Transcript

10.29.26 · Science Show KY

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Radio Eye's Diary of Science and Nature, your
0:04
Speaker 1: reader's Kelly Taylor. I'll have stories on science and nature,
0:07
Speaker 1: but first a reminder that Radio Eye is a reading
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Speaker 1: service intended for people who are blind or have other
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Speaker 1: disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material. Starting
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Speaker 1: off from Popular Mechanics, an article entitled, A Monster Disaster
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Speaker 1: Could Hit This Fall, it may rival one of the
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Speaker 1: strongest ever recorded, Despite their disarming nicknames, El Nino and
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Speaker 1: La Nina, the two sides of the climatic coin known
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Speaker 1: as the El Nino Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, are deadly serious.
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Speaker 1: The engine at ENSO's heart are the easterly trade winds
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Speaker 1: that are either weaker during El Nino or stronger during
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Speaker 1: La Nina. The differing winds drastically altered the spread of
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Speaker 1: warm water in the Pacific, thereby impacting weather on land.
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Speaker 1: Between 1982 and 1983, a very strong El Nino, the
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Speaker 1: official National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's designation for what the
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Speaker 1: media might label as super, mega, or even monster, created
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Speaker 1: torrential rainfall that buffeted the southwest, even causing reservoirs along
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Speaker 1: the Colorado River to overflow. something that seems almost unimaginable
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Speaker 1: in the drought-stricken area today. In 1997, another very strong
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Speaker 1: El Nino indirectly caused 23,000 deaths by instigating floods, droughts,
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Speaker 1: and wildfires around the world. Even way back in 1877,
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Speaker 1: El Nino perfectly aligned with other climate phenomena, including a
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Speaker 1: record-strong Indian Ocean dipole, to cause the deaths of an
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Speaker 1: estimated 50 million people, defining global inequalities that still persist today.
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Speaker 1: Now the world rests on the precipice of another very
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Speaker 1: strong El Nino, and it's due to arrive sometime this fall. Quote,
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Speaker 1: chances favor the emergence of a very strong El Nino
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Speaker 1: by 81% in October to December. End quote. That's NOAA's
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Speaker 1: ENSO lead scientist, Michelle LaRue, who's been forecasting this climate
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Speaker 1: cycle for almost 20 years. Leroux explains that the southern U.S.
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Speaker 1: should expect stormier weather and increased chances of precipitation. Meanwhile,
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Speaker 1: the northern U.S. might see drier conditions, particularly over the
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Speaker 1: northern Rockies, the Great Lakes, the Ohio Valley region. NