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GoGreenNation news

The Invisible Enemy: Ambient Air Pollution Elevates Dementia Risk

News Feed
Monday, July 10, 2023

Research reveals a link between environmental air pollution and certain dementia characteristics, like impaired verbal fluency. Possession of a particular gene variant seems to amplify...

Research reveals a link between environmental air pollution and certain dementia characteristics, like impaired verbal fluency. Possession of a particular gene variant seems to amplify...

Ambient Air Pollution Brain

Research reveals a link between environmental air pollution and certain dementia characteristics, like impaired verbal fluency. Possession of a particular gene variant seems to amplify...

Read the full story here.
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Related News

Can Peru Reboot Its Amazon Oil? Pollution Fallout and Local Opposition Loom

By Alexander VillegasSANTA ROSA, Peru (Reuters) -Near a remote bend of the Patoyacu River in Peru's northern Amazon, Wilmer Macusi stood atop a...

SANTA ROSA, Peru (Reuters) -Near a remote bend of the Patoyacu River in Peru's northern Amazon, Wilmer Macusi stood atop a rusty pipeline cutting through the jungle, swirling a branch in the pool of stagnant water surrounding it.“They say this is clean,” said Macusi, a 25-year-old Indigenous Urarina leader, pointing to the spot where an oil spill occurred in early 2023. “But if you move the water, oil still comes out.”Black droplets bubbled to the surface as plastic barriers meant to contain the spill drooped into the water. The pipeline links a nearby oilfield, Block 8, to the larger government-owned North Peruvian Pipeline (ONP). Macusi's community of Santa Rosa lies a short walk away.Peru’s northern Amazon holds hundreds of millions of barrels of crude, according to government data. But Indigenous groups say oil extraction over the past half-century brought pollution, not progress, and are opposed to a fresh wave of development.The region once pumped more than half of Peru's oil, peaking at about 200,000 barrels a day in the 1980s before environmental liabilities and community opposition drove production below 40,000 bpd. Key blocks went dormant in 2020.Now, the region's modest reserves are again central to state oil firm Petroperu's plans. The company has spent $6.5 billion upgrading its Talara refinery into a 95,000-bpd complex aimed at producing high-grade fuels for export. Heavily indebted with a CCC+ junk credit rating from ratings agency Fitch, Petroperu wants to revive Amazon oil output to supply Talara.The state firm estimated last month that proven and probable reserves in the region were worth $20.9 billion, which Petroperu said could deliver $3.1 billion in tax revenues for local governments and communities. While the amount of oil at stake is relatively small, the plans have fueled tensions over past spills, stoking Indigenous opposition at a time Brazil, Ecuador and Guyana are trying to expand their Amazon oil frontiers.Frustration about climate action and forest protection boiled over at the COP30 climate summit this week, when dozens of Indigenous protesters forced their way into the venue and clashed with security guards.Petroperu is also planning to import oil to the refinery by linking the 1,100-km ONP to neighboring Ecuador, which aims to boost production in its own Amazon region as part of a $47 billion oil expansion plan. Hailed as an engineering marvel when it was built in the 1970s, the ONP has since become a lightning rod for leaks, protests and sabotage. Indigenous groups in both countries are resisting the pipeline link-up.The government is weighing options for how best to run the pipeline, including through a joint venture or outsourcing its management.  