Balloons the No. 1 marine debris risk of mortality for seabirds
UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA
A new IMAS and CSIRO collaborative study has found that balloons are the
highest-risk plastic debris item for seabirds -- 32 times more likely to kill
than ingesting hard plastics. Researchers from IMAS, CSIRO and ACE CRC looked
at the cause of death of 1,733 seabirds from 51 species and found that one in
three of the birds had ingested marine debris.
- JOURNAL
- Scientific Reports
Full release https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-03/uot-bt022719.php
MaggieOn Monday, March 4, 2019, 6:15:21 PM GMT+1, Greg Rau
wrote:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612953/climate-activists-with-cheap-balloons-could-create-a-diy-geoengineering-nightmare/
“The scenario would go something like this. It’s the year 2051. A decade of
drought, crop failure, and famine has killed millions across East Africa,
sparking violent clashes over food and water. Similar scenes of death and
devastation are playing out in other parts of the globe.
In response, an environmental group, or maybe a humanitarian one, or perhaps
just some individual with a huge social-media following, calls for a radical
response: every citizen should launch high-altitude balloons into the sky, each
carrying a small payload of particles that could reflect heat back into space.
This kind of distributed, DIY geoengineering scheme appears technically
feasible, which raises troubling questions about the ability to regulate such
technologies, according to a white paper published on the website of the
Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center late last year.
It notes that hobbyist kits for unmanned high-altitude balloons can already be
purchased for as little as $25, and imagines that such a campaign could be
coordinated using social media, blockchain, and crowdfunding sites.”
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