The Canadian boreal forest stores twice as much carbon as the world’s oil reserves, making it essential in fighting climate change. But Procter & Gamble uses clear-cut boreal forest to make its Charmin toilet paper brand.

Tell P&G: Stop destroying our climate and END this tree-to-toilet pipeline!

Take Action:

| NRDC

Every minute, a small city block’s worth of trees in Canada’s majestic boreal forest is clearcut, in part to make Procter & Gamble’s tissues, paper towels, and toilet paper — including its Charmin toilet paper brand.

In fact, P&G actually increased the share of boreal forest fiber in its products this past year, further decimating this vital forest!
At this urgent moment in the fight to avert catastrophic climate change, the boreal is our indispensable ally. So we’re raising a resounding public outcry to protect the boreal from more and more logging to make toilet paper and other disposable paper products.

Tell Procter and Gamble CEO Jon Moeller: Stop fueling the destruction of our planet’s last unspoiled forests!

He needs to know there are millions of environmental champions like you committed to holding his company accountable,so please send your message now!

Canada’s boreal forest and its verdant spruce and fir trees, lush wetlands, and peat bogs are the ancestral home for more than 600 Indigenous communities. It’s also a life-sustaining refuge for abundant wildlife from the Canada lynx to the boreal caribou.

The boreal also stores enormous amounts of carbon, making it vitally important in the global fight against climate change.Mark, we don’t have any time — or forests — to waste. Our new reality of droughts, floods, wildfires, and 100-year storms will be just the prologue to a far more dangerous, inhospitable future if we don’t act nowAnd protecting our planet’s forests is a crucial part of that plan. They absorb and lock up vast amounts of carbon in their trees and soils, buying us critical time to transition to a clean energy future. The boreal forest that P&G is sourcing from is the most carbon-dense terrestrial ecosystem in the world and it must be protected!

Will you join me and your fellow NRDC supporters in sending P&G a message that’s too loud to ignore? Tell them: Stop sacrificing Canada’s boreal forest — and our climate — for throwaway toilet paper!

A majority of voting shareholders called on P&G in 2020 to pledge to eliminate deforestation and the degradation of intact forests from its supply chain. And with more than $76 billion in revenue last year, P&G has ample resources to increase the amount of recycled content in its single-use products. Yet P&G stubbornly refused to change course and doubled down on its use of boreal forest fiber.

If P&G won’t listen to its own shareholders, then we’ll drum up a major consumer backlash so large they’ll be forced to pay attention.

Please, take one minute to demand that P&G end its destruction of the Canadian boreal — immediately and permanently.

Sincerely,

Shelley Vinyard
Boreal Corporate Campaign Manager, NRDC

Regards Mark

Fears for water quality as swimmers discover invisible microfibres in samples 400 feet underground

Invisible microplastics have been found almost 400ft (120 metres) underground in UK water streams, according to the results of a citizen science project conducted by wild swimmers.

More than 100 outdoor swimmers in the UK became “waterloggers”, collecting water samples from their favourite place for a dip using empty glass wine bottles.

This water was then tested, with microplastics present in every single sample.

One of these samples was taken 400ft underground in a cave in Derbyshire. Rebecca Price, a caver who collected the samples deep underground, said, “The cave sample was taken from an underground waterfall which filters through natural rock. I’m shocked to find that nano- and microfibres were found that deep underground.”

She also collected the samples with the highest number of microplastics, at 155 pieces a litre, in the River Nene, Northamptonshire, where she swims frequently.

She added: “The Nene has had very bad reports about its water quality in recent years. These results focus on microplastics and highlight another toxic silent contaminant choking our beautiful river.”

Laura Owen Sanderson, the founder of the non-profit We Swim Wild, which carried out the sampling, said: “We now know that microplastics are infiltrating every aspect of our lives. We breathe in, drink and eat plastic particles every day; and little research has been done to establish what risk that poses to human health.