Petroperu failed to attract an international partner to run its largest oilfield, Block 192, which produced more than 100,000 bpd at its peak but has recently been the focus of Indigenous protests demanding remediation for damage to the forest, soil and waterways.Petroperu's former chairman Alejandro Narvaez, who was fired last month, estimated Block 192 could produce at least 20,000 bpd with investment and overall Amazon production could hit 100,000 bpd.The state oil firm selected domestic firm Upland Oil & Gas to operate the block, but Peru's state oil regulator disqualified Upland last month on the grounds it did not demonstrate financial capacity. Upland disputes the decision and has asked for a review.Petroperu also partnered with Upland to revive production at the smaller Block 8, which produced 5,000 bpd last month.Upland's CEO Jorge Rivera, son of one of Peru's early oil prospectors, told Reuters that Upland has offered Indigenous communities training, jobs and funding."We've dedicated ourselves to understanding the complexities behind operating these fields,” he said.Rivera visited Santa Rosa in March, gifting a Starlink terminal and requesting a report on the community's needs.The community's main demand was the cleanup of the nearby spill, but questions remain over who bears responsibility.Though the operator is responsible for the 108-km stretch of pipeline that runs through Block 8 connecting it to the ONP, Upland's contract exempts it from liability for past pollution.The previous operator, an Argentine subsidiary named Pluspetrol Norte, was fined a record number of times by Peru's environmental regulator OEFA before it filed for liquidation and left the area in late 2020. Eight Indigenous federations and non-governmental organizations filed a complaint to the OECD's Dutch National Contact Point, a mechanism to implement OECD guidelines for businesses, which concluded in September that Pluspetrol had violated Indigenous communities' rights in Peru's Amazon and urged the company to address the environmental damage.In a response to Reuters, Pluspetrol said it already had complied with environmental and human rights regulations and that the NCP statement was "without merit" for not reflecting the "breadth and complexity of the evidence presented and the extent of actions taken by the company."  Decades of scientific research have found high levels of lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic in wildlife and Indigenous people living near Peru's oilfields. Estimated cleanup costs for Block 192 alone stand at $1.5 billion.OEFA registered over 560 environmental infractions including oil spills and others from the ONP or other oil infrastructure in Blocks 192 and 8 from 2011 through September 2025.Petroperu has said any damage is "temporary and reversible" and blamed unspecified "economic and rural-domestic activities" by local communities as the main driver of water pollution.In late 2023, Peru's prosecutor's office said it had broken up a network of businessmen, local Indigenous leaders and a Petroperu employee that it said was orchestrating oil spills to secure lucrative cleanup contracts.  In an interview with Reuters before his dismissal, Narvaez said Petroperu had prioritized cleaning up spills under the regulator's supervision.The government of Peru's interim President Jose Jeri, who took power last month, replaced Narvaez with Petroperu board vice president Fidel Moreno and said it will soon replace Petroperu's entire board of directors.Moreno did not reply to an interview request.Macusi said communities had yet to access a fund from Upland promising 2.5% of oil sales. Meanwhile, meetings with the oil regulator, Perupetro, to discuss funding for community projects have been delayed.After an oil spill from the Block 8 connector pipeline in 2022, Urarina communities held a strike, taking over oil facilities, fields and blockading a river to demand a better state response. Macusi, who as a teen worked hauling buckets of spilled oil, says communities are ready to take action again."If the promised benefits don't come soon, we'll take measures," he said.(Reporting by Alexander Villegas; Additional reporting by Marco Aquino; Editing by Nia Williams and Katy Daigle)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

