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According to the U.S. Geological Survey, chemicals are capable of changing the sexual characteristics of fish and other animals that have been seen in West Virginia tributaries of the Potomac River, which runs through the Washington, D.C. and other area’s in the surroundings.

When they investigated the fish further then the fish that bad both characteristics of male and female showed chemicals like pesticides, flame retardants in its system. The Potomac is continuously fed by the rivers and streams that are present in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.

“We analyzed samples of 30 smallmouth bass from six sites, including male and female fish without intersex and male fish with intersex,” said Douglas Chambers, a USGS scientist who led the study.”All samples contained detectable levels of at least one known endocrine-disrupting compound, including samples from fish without intersex.”

Endocrine disrupters cause the animals’ hormone system to get disrupted. The pesticides then cause birth defects and sexual abnormalities like intersex among species ranging from frogs to alligators and maybe even humans.

“Antibiotics were detected in municipal wastewater, aquaculture, and poultry-processing effluent, with the highest number of antibiotics and the greatest concentrations found in municipal effluent,” the USGS wrote in the report.

“Many potential sources of contaminants discharge to the South Branch of the Potomac and Cacapon Rivers. Chief among these are runoff from agricultural activities, municipal and domestic wastewater effluent (both treated and untreated), industrial wastewater, and gypsy moth control programs using dimilin (diflubenzuron),” the report reads.

These sexual changes in the fish were discovered accidentally in 2003, when the scientists were investigating the huge fish kills.

According to the Chinese government, officials reported that this week more than 30 percent of fish species in the Yellow River have become extinct. “There used to be more than 150 species of fish living in the Yellow River, but one-third have disappeared for good,” an unnamed Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) official said.

This huge fall in the numbers of the fish is being caused due to disruptive dams, pollution and other such environmental disasters. “Overfishing, persistent dumping, and hydropower projects along the river have degraded the underwater ecological environment,” he said.

According to the estimates of the Chinese government, 66 percent of the Yellow River’s water is so polluted that it is undrinkable. Jennifer Turner, head of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., said that the river’s fouled waters mirror a nationwide problem that threatens wildlife as well as human health.

“The Yellow River is the Mother River,” Turner said, referring to the waterway’s role as the cradle of northern Chinese civilization.”If the Mother River is sick, that’s a major indication of the whole problem of China’s inability to protect water resources.”

The government says that around 70 percent of the country’s rivers and lakes could be seriously polluted. River Running Dry The Yellow River is China’s second longest after the Yangtze, which flows for around  3,400 miles (5,500 kilometers) from the arid Qinghai-Tibet plateau to the Bo Hai inlet of the Yellow Sea.
According to the officials, decrease in rainfall is the real cause for drop in the levels of water in the river. If there is climate change along with that then it can make the problem worse. Humans are one of the reason, as they remove unlimited gallons of water from the river for the growing population, farmlands, and factories around the banks of this river.

“The problem has been rapid development of the whole basin over the past 25 years,” Turner said. During 2006 the levels of the river had fallen to a new low. It has increased the amo8nt of pollutions levels. “Dilution is a solution for pollution,” Turner said. An influx of fresh water would help lessen the concentration of pollutants in the river. “So the river’s drying up has really been a double whammy for the fish populations.”

Even though the extinct fish species are gone forever, others can be saved if the river water is cleaned.

The levels of the second most important greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere has recently been levelled, according to reports of atmospheric chemists.

The scientists say that eventhough this is good news, it does not mean that methane gas levels will not rise and that “carbon dioxide is and continues to be the biggest reason for climate change.

Researchers at the Sherwood Rowland and Donald Blake’s laboratory at the University of California at Irvi ine, US, collected air in canisters at the coastal areas around the Pacific Ocean. They then meure the methane in each canister to obtain a global average.

According to the research, the methane levels between 1978 to 1987, increased by 11%, that shows an average growth rate of more than 1% in a year. Over the next decade, growth rates slowed slowed down to around 0.3% and 0.6% a year and from December 1998 to December 2005, they also dropped down to a zero, ranging from a 0.3% increase to a 0.2% decrease.

Emissions
Much of the methane emissions come from rice paddies, landfills, natural gas and oil systems, and cattle, who give out this gas due to fermentation that takes place in their digestive systems. Eventhough less amounts of it is emitted into the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, it is a much powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide: one tonne of methane has the same warming effect as 21 tonnes of CO₂.

