Drones planting trees, starving polar bears, natural disasters in Israel, football against air pollution, public fight against the gas rig, war on single-use plastic, fires in the south, food waste and disappearing insects - these are just some of the environmental stories we had in 2018
From the Angle system - news agency for science and the environment
January - 2.0th in the tribe XNUMX
Our New Year's Day, where kindergarten children usually go out into nature and plant a tree, has in recent years become part of a global strategy that is at the forefront of the environmental struggle. Forests and trees are key players in the fight against climate change, because they absorb carbon dioxide, help reduce noise and absorb pollutants, provide a green landscape that positively affects physical and mental health, and even help prevent soil erosion and flooding.
This year, they decided to plant 50 million trees in the UK with a total cost of half a billion pounds to create a green strip that is about 200 kilometers long in the north of the country. At the same time, to optimize the process, a new venture has developed a technology in which a drone is used to plant trees in large areas, and it is able to effectively plant 120 capsules in which tree seeds in Only a minute. The capsules contain the seed accompanied by nutrients that should help it grow and grow optimally in Israel and in the world already Drones are used to monitor the condition of forests and prepare early for fires.
Drones are able to effectively plant 120 capsules containing tree seeds in just one minute. Photo: Jason Blackeye on Unsplash
February - the autonomous vehicles take off, and crash
on February 6 Elon Musk's red sports car was launched into space in a spectacular show, on top of his ambitious and expensive project "Falcon Heavy" - the most powerful active satellite launcher in the world today. Musk's private car, a red Tesla Roadster, included a copy of the book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in the glove compartment, a towel and a sign that read "Don't Panic"; In the driver's seat sat a doll in the company's astronaut suit and the songs "Space Oddity" and "Life on Mars" by David Bowie were played non-stop. The launch was of course broadcast from the car live back to Earth.
Despite this, the current year marked a less successful year for autonomous electric vehicles - the future of transportation on Earth. In March, a pedestrian was run over by Uber's autonomous vehicle, which was on a test drive; In April, a Tesla car was also involved in a car accident when the automatic driving mode was active, which claimed the life of an Apple engineer who was driving it. The series of accidents has raised concerns that a negative trend is emerging that will harm the chances of success of the autonomous electric vehicle revolution in the automotive world; But only in a little while will we know whether the year 2018 brought good news in this car market in Israel and around the world.
March - the tragedy of the polar bears
International Polar Bear Day was marked this year with sadness following the distribution of a video showing a starving polar bear, as captured by National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklan on Canada's Baffin Island. The heart-breaking spectacle of the ravenous bear in its last moments, falling into rusting cans left by the Inuit fishermen and collapsing in exhaustion, moved and shocked many people in the world.
Polar bears have become a symbol of global warming, because their habitat (the arctic circle) is among the first to be affected by warming. Studies published ahead of this year's Polar Bear Day tried to better understand the mechanisms that cause polar bears to starve. It was found in them that not only do the bears have to make do with less food (hunting seals, whose numbers in the area are constantly dropping), but they also have to spend more energy searching for food over the melted ice surfaces. You don't have to be a great mathematician to understand that this continuous state of energy deficit will end in starvation.
April - Natural disasters claim victims
In May, the flash flood in Nahal Tzfit claimed the lives of ten teenage boys and girls who were hiking there as part of a pre-military preparatory school. In the same stormy weather system, three more people were killed - in floods in Nahal Tzin, Nahal Mashit and nearby Amos Amos. The year 2018 ranks third in the number of victims as a result of natural disasters since the founding of the state, with 2010 at the top, with 44 deaths in the Carmel fire, followed by 1970, in which 20 people were killed in the Navet Square disaster due to the deterioration of rocks that hit a military dining hall.
The extreme weather that prevailed in Israel during the spring season is one of the factors that led to the disaster, and it seems to be part of an ongoing trend of extreme weather events, the cause of which is global climate change. Although, it is important to emphasize that one specific weather event cannot be linked to climate change, but only a change in the frequency of events of a certain type over a long period of time. However, according to research, very stormy autumn and spring seasons are exactly what we can expect in the future, as is the intensification of storms and their frequency. And so, also in the fall of 2018, flash floods hit our region, killing more than 30 people in Jordan, in some of the most serious flood events the kingdom has ever known.
