerns about the quality of the Seine but also the risks faced by athletes moving in contaminated water."
Paris authorities are in a race against time to clean up the Seine before the start of the Olympics on July 26, with the famed waterway set to play a starring role during the Games. It is set to be the host of the opening ceremony and will then be used for the marathon swimming events and the triathlon -- pollution permitting. Around 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) has been spent upgrading sewage and storm water treatment facilities in the Paris region over the last decade to improve the quality of the Seine as well as its main tributary, the Marne. A major new storm water facility is expected to be inaugurated later this month, while new sewage connections for river boats are continuing to be built. Surfrider said tests had been carried out by the laboratory Eau de Paris and environmental analysis group Analy-Co from September to March underneath the bridges Alexandre-III and l'Alma, where the Olympics sports are set to take place. European water quality standards and the international triathlon and open-water swimming federations set limits on the concentration of two bacteria -- E. Coli and enterococci -- which are indicators of the presence of fecal matter. Surfrider said its measurements had shown levels often double and sometimes three-times higher than the maximum permitted amounts. The main source of hope for Olympic organizers and Paris authorities is that these levels were recorded over the winter period -- and one of the wettest winters in 30 years. Heavy rainfall is known to overwhelm Paris' sewage system, leading to direct discharges into the river of untreated effluent. Organisers have always maintained that the Olympic sport can only take place in the river if the weather is dry or the rainfall light. Cleaning up the Seine is intended to be one of the key legacy achievements of the Paris 2024 Olympics , with mayor Anne Hidalgo promising to create three public bathing areas in the river next year. She along with President
Emmanuel Macron have promised to take a dip in the Seine before the start of the Games to demonstrate it is safe for athletes and the public. Olympic open water swimming has frequently been hit by pollution concerns in the past. At the end of the test event in 2019 ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, swimmers protested against the quality of the water in Tokyo Bay. At the Rio Olympics in 2016, the prospect of swimming in the polluted Guanabara Bay also made headlines. (AFP) CONTINUE READING Show less Does the upcoming solar eclipse signal the second coming of Jesus? In all likelihood, no, but that hasn’t stopped people from speculating that it does. The New Testament is peppered with references to Jesus’ “ second coming,” the time when Christians believe Jesus will return to Earth, the wicked will be judged, and the righteous rewarded. The Apostle Paul writes about it in his letters , and the Gospels portray Jesus speaking about it . The upcoming solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, which will be visible over parts of North America, has brought with it a slew of predictions that Jesus might be returning sooner rather than later. I am a scholar of early Christian literature whose research focuses on how people read, understand and sometimes misunderstand biblical texts . Religious theories surrounding this eclipse are part of a larger pattern of attempts to find meaning in astronomical events that goes back thousands of years. Finding meaning in the skies One of the more famous examples from the ancient world of people finding meaning in the skies occurred in 44 B.C.E., when a comet appeared in the skies over
Italy just four short months after the assassination of Julius Caesar. Roman authors Pliny the Elder and Suetonius claimed that the comet was visible for about a week and that it was so bright, it could be spotted in the late afternoon. Many Romans interpreted its appearance and lingering presence as a sign that Caesar had ascended to the heavens and had taken a seat among the many gods of Rome. Caesar’s deification was made official by a vote of the Roman
Senate less than two years later. A few examples from the past 30 years further illustrate this phenomenon. In December 2020, speculation ran wild in some Christian circles that a planetary conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn signaled the return of the fabled “ Star of Bethlehem” that led the wise men to the newborn Jesus . For at least 10 years, televangelist John Hagee has promoted theories linking various “ blood moons ” as signs that the apocalypse is approaching. A tragic example is the religious movement known as Heaven’s Gate . Members of this movement believed that there was a
spacecraft hidden in the tail of the Hale-Bopp Comet , which appeared in 1997. This spacecraft, they thought, was coming to transport them to a higher level of consciousness. In March 1997, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate movement committed ritualized, mass suicide through a lethal combination of phenobarbital, vodka and asphyxiation. Chasing shadows It can be difficult to pinpoint exactly where such interpretations of celestial events originate. In the case of the upcoming eclipse, one of the images that has fueled predictions of Jesus’ second coming simply notes southern Illinois as the location where the upcoming eclipse will overlap the path of the last North
American solar eclipse in 2017. A map showing the path of total solar eclipses in 2017 and 2024. Eclipse maps published by Michael Zeiler , CC BY-NC From this image, two theories have emerged: First, that these eclipses are separated by roughly seven years, which has symbolic significance in biblical literature as a number indicating completeness and perfection . Second, on charting the paths of these eclipses on a map, they appear to form a cross. Some Christians have taken this as evidence that the upcoming eclipse is an indication that Jesus’ return is imminent. But there is no logical basis for this theory. For starters, solar eclipses are not quite as rare as they seem. A solar eclipse occurs when the
moon passes between the Earth and the Sun and blots out all or some of the Sun’s light. They seem rare because they affect only the narrow strip of land that falls in the shadow of the Moon. According to
NASA , there has been an average of 2.5 eclipses per year over the past 1,000 years. The phenomenon of two eclipses crossing paths is also rather unremarkable. Looking at a map of eclipse paths between 2001 and 2025, it is clear that eclipses frequently cross paths; of the 15 solar eclipses during this span of time, only two did not cross paths. Map of the world charting the paths of eclipses between 2001 and 2025. All but two of these paths intersect. Eclipse map predictions courtesy of Fred Espenak, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center One could argue that the North American eclipses of 2017 and 2024 are unique because of the seven years that separate them. But this isn’t logical in terms of the larger argument that some are making. These eclipses – on August 21, 2017, and April 8, 2024 – are separated not by seven years but by six and a half years, or 2,422 days to be exact. Another pair of eclipses that crossed paths in the Pacific Ocean – on July 22, 2009, and March 9, 2016 – were separated by the same number of days. Seek and you will find Most of these end times predictions are rooted in North American evangelical views on the apocalypse, many of which originated or at least share an affinity with evangelical author Hal Lindsey’s popular book, “ The Late Great Planet Earth .” In this book, Lindsey predicted that the apocalypse would occur in the 1980s, and to make his argument, he stitched together a number of disparate events and phenomena to construct an apocalyptic narrative that included Soviet helicopters, the establishment of the state of Israel and nuclear warfare. Lindsey was wrong, of course; the 1980s did not bring about the apocalypse. But this way of thinking – of seeking to find significance in various random events like eclipses – persists among some Christians . The difference between this pairing of the 2017 and 2024 eclipses and the ones from 2009 and 2016 is simple: The most recent pairing crosses over the
United States. Patterns emerge when and where they are sought, and much depends on the aims of the people doing the seeking. The second coming of Jesus is undeniably a topic of conversation among New Testament authors . But it is interesting to note that there is little agreement among these authors when it comes to timing. What is presented in the Gospels is different from what is presented in the letters of Paul. And both of these are quite different from what is found in the book of Revelation. But these authors do share a sense that the timing of “the end” is ultimately mysterious and unknowable. And this would suggest that attempting to predict such timing by means of things like eclipses is, at the very least, not terribly “biblical.” Eric Vanden Eykel , Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Ferrum College This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article . CONTINUE READING Show less