Pollution
Business
Forests

Pollution, poverty and power: the real cost of environmental inequality in the UK

Cleaner air is progress, but injustice remains. Environmental racism still decides who breathes dirty air, who gets sick and who gets heard.

Cleaner air is progress, but injustice remains. Environmental racism still decides who breathes dirty air, who gets sick and who gets heard.

Pollution

L.A. air officials approve port pollution pact as skeptics warn of 'no clear accountability'

Southern California air officials voted overwhelmingly Friday to give themselves the power to levy fines on the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach if they don't fulfill their promises to transition to cleaner equipment.

Southern California air officials voted overwhelmingly Friday to give themselves the power to levy fines on the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach if they don’t fulfill their promises to transition to cleaner equipment. The ports remain the largest source of smog-forming pollution in Southern California — releasing more emissions than the region’s 6 million cars each day. The South Coast Air Quality Management District’s governing board voted 9-1 in favor of an agreement that commits the ports to installing zero-emission equipment, such as electric truck chargers or hydrogen fuel pumps, to curb air pollution from the heaviest polluters. The plans will be submitted in three phases: heavy-duty trucks and most cargo-moving equipment by 2028; smaller locomotives and harbor crafts by 2029; and cargo ships and other large vessels by 2030. If the ports don’t meet their deadlines, they would be fined $50,000 to $200,000, which would go into a clean-air fund to aid communities affected by port pollution. The AQMD, for its part, forgoes imposing new rules on the ports for five years. Many environmental advocates voiced disappointment, saying the agreement doesn’t contain specific pollution reduction requirements. “I urge you not to sign away the opportunity to do more to help address the region’s air pollution crisis in exchange for a pinky promise,” said Kathy Ramirez, one of dozens of speakers at Friday’s board meeting. “This is about our lives. I would encourage you to think about why you joined the AQMD board. If not for clean air, then for what?” Port officials and shipping industry officials lauded the decision as a pragmatic way to transition to a zero-emissions economy.“The give and take of ideas and compromises in this process — it mirrors exactly what a real-world transition to zero emissions looks like,” said William Bartelson, an executive at the Pacific Maritime Assn. “It’s practical, it’s inclusive and it’s grounded in shared goals.”The vote answers a long-standing question over how the AQMD intends to reduce pollution from the sprawling trade complex, a focus of environmental justice efforts for decades. The twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, known as the San Pedro Port Complex, is the largest container port in the Western Hemisphere, handling 40% of all container cargo entering the United States. Despite years of efforts at reducing pollution, the vast majority of heavy machinery, big rigs, trains and ships that serve the region’s bustling goods movement still are powered by diesel engines that emit toxic particles and nitrogen oxides, a precursor to smog. For nearly a decade the AQMD has vacillated between strict regulation and a pact with the ports with more flexibility. Several negotiations over a memorandum of understanding failed between 2017 and 2022. The board was prepared to require the ports to offset smog-forming pollution from trucks, trains and ships through clean air projects, like solar panels or electric vehicle chargers. Instead, the ports presented the AQMD with a proposed cooperative agreement, prompting the agency to pause its rulemaking. The AQMD doubled the penalties in that proposal and agreed not to make new rules for five years, not the 10 the industry wanted. Perhaps the most important details of the agreement — the types of energy or fuel used; the appropriate number of chargers or fueling stations — won’t be published for years. The lack of specifics prompted skepticism from many environmental advocates.“It’s just a stall tactic to make a plan for a plan in the hope that emission reductions will come sometime in the future,” said Fernando Gaytan, a senior attorney with environmental nonprofit Earthjustice.The contract also includes a clause that the AQMD or ports could terminate the agreement “for any reason” with a 45-day written notice. Wayne Nastri, the AQMD’s executive officer, said this gives the agency the option to switch back to requiring zero-emission infrastructure at the ports. “If we report back to you and you’re not seeing the progress being made, you can be confident knowing that you can pivot and release that [rulemaking] package,” Nastri said to the board. At the end of public comment, opponents of the agreement broke into loud chants. The AQMD cleared the gallery as the board discussed the proposal. Board member Veronica Padilla-Campos, the lone “no” vote, said the agreement lacked the necessary emission reductions and offered “no clear accountability” to local communities.Fellow board member Nithya Raman acknowledged many criticisms of the agreement but ultimately voted for it. “I really have come to believe that the choice before us is this cooperative agreement or no action at all on this issue — continuing a decade of inaction,” Raman said. “I will be voting to support it today, because I do think that it is our only pathway to take any steps forward toward cleaner air at the single largest source of air pollution in the region.”The plan still must be approved by commissioners at the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach Harbor Commission at meetings this year.

Pollution
Crisis
Energy

Pollution-plagued port communities near LA and Long Beach say regulator excludes them

Communities near the ports say regulators didn't consider their input when weighing a cooperative agreement about pollution from the ports.

