thoughtlessarse

[thoughtlessarse]

As a consequence of decades of living in a plastic-filled society, plastic is now everywhere. Once degraded to the size of microplastics (particles smaller than five millimeters), plastic has reached the Arctic, the Mariana Trench, the Himalayas, the atmosphere, our food, and even our bodies. Now, Spanish researchers have confirmed that it has also made its way into human reproductive fluids: where the egg develops and in semen. They were able to identify up to a dozen different types of plastic, albeit in low concentrations. It is still not known what impact they might have on sperm or oocytes and their ability to create life. Researchers and doctors from the University of Murcia and the assisted reproduction clinics Next Fertility analyzed seminal plasma samples from 22 donors and follicular fluid from 29 women undergoing fertility treatment. The results of this work were presented by the study’s lead author, Spanish researcher Emilio Gómez Sánchez, at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), held in Paris. Microplastics were found in 69% of the follicular fluid samples — the fluid where oocytes, future eggs, develop. In the case of semen, the percentage drops to 55%. Seminal plasma, aside from being the transport medium for sperm, also keeps them alive. The difference could be due to the small sample size. However, Dr. Gómez, lab director at Next Fertility Murcia, notes another possible explanation: “Women undergoing in vitro fertilization receive hormonal treatment that increases ovarian vascularization, which means greater blood flow.” The three entry routes of these plastic particles into the body — inhaled, ingested, or through the skin — all end up in the same place: the bloodstream.

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The Hong Kong government said Wednesday it will propose legislation to recognise a limited set of rights for same-sex couples whose marriages are registered abroad, as it seeks to comply with a landmark court ruling. The city's top judges had unanimously defined marriage as "confined to opposite-sex couples" in September 2023. But the same ruling also ordered the government to create an "alternative framework" within two years that recognises same-sex couples' legal rights. In a policy paper published on Wednesday, the Hong Kong government wrote that it "recommends legislation to allow same-sex couples to apply for registration under a newly established registration mechanism". The proposal is limited to healthcare-related rights -- such as hospital visits, making medical decisions, sharing medical information and organ donation -- and rights related to a deceased person's body. To be eligible, adult couples must have been lawfully married abroad, with at least one person a Hong Kong resident. "There are different views in society regarding the legal recognition of same-sex couples' relationships," the government added. -"We must make careful deliberations and... strike a balance, to avoid causing social rifts and affecting social harmony."

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A United Ireland would cost €3bn in the first year, but any financial burdens would disappear within a decade, according to a new report from Dublin City University. The report, the first peer-reviewed study on the cost of a united Ireland, says an initial investment of €1bn in public expenditure would reduce the cost of a 32-county Ireland gradually. Author professor John Doyle critiques other projections that say the level of subsidies from the UK government to Northern Ireland, quoted as up to £14bn per year, makes unity not economically feasible. Doyle says the figure “grossly exaggerates the probable real cost of unity”.

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...higher temperature. However, this process can threaten local biodiversity if water is released which is too hot. Due to a scorching heatwave which has spread across Europe in recent days, a number of nuclear power plants in Switzerland and France have been forced to either reduce activity or shut down completely as extreme temperatures have prevented sites from relying on water from local rivers. To cool down, nuclear power plants pump water from local rivers or the sea, which they then release back into water bodies at a higher temperature. However, Europe's ongoing heatwave means that the water pumped by nuclear sites is already very hot, impacting the ability of nuclear plants to use it to cool down. On top of this, nuclear sites run the risk of posing a dangerous threat to local biodiversity, by releasing water which is too hot into rivers and seas. In light of the heat, Axpo - which operates the Beznau nuclear power plant in Switzerland - said it had shut down one of its reactors on Tuesday, adding that a second reactor was operating at limited capacity. "Due to the high river water temperatures, Axpo has been increasingly reducing the output of the two reactor units at the Beznau nuclear power plant for days and reduced it to 50 per cent on Sunday," said the operator.

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Every single person in the Netherlands has multiple types of PFAS in their blood. In almost everyone, the PFAS levels are above the health limit, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) reported on Thursday. The RIVM looked at 28 different PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) in almost 1,500 blood samples from 2017 and 2018. It found at least seven different PFAS in almost all blood samples (PFOA, PFNA, PFDA, PFUnDA, PFHxS, PFHpS, and PFOS). PFOS and PFOA were most common. These two chemicals were banned in 2008 and 2020, respectively. In 2021 and 2023, RIVM research showed that Netherlands residents get a lot of their PFAS exposure through food and water. “The results of the blood test confirm this,” the RIVM said. The health institute stressed that having more PFAS in your blood than the health limit does not immediately mean getting sick from PFAS. But it does mean that PFAS affect your body. “For example, the immune system can function less well. The effects depend on the amount of PFAS, the duration of exposure, and someone's personal health situation.”