For comparing the effects of the two gases on global warming much better, researchers converted the worldwide methane emissions into CO₂ equivalents. This calculation shows that methane emissions are actually responsible for around 18% of the warming effect of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Shocking Revelation
This result was unexpected “because there isn’t much in the way of programmes to reduce methane emissions”, says Rowland, who received the 1995 Nobel Prize for chemistry for discovering that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in aerosol sprays and coolants were damaging the Earth’s protective ozone layer.

According to him, if efforts continue to be made to stop the methane leak from the oil and gas lines, then the atmospheric methane levels could fall over the next 10 years.

“We will gain some ground on global warming if methane is not as large a contributor in the future as it has been in the past century,” he adds.

The researchers also caution that, just because the reason for the pollution levels getting stabilized is not known, there is no reason to think that they will continue to remain stable. The atmospheric methane has more than doubled since the industrial revolution, going from 700 parts per billion to 1770 parts per billion today.

Air pollution has had many far reaching effects on the environment, and that needs to be curbed. As we all know the governments, scientists and environmentalists of different countries are researching on a variety of methods that could help in reducing pollution.

There are two ways of controlling pollution. One is at the input level, which empahsizes on preventing the problem well before it occurs, or atleast try to limit the effects of the pollution that is produced. Five major input control methods exist. People have to try to restrict population growth, use less energy, improve energy efficiency, reduce waste, and move to non-polluting renewable forms of energy production, like the the wind and water.

Also, automobile-produced pollution can be decreased with highly beneficial results. This would mean regular check ups of the pollution levels in our vehicles. The output control, the opposite method, helps in fixing the problem that is already caused by air pollution. This usually means cleaning up an area that has been damaged by pollution.Input controls are usually more effective than output controls. Output controls tend to be more expensive, making them infamous among the tax payers and polluting industries. The present air pollution control efforts are mostly not effective. In the first world countries, industries are able to change to methods that can decrease air pollution.

In the United States, for example, air pollution control laws have been successful in stopping air pollution levels from rising. However, in developing countries and the under developed countries, even though pollution is tried to be strictly regulated, much more still needs to be done.

I know Iam not an expert on such issues but I sure did notice that we tend to give a cold shoulder to a lot of them, as we think they dont immediately affect us. But all of us are capable of doing our bit to look forward to more fresh air for us in future.

According to a recent report published by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), the planet’s ability to support life and human habitation is now threatened by the accelerated rate of modern development.

This study includes around 1,360 experts from 95 nations revealed that two third of the ecosystem that sustains life have been polluted. They also predict that there is an increased risk of abrupt collapse in nature that could lead to disease outbreak.

The crux of the four-year research effort says that, “human activity is putting strain on the natural functions of the earth such that the ability of the planet’s ecosystem to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted”.

New Delhi in India is perphaps a perfect example of the degradation of air. According to findings, breathing air in such a place is equivalent to smoking 70 packs of cigarettes.In USA, over seven billion pounds of toxic chemicals are released directly into the environment. One of the air pollutants is carbon dioxide.

In a normal biological system, vegetation takes this gas in and produces oxygen for animals and people to breathe. But the situation has changed and there is way too much carbon dioxide in the air to be processed naturally.Carbon dioxide is mainly emitted by the burning of coal, gas and oil.

Other primary sources of it are power plants and cars. Its high concentrations in the air isconsidered toxic and can in turn affect the breathing pattern. In extreme cases it can also cause unconsciousness and even death.

The commonly known CFC’s (Chlorofluorocarbons) generally used as coolants in refrigerators and air conditioners or in fire fighting equipment, can rise into the upper atmosphere and react with the layer of the ozone layer protecting the planet from the sun.

This reaction depletes the ozone layer and allowing more ultra violet–light to reach the earth. This situation can affect a man’s immune system, causes eye defects, skin cancer and damage to crops. One of the vital organ of the body of a human that seems to be affected by pollution is the lung or the respiratory organ.

As I was writing this blog, there are so many questions that were ringing in my head! Now that we see such grave situation where we cannot even breathe some fresh air, what are we going to do? where are these situations going to lead us to? Who is responsible for them? I know this can make us all feel dismal, but I also believe there is hope if all of us stand up for nature and help it rejuvenate itself.