Guest Commentary written by Theral Golden Theral Golden is a Long Beach resident Paola Vargas Paola Vargas is a community organizer at East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice The South Coast Air Quality Management District Board of Governors should vote against the so-called cooperative agreement to curb emissions in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, because impacted community members were not meaningfully included, it weakens the district’s ability to reduce emissions and it creates a dangerous precedent.   The toxic pollution experienced daily by nearby community members isn’t new. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the busiest in the country. We have known for decades that port emissions shorten life expectancy and quality of life in the South Coast Air Basin, which encompasses parts of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties and all of Orange County. These pollution-burdened areas are called “diesel death zones” due to the adverse health impacts. In places like West Long Beach, life expectancy is up to eight years shorter than the county average. Throughout the basin, there are an estimated 2,400 pollution related deaths a year. Both ports have made air quality improvements, but the complex is still the single largest fixed source of emissions in southern California.  And the toxins are only going to increase. Cargo activity at the ports is expected to rise 57% from 2021 to 2032. We can expect the human death toll to rise alongside it. There is a process underway with the South Coast Air Quality Management District — the governing body charged with regulating port pollution — that has the potential to address these grave health outcomes. Communities harmed by the pollution have consistently asked the district to incorporate their feedback when identifying solutions, but the district has not meaningfully engaged them. Instead, it has sided with industry time and again, allowing it to dictate the flow and outcomes of the process.  Gov. Gavin Newsom recently declined to sign Senate Bill 34, citing concerns that it would limit the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s authority to regulate port emissions and would interfere with cooperative actions taking place with the ports. We agree with Newsom’s assessment that regulatory authority and cooperation can avoid the worst health impacts — except the cooperation he refers to as “locally driven and collaborative” has been anything but.   The cooperative agreement includes a five-year ban on rulemaking. That handcuffs South Coast Air Quality Management District, effectively blocking the agency’s authority to address port pollution when the South Coast Air Basin can least afford a delay.  Youths play baseball at Bloch Field near the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro on April 8, 2025. Photo by Joel Angel Juarez for CalMatters This ban on rulemaking not only impacts the ports of LA and Long Beach but every port in the district. It also sets a dangerous precedent that could spur other air districts to eliminate public participation in rulemaking processes and prioritize industry priorities over public health.  Instead of advancing the cooperative agreement, the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s board should provide more time to meaningfully and collaboratively engage local communities and consider public health implications.   This doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. We can chart a path that addresses port pollution, improves quality of life and recognizes the role ports play in our global supply chains.  But that won’t happen without communities taking a meaningful place at the table. 

Pollution
Health

Pollution from Ineos’s Antwerp plastic plant ‘will cause more deaths than jobs created’

Lawyers challenge €4bn Project One development, saying emissions and health impacts vastly underestimatedThe deaths from pollution caused by Europe’s biggest plastic plant, which is being built in Antwerp, will outstrip the number of permanent jobs it will create, lawyers will argue in a court challenge issued on Thursday.In documents submitted to the court, research suggests the air pollution from Ineos’s €4bn petrochemical plant would cause 410 deaths once operational, compared with the 300 permanent jobs the company says will be created. Continue reading...