“This campaign provides a large and unique grassroots dataset for the UK government, as clear evidence that urgent action is needed now.”

The group is calling for the government to test regularly for microplastics in UK rivers, and will soon launch another 12-month study into invisible contaminants in waterways.

Recent research by Outdoor Swimmer Magazine found that wild swimmers are hugely concerned by pollution, and more than one-third of swimmers surveyed had written to their MPs and supported campaigns over the problem.

Michelle Walker, the technical director at the Rivers Trust, told the magazine: “What really stands out to me is how swimming outdoors motivates people to take direct action on water pollution, and we’ve really seen the impact of that in the last year. Tens of thousands of people contacted their MPs to demand amendments to the environment bill, and as a result government were forced to change direction.”

This article was amended on 21 March 2022. The deepest sample was found 400ft underground in a Derbyshire cave, not 400 metres underground in a Nottinghamshire one as stated in an earlier version.

Regards Mark

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/21/microplastics-found-deep-underground-in-uk-waters

A rare Greenland shark that washed up on a U.K. beach could be at least 100 years old, but experts aren’t sure why it became stranded.

The dead shark was first spotted on the sand in Newlyn Harbour, Cornwall, on the southwest coast of England, on March 13. But before experts could examine it, the tide came in and took the carcass back out to sea, according to Cornwall Wildlife Trust Twitter posts. 

The shark was then rediscovered floating off the coast of Cornwall on March 15 by a recreational boating company called Mermaid Pleasure Trips and was brought back to shore. Greenland sharks are rarely sighted in the U.K., and this is the country’s second recorded Greenland shark stranding.  

“Even though it’s a sad event when these beautiful, spectacular animals do strand on our beaches, it’s such a valuable opportunity for us to study them,” Abby Crosby, a marine conservation officer who manages the marine strandings network at the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, told Live Science. 

Related: The weirdest creatures to wash ashore

Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus) live in the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans up to 8,684 feet (2,647 meters) below the surface, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). A 2016 study published in the journal Science estimated that these sharks could live at least 272 years, but scientists still have much to learn about the elusive species.

The shark that washed up in Cornwall was a juvenile female that measured 13 feet (4 m) long and weighed 628 pounds (285 kilograms). Although researchers have yet to determine the shark’s age, Greenland sharks typically become sexually mature when they’re around 150 years old, according to the 2016 study. The animals continue to grow as they age, and adults can be up to 24 feet (7.3 m) long, according to the St. Lawrence Shark Observatory (ORS).  

James Barnett, a veterinary pathologist from the Cornwall Marine Pathology Team, carried out a postmortem of the shark on March 16 for the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP), a national program that partners with Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Marine Strandings Network. 

“It looked like it probably live-stranded,” Barnett told Live Science. In other words, the shark was still alive when it washed up, and it died on the beach. “It obviously hadn’t eaten for some time,” Barnett said. “The stomach was totally empty.” 

Barnett noted that the shark showed possible signs of septicemia, an infection in the blood, but it’s not yet clear why the shark wasn’t eating and ended up in shallow waters off Cornwall. There are a variety of reasons, including disease, that can explain why marine animals become stranded and die on beaches, but the movement of ocean currents and other marine conditions also play a part in bringing living and dead animals to shore.

“The majority of our strandings are common dolphins and porpoises, and they would have all died within a kilometer [0.6 mile] of our coastline, if that,” Crosby said. Because Greenland sharks usually swim far from the coast, the likelihood of one being swept in by the right current and weather conditions is really rare, she added. 

Barnett said this is the first time a Greenland shark has been given a necropsy in the U.K., to his knowledge. “They are a species that we just don’t encounter,” he said. Samples taken from the shark will help inform Greenland shark research, such as studies investigating their life history and diet, Rob Deaville, project manager for CSIP at the Zoological Society of London, said in a statement.  

Originally published on Live Science.

Regards Mark