May - Israel dries up again
In May, Israeli citizens encountered a familiar slogan from the past - "Israel is drying up." The simple message, which burst into consciousness about a decade ago, received a facelift and returned to our screens as part of a new campaign launched by the Water Authority. The campaign emphasizes the need to change household water consumption habits, and warns that in light of climate change, we cannot rely on desalination alone. In this campaign, the Water Authority aimed to produce a long-term change in the consumer's habits with the help of simple guidelines for saving, which include, among other things, shortening shower time, flushing half a tank in the toilet and streamlining the irrigation of private gardens.
The campaign came amid a feeling of complacency, due to the fact that in recent years the State of Israel has significantly improved its ability to meet the ever-increasing demand for water through seawater desalination. However, government officials and experts warned that this cannot be the be-all and end-all: desalination has a high economic and energetic cost, and it also does not constitute a sufficient solution to the demand of farmers and nature for water. The water system in Israel is affected by climate change due to the lack of precipitation in recent years in the north of the country, and especially in the basin of the Sea of Galilee. The State Comptroller's report published in October strongly attacked the preparation of the water sector for the effects of climate change in our region, and warned against non-compliance with the desalination goals, and damage to the Sea of Galilee and the natural water reservoirs.
see also: 70 years of environment in Israel
June - football in the fresh air
The 2018 World Cup, which opened in Russia in June, introduced VAR (video assistant referee) technology to the world and won France the title of world champion for the second time in its history. The weather conditions called for an ideal game experience for the players and spectators; But many times the conditions of the game that the players have to deal with are completely different. In the world soccer championship for teams up to the age of 17, for example, which took place in India last year, air pollution conditions persisted that endangered the health of the players. The games took place in the end despite the health risk, and quite a bit of criticism was directed at FIFA.
Studies conducted in recent years have shown that abnormal air pollution during games harms the performance of soccer players by an average of 16 percent. In addition, during aerobic activity there is a transition from breathing through the nose (which filters the primary pollutants) to breathing through the mouth, therefore large amounts of unfiltered air enter the body, which may cause health risks among the players. During a precedent this year, the Ministry of Health and the Israel Football Association set levels of air pollution that require the cancellation or postponement of football games, with a special aggravation for games for children and youth. This procedure has already been used several times in Israel in cases of unusual air pollution.
During a precedent this year, the Ministry of Health and the Israel Football Association set levels of air pollution that require the cancellation or postponement of football matches. Photo: thomas-serer – unsplash
July - the battle for the rig
The Leviathan rig, to which large quantities of natural gas from the deep-sea Leviathan gas field are supposed to flow at the end of 2019, was at the heart of a bitter public and legal battle this year. After a long examination and discussion process that lasted about four years in the National Planning and Construction Council, which was open to the public and was also attended by representatives of residents and representatives of environmental organizations, The construction of a rig in the sea on top of pillars has been approved, about 10 kilometers from Dor Beach - One of the most beautiful and favorite bathing beaches in Israel.
At the head of the protest were the residents of the area, who fear the establishment of a petrochemical plant for the refining and production of gas and fuel, which may release into the air and water various substances that they claim create a serious health hazard. On the other hand, the government ministries responsible for the issue (the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Environmental Protection), claimed that the project is supervised by them and the emissions into the sea and air during the gas production process will be carried out after treatment and in a controlled manner, at concentrations that are safe for the public and the marine environment. It seems that the public protest, at the height of which thousands demonstrated in the streets of Tel Aviv demanding that the rig be moved to the depths of the sea, was not successful: in early December, Noble Energy announced that the lower part of the rig had left the United States, and was expected to arrive at its location at the end of January 2019.
August - scorched earth
Improvised incendiary devices that were set off towards Israeli territory by Hamas members starting in the spring ignited fires on a daily basis and created an ecological disaster in the south of the country. The incendiary devices carried by the wind (burning kites, exploding balloons and condoms filled with helium gas) can start a fire at a distance of 30 kilometers, and balloons have even reached the city of Beer Sheva. Over 1,100 fires have left an area of more than 30 dunams scorched and scorched, the vegetation and animals that thrived there not long ago were severely damaged.
The fires cause pain and instill fear in the residents of the south, but the threat to the environment should not be taken lightly either. The fire left its mark on the local nature: insects and smaller animals lost their habitat. Turtles, rodents and snakes died in the fires, but larger animals also suffered - when the vegetation or smaller species die in the flames, the species that feed on them must move to another area to find alternative food sources. The changes in the ecosystem can be long-term, and it is difficult to know yet what the effect of the fire will be in the future.