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Austrians have poured scorn on far-right MPs for topping the list of highest earners in the country’s parliament, accusing the purported champions of the working class of hypocrisy over their lucrative side hustles. A report based on mandatory income declarations for 2024 revealed this week that MPs from the anti-immigration Freedom party (FPÖ), which came in first in the September general election, to be cashing in most with supplementary earnings. The data shows that seven FPÖ MPs were paid more than €12,000 (£10,400) a month, primarily as notaries, lawyers and business executives, on top of their parliamentary salary of about €10,000. Far-right MPs had an average of 1.9 additional sources of pay, surpassing all of their colleagues in parliament. “Do they have enough time for such high-paying side jobs? How do they manage? As someone who in an average-paying job always tries to give 100%, and is suffering from budget cuts, I feel mucked around,” one reader wrote on Facebook under an article about the report. “Preaching water and drinking wine! Sure, the party of the ‘average Joe’,” said an Instagram user. “Their day must have more than 24 hours!” wrote another. Fellow politicians seized on the report to attack the scandal-prone FPÖ, which polls show is supported by one in three Austrians. “For a party whose business model is kicking off envy debates and presenting itself as the mouthpiece of the little guy and the opponent of the ‘system’, it’s fair to ask about credibility,” the general secretary of the co-ruling People’s party (ÖVP), Nico Marchetti, said in a statement.

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I wonder how much of their incomes come from Russia.

[thoughtlessarse]

A nickel stockpile towers over farmer Moharen Tambiling's rice paddy in the Philippines' Palawan, evidence of a mining boom that locals hope a new moratorium will tame. "They told us before the start of their operations that it wouldn't affect us, but the effects are undeniable now," Tambiling told AFP. "Pangolins, warthogs, birds are disappearing. Flowers as well." A biodiversity hotspot, Palawan also holds vast deposits of nickel, needed for everything from stainless steel to electric vehicles. Once the world's largest exporter of the commodity, the Philippines is now racing to catch up with Indonesia. In 2021, Manila lifted a nine-year ban on mining licences. Despite promised jobs and tax revenue, there is growing pushback against the sector in Palawan. In March, the island's governing council unanimously passed a 50-year moratorium on any new mining permits. "Flash floods, the siltation of the sea, fisheries, mangrove areas... We are witnesses to the effects of long-term mining," Nieves Rosento, a former local councillor who led the push, told AFP. Environmental rights lawyer Grizelda Mayo-Anda said the moratorium could stop nearly 70 proposed projects spanning 240,000 hectares. "You have to protect the old-growth forest, and it's not being done," she said. From 2001 to 2024, Palawan -- dubbed the country's "last ecological frontier" -- lost 219,000 hectares of tree cover, more than any other province, in part due to mining, according to Global Forest Watch.

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…confirmed, the debate and vote will be held during the July plenary session in Strasbourg. The European Parliament is set to debate and vote next week on a “motion of censure”, a no-confidence vote against European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her College of Commissioners. Romanian MEP Gheorghe Piperea, from the ultra-conservative party AUR, claims he has collected 73 signatures for his motion—one more than one-in-ten minimum threshold of MEPs (72) required to initiate the process. According to Piperea’s office, 32 members of his political group, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), have backed the request. The remaining signatures came from the far-right groups Patriots for Europe (6), Europe of Sovereign Nations (26), and from non-attached MEPs. The MEPs’ signatures are now being verified and validated by the Parliament’s services, according to internal sources. Once the validation process is complete, President Roberta Metsola will formally inform MEPs that a motion of censure has been tabled. A plenary debate on the request for resignation must then be scheduled at least 24 hours after the announcement, and a vote on the matter must take place at least 48 hours after the start of the debate. Parliamentary sources told Euronews the debate could be held on Tuesday, 8 July, with the vote following on Thursday, 10 July, provided that President Metsola announces the motion by the end of this week. However, any signing MEP can withdraw their support for the motion at any time. If the one-tenth threshold is no longer met, the process is halted. At least two-thirds of the votes cast representing a majority of all MEPs would need to back the motion of censure for it to be adopted.

