Earthweek: a diary of the planet Seaweed battle

For the week ending Friday, June 28.

‘Climate apartheid’

A U.N. human rights report cautions that the world is on track to develop a “climate apartheid,” where the poorest of the planet suffer the worst effects of global heating while the richest are able to buy their way out of it. philip alston, u.n. specialist on poverty and human rights, condemned the u.n. itself, nations, businesses and nongovernmental organizations for their “patently inadequate” steps to combat climate change. he was especially critical of president trump for “actively silencing” climate science. his report concludes: “human rights might not survive the coming upheaval.”

Ozone interaction

The depletion of earth’s ozone layer is interacting with the changing climate by allowing more intense solar radiation to warm the atmosphere and surface below. “what we’re seeing is that ozone changes have shifted temperature and precipitation patterns in the southern hemisphere, and that’s altering where the algae in the ocean are, which is altering where the fish are and where the walruses and seals are,” the co-author of a u.n. report says.

‘Plasticrust’

researchers say they have found a strange new combination of rock and plastic forming on portugal’s atlantic island of madeira. researcher ignacio gestoso says the new hybrid geology was first observed on the island’s volcanic shore in 2016, the apparent result of waterborne plastic pollution being slammed into rocks by wave action. the new “plasticrust” looks like melted plastic encrusted on the rocks, according to gestoso and colleagues at the island’s marine and environmental research center. Mexico is stepping up efforts to rid some of its most popular beaches of masses of sargassum seaweed, which has been piling up in greater volume around cancun and elsewhere across the caribbean in recent years. the government-run operation will spend $2.7 million to build four boats designed to remove the seaweed, along with the construction of new barriers to contain it. the mounds of seaweed on otherwise pristine mexican beaches have alarmed vacationers.

Papua Eruption

An eruption of one of the world’s most hazardous volcanoes sent about 5,000 residents on papua new guinea’s bismarck archipelago fleeing as mount ulawun turned the sky dark with a huge plume of ash. a lava flow cut through the main coastal road.