The spirit if not the letter of the First Amendment prohibits both sophisticated and simple-minded violations of free speech, writes Bruce Fein.
By Bruce Fein
Special to Consortium News
As the name NewsGuard portends, its Orwellian purpose is to safeguard readers from news sources that it s
Curbing the world's appetite for meat is necessary to combat the climate crisis. To replace beef, some environmentalists and scientists have suggested choosing chicken instead, which produces significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions. But consuming "less-carbon polluting meats" like chicken or fish may not be a sustainable replacement for beef.
Published Monday, April 12, in the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study also found that sea spray and agricultural runoff generated 10 and five percent of atmospheric microplastics, respectively. Meanwhile, in hotspots for microplastic sources and accumulation, microplastics lingered in the air for up to 6.5 days.
Lead author Janice Brahney, an assistant professor from the department of watershed sciences at
Utah State University, said she and her colleagues wanted to determine how microplastics were moving through the environment, as well as how far.
In an interview with
The Academic Times, she said virtually any place you can go to has microplastics lingering in the air. And while microplastics haven’t been as extensively studied as other pollutants, their ubiquitous presence is alarming. “[Trying] to understand how it’s getting there, I think, is pretty important,” said Brahney.
In fact, microplastics can linger in the air for up to a week, which is more than enough time for them to “travel” across entire continents. “The atmosphere is one of the reasons why microplastics are so widespread,” said study lead author Janice Brahney, an assistant professor of natural resources at USU.
In an interview with
The Academic Times, Brahney said microplastics are practically everywhere now, which is alarming. Therefore, it is important to understand how microplastics are ending up in the atmosphere, added Brahney.
The researchers published their findings in the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.