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Singer Douwe Bob has left the Netherlands with his family on the police’s advice, the singer said on social media. He’s received serious threats after VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz accused him of anti-Semitism. “I am writing this from the car on the way from the Netherlands. To ensure the safety of my family and myself, we have decided to leave for the time being,” Douwe Bob wrote. The police would not confirm to NOS whether they urged the singer to leave the country. His management told the broadcaster that serious threats were made against him. “There was acute danger. We had to call 112.” Douwe Bob has reported several serious threats to the police. On Sunday, Douwe Bob refused to perform at the annual Jewish football tournament Jom Ha Voetbal in Amsterdam at the last minute. According to the singer, there were “Zionist posters and pamphlets” on display, and that was against the agreements he had made with the organization. “I love the Jewish community, I am against Zionism, and that is what is sold here. That is why I cannot play here now. Sorry,” he said before walking off the stage.

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Political cowardice is hindering European efforts to face up to the effects of the climate crisis, even as the continent is pummelled by a record-breaking heatwave, the EU’s green transition chief has warned. In an interview with the Guardian, Teresa Ribera said that although the effects of the climate emergency were becoming increasingly obvious, they were still not translating into proper action. “When you see the map of Europe, it’s dreadful,” said Ribera, speaking amid a heatwave with unprecedented June temperatures from Spain and Portugal to the UK. “We saw it in [the southern Spanish province of] Huelva, where it was 46C on Saturday. It’s 36C in Brussels and 38C in the east. They are absolutely terrible temperatures that have a very serious impact on ecosystems, on the economy and on health. And I think that there hasn’t yet been a real shift from the headlines about extreme meteorological phenomena to preparing people and understanding what needs to be done in the case of certain events.” Speaking alongside Jessika Roswall, the EU commissioner for environment, water resilience and a competitive circular economy, Ribera said there was still a long way to go when it came to readying infrastructures and urban environments for the realities of the emergency. A major part of the problem, she added, was that some political parties “continue to insist, quite vehemently, that climate change does not exist”, or else say that taking decisions to adapt to environmental realities is too expensive. “Sorry, but it’ll be much more expensive if we don’t act,” said Ribera, the executive vice-president of the European Commission for clean, just and competitive transition and a former Spanish environment minister. “We all know that. You can’t tell people that climate change is the great existential problem of our generation, and then say, ‘I’m sorry, we’re not going to do anything’. That is what they are doing. And I think people see that, when it’s 46C in Huelva [in June]. That is not normal.”

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Scientists believe they have found a way to protect people from a toxic and long-lasting "forever chemical". Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) are man-made chemicals which can be found in items such as waterproof clothing, non-stick pans, lipsticks or food packaging. They are used for their grease and water repellence, but do not degrade quickly in nature and have been linked to health issues such as higher risks of certain cancers. A University of Cambridge study found a certain species of microbe found in the human gut could absorb various PFAS molecules and lessen its harmful effects.

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Hopefully, the same bacteria could also help wildlife since it too is affected by forever chemicals.

[thoughtlessarse]

…images from drilling sites, pipelines, and processing facilities worldwide. An $88 million (€77.4 million) satellite backed by Jeff Bezos has disappeared in space while conducting a climate change mission, New Zealand officials said on Wednesday. MethaneSAT, which was designed to evaluate greenhouse gas emissions with "unprecedented resolution," was also funded by Wellington and the US-based Environmental Defense Fund. However, the satellite was plagued with technical problems and recently stopped responding to its Earth-bound controllers. -"Clearly, this is a disappointing development," said Andrew Johnson, a senior official at the New Zealand Space Agency. "As those who work in the space sector know, space is inherently challenging, and every attempt, successful or not, pushes the boundaries of what we know and what we're capable of."

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How convenient for the fossil fuel companies, just at a time when they're all abandoning their climate commitments.

[thoughtlessarse]

…rains flood, and water sources disappear. The Himalayan village of Samjung did not die in a day. Perched in a wind-carved valley in Nepal's Upper Mustang sits more than 3,962 meters above sea level. The Buddhist village lived by slow, deliberate rhythms — herding yaks and sheep and harvesting barley under sheer ochre cliffs honeycombed with “sky caves”, 2,000-year-old chambers used for ancestral burials, meditation and shelter. Then the water dried up. Snow-capped mountains turned brown and barren as, year after year, snowfall declined. Springs and canals vanished and when it did rain, the water came all at once, flooding fields and melting away the mud homes. Families left one by one, leaving the skeletal remains of a community transformed by climate change: crumbling mud homes, cracked terraces and unkempt shrines.

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Authorities have closed two official swimming sites in the Netherlands and issued dozens of health warnings as summer temperatures draw more people to natural waters, NOS reports. A swimming ban has been imposed at De Betteld holiday park in Zelhem, Gelderland, where tests revealed “extremely high levels” of PFAS. At It Nannewiid near Oudehaske in Friesland, swimming has been declared unsafe because of nearby construction work. Across the country, forty sites have tested positive for blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, which can cause nausea, diarrhea and skin irritation. Swimmers can also develop swimmer’s itch, a rash triggered by parasites present in the water. While swimming is not automatically forbidden at locations where blue-green algae are detected, experts strongly recommend caution. “Use common sense,” officials advise. Swimmers are urged to check the water’s appearance before entering. A visible scum layer or an intense green color should be treated as a clear warning to stay out.

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…ecosystem. But activists say this is just the tip of the Pfas iceberg One quiet Saturday night, Sandra Wiedemann was curled up on the sofa when a story broke on TV news: the water coming from her tap could be poisoning her. The 36-year-old, who is breastfeeding her six-month-old son Côme, lives in the quiet French commune of Buschwiller in Saint-Louis, near the Swiss city of Basel. Perched on a hill not far from the Swiss and German borders, it feels like a safe place to raise a child – spacious houses are surrounded by manicured gardens, framed by the wild Jura mountains. But as she watched the news, this safety felt threatened: Wiedemann and her family use tap water every day, for drinking, brushing her teeth, showering, cooking and washing vegetables. Now, she learned that chemicals she had never heard of were lurking in her body, on her skin, potentially harming her son. “I find it scary,” she says. “Even if we stop drinking it we will be exposed to it and we can’t really do anything.” The next morning she rushed to the supermarket expecting frantic Covid-style hoarding, but the aisles were calm – most people hadn’t seen the news. Three days later, a letter dropped through her door from the local authority. Drinking water was prohibited, it said, for children under two years old, pregnant or breastfeeding women and people with weak immune systems. The same letter was pushed through the letterbox of about 60,000 other people across 11 communes. The supermarket rush began. Saint-Louis is now the site of France’s biggest ever ban on drinking tap water. Its at-risk residents will rely on bottled water until at least the end of the year, when authorities hope water filter systems will be installed. Tests of the local tap water showed levels of Pfas – “forever chemicals” linked to cancer, immune dysfunction and reproductive issues – had reached four times the recommended limit. Shelves were stripped bare as families scrambled to stockpile bottles of water to protect loved ones. The source was a firefighting foam used at the airport since the 1960s, ending only in 2017, according to the joint statement from the local authority and regional health agency. Toxic residues from the foam lingered, filtering through the soil into drinking water and people’s bodies – probably over decades.

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[thoughtlessarse]

…national pride.

Only 36% of Democrats say they’re “extremely” or “very” proud to be American, according to a new Gallup poll, reflecting a dramatic decline in national pride that’s also clear among young people. The findings are a stark illustration of how many — but not all — Americans have felt less of a sense of pride in their country over the past decade. The split between Democrats and Republicans, at 56 percentage points, is at its widest since 2001. That includes all four years of Republican President Donald Trump’s first term.

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Keep doing what you're doing, Gen Z. Fuck the rest of you

[thoughtlessarse]

Nato leaders agreed to ramp up defence spending to 5% of their countries’ economic output by 2035 at a summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 25. US president Donald Trump, who has spent months saying Europe should take more responsibility for its own security, described the pledge as “a monumental win for the US” and a “big win” for western civilisation. A few months earlier, in March, the EU also launched its long-awaited white paper on defence. This provides a blueprint for improving Europe’s readiness to respond to military threats by 2030. On top of the fact that global military spending has surged in the past ten years, these developments indicate that the world’s largest nations now prioritise military over economic diplomacy. One of the main ideas behind military diplomacy is that increased defence spending acts as a deterrent to future conflicts. The nuclear arms race between the US and Soviet Union during the cold war provides some support for this argument. The prospect of mutual destruction was so great that it acted as a deterrent to nuclear war. But is increased defence spending really the necessary price for greater peace and prosperity? My research on interactions between firms, geopolitics and the political economy of defence indicates that this is no “big win” for society or economic productivity.

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