The deaths from pollution caused by Europe’s biggest plastic plant, which is being built in Antwerp, will outstrip the number of permanent jobs it will create, lawyers will argue in a court challenge issued on Thursday.In documents submitted to the court, research suggests the air pollution from Ineos’s €4bn petrochemical plant would cause 410 deaths once operational, compared with the 300 permanent jobs the company says will be created.Lawyers, community members and financial experts are taking court action in Belgium’s council for permit disputes to stop the plastics facility.The chemical plant would transform ethane from fracked US shale gas into ethylene – the raw material used to make plastic – in a process called “cracking”. The plant, called Project One, is designed to turbocharge European plastic production. Petrochemical facilities emit particulate matter as a result of their operations.Plastic production has increased more than 200-fold since 1950 and is expected to almost triple again to more than a billion tonnes a year by 2060, driven largely by single-use plastics used for packaging and drink and food containers.Tatiana Luján, of Client Earth, who is leading the case, said new evidence showed that in addition to the risks to life, the carbon emissions of Project One would vastly exceed Ineos’s own estimates.Ineos’s assessment found that projected direct annual carbon emissions would be 655,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent (CO2e), roughly the same as Eritrea’s output. But lawyers say the company failed to calculate full lifecycle emissions.A report by Data Desk submitted to the court estimates the full supply chain emissions footprint of Project One could reach 3.8m tonnes of CO2e each year, around five times higher than stated in Ineos’s environmental impact assessment.Luján said: “We know categorically that we need no more plastic-producing infrastructure globally. Yet right here in Europe, authorities are bending over backwards to enable the biggest plastics facility on the continent yet.“Project One has a shiny image, but its story is founded on fossil fuels. The gas supply chain is riddled with injustice and huge emissions and this is currently flying under the radar. Meanwhile, experts have detailed a projected local impact that people in Belgium are not being made aware of.”Since the legal battle began, courts around the world have clarified the inclusion of so-called scope 3 emissions in environmental impact assessments. These are emissions that do not happen on-site but would not be created if the facility did not exist.Luján added: “Recent rulings on how authorities need to tally up the real impact of industrial developments change the prospects of this legal challenge. This is the first time a court will weigh in on scope 3 and plastics. That makes it a crucial case.”Ineos told the Guardian they had not been officially notified of the appeal, or received the appeal so were unable to comment in detail on the arguments. “We are disappointed that the NGOs have once again chosen to take legal action, despite our invitation to them to engage in dialogue about their concerns. It is also regrettable that the legal certainty of investments in the renewal of industry in Europe is repeatedly being undermined. This is happening in a context where our European manufacturing industry is heading for further deindustrialisation, due to a lack of protection against rising imports from regions that are not subject to strict environmental regulations.”They added that they remain fully committed to the project:“the most environmentally friendly steam cracker in Europe, with carbon emissions less than half those of the most efficient European installations.”

Pollution
Chemicals

Suggested Viewing

CHAO CARBÓN DOCUMENTARY

Mr. Aes Gener is a greedy mega-entrepreneur in the energy business. Through his story we get into the dirty business he has done in Chile and the world with coal, while we see, through archival footage, the damage to people and nature of this obsolete and polluting fossil fuel.

Energy
Pollution
Activism

Stalking Chernobyl: Exploration After Apocalypse

A documentary that examines the underground culture of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Three decades after the world's most infamous nuclear disaster, illegal hiking adventurers (known as “stalkers”), extreme sports aficionados, artists, and tour companies have begun to explore anew the mysterious, ghostly landscape, where trees and forest animals have reclaimed land abandoned by villagers. Even as survivors continue to reckon with a dishonest government’s attempts to cover up the extent of the disaster, and as humanity faces new nuclear incidents in place like Fukushima, the Chernobyl site has turned into a bizarre tourist attraction, drawing seekers with a taste for the post-apocalyptic. (a Cultures Of Resistance film)

Crisis
Culture
Pollution

Kingdom of Waste

Our garbage accumulates and gives life to a plastic monster. We wish his reign to be short. It is probably time to think over how we produce and consume to pollute less.

Waste
Pollution
Family

LEAVES

An academic woman in Texas becomes concerned when a massive red oak in her backyard seems to be ailing, though she isn’t sure why it bothers her so much. At the same time, in her small cottage, her attention to her work is distracted by news reports she sees and hears. They tell in graphic terms of the out-of-control forest fires up and down the West Coast. Her attention is further pulled in the direction of other stories about the worsening conditions of the world’s rainforests which she discovers are disappearing at the astounding rate of 200,000 acres a day. Suddenly such stories are all she seems to hear and see on the radio or television or on her computer. But when she hears/sees a science report about how trees actually communicate with each other, she begins to realize there may be a connection between her tree and what she is learning from the news. She begins to recall a strong connection she herself has with that tree and allows that connection to regrow…..

Pollution
Forests
Inspirational

LOUD

Catriona Armour's body art and a special appearance by Dana Lyons of "Cows with Guns" propel the musical narrative about noise pollution in, around, and above the Salish Sea of Washington State and British Columbia.

Music
Culture
Pollution

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