The changes in the ecosystem can be long-term, and it is difficult to know yet what the effect of the fire will be in the future. Photo: Angle
September - this year during the holidays from Zambazim
The Tishrei holidays are a celebration of family, of trips and especially of food. However, holiday meals not only make us gain a few extra pounds, but also throw away a large amount of food. This is not an insignificant phenomenon: according to the data of the national report on food loss and food rescue, produced by the Leket Israel association and the BDO company, the total food loss in Israel is about 2.3 million tons per year, worth about NIS 19.5 billion, which is about a third of the volume Food production in Israel The average Israeli family of four throws away NIS 8,088 worth of food every year To her - there is a failure here in which the farmers and the food producers, through the marketing chains and up to the consumers, are complicit.
The Israeli Convention to Reduce Food Waste, initiated by the organization The Natural Step Israel, resurfaced the issue this year. The agreement is the final product of a laboratory process that lasted two years, during which the problems were mapped and the relevant solutions were defined regarding food waste in Israel. The agreement has so far been signed by over 35 entities from the entire food production chain, including farmers, businesses, food manufacturers, municipalities, retailers and marketers, academies, civic organizations, hotels and catering entities. Everyone thus expresses their commitment to take responsibility for the problem and deal with it, each in their own way.
see also: Environmental food production
October - choose an environment
In October, the elections to local authorities in Israel took place. Residents of 251 local authorities chose the people who will largely determine what their living environment will look like in the next five years: in the areas of transportation, waste treatment, construction and preservation of open spaces, cleanliness of public space and more. The election campaign in Jerusalem, in which Moshe Leon eventually won the second round by a small margin, this year focused on the environmental aspect of the issue of cleanliness in the public space, after Jerusalem recently won a very dubious honor, and was named the dirtiest city in Israel.
Another environmental choice that took place in the month of October is The selection of Prof. William Nordhaus and Prof. Paul Romer as winners of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics. Nordhaus, one of the world's leading environmental economists, is trying to find economic solutions in his research to deal with global climate change, caused by emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. As part of the solution, he recommended taxing carbon emissions, with the aim of reducing its global effects. The announcement of Nordhaus winning the Nobel came, coincidentally or not, on the day when the latest UN report on climate change was published, which, according to the forecast, the average temperature on Earth, which has so far increased by one degree Celsius compared to the period before the industrial revolution, will cross the threshold of 1.5 degrees already between 2030 and 2052.
November - Europe against plastic
A whale that washed up on the shores of Indonesia with 115 disposable cups, 25 plastic bags, 4 drinking bottles, 2 pairs of flip flops and about a thousand other pieces of plastic of various types with a total weight of 5.9 kilograms in its stomach has once again focused global attention on the problem of single-use plastic waste, which floods the The oceans are filled with plastic particles of various sizes that harm the health of animals and humans.
Towards the end of 2018, the most significant and dramatic legislative move to prevent the sale and use of single-use plastic products began: the European Parliament decided by a large majority to impose various restrictions on the sale and distribution of ten types of single-use plastic products until 2025. These include drinking cups and lids, buckets Cigarettes, ear cleaning sticks, snack packs, wet wipes, disposable bags, Cutlery, plates, straws and drinking straws, sticks for balloons and food boxes. In a gradual process, all these products will be outlawed, when at first the products for which substitutes from consumable materials already exist will be banned.
see also:
- Plastic infections have been found in marine animals all along Israel's coasts in the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea
- Who are the ten companies that pollute the sea with plastic?
December - the insects disappear
An encounter with a bug indoors is something most people would be happy to pass up, and it usually involves screaming and a frantic search for a shoe. But a series of recently published studies indicate that the insects that live in our environment, and that play an important role in the ecosystem and in agriculture, are gradually disappearing from the world - as a result of damage to their habitats by humans.
One of the main functions of the insects is pollination of flowers, an essential process without which the plant is unable to produce fruits and seeds. Pollination is mainly carried out by bees, as well as by other insects such as butterflies, flies and beetles. A large part of the crops grown by man depend on pollination by insects, so damage to insects means damage to our food.
In Germany, a decrease of no less than 76 percent was recorded in the various insect populations; Beetle populations in the Netherlands plummeted by 72 percent; The population of the royal damselfly, the well-known orange butterfly, has decreased by 90 percent in the last 20 years; And the damage to the honey bee and wild bees is also dramatic. Preservation of insects is almost never a priority. Maybe now, when the dimensions of the disaster become clear, the public will realize that they may not want the cockroach in the kitchen, but outside, insects are a very good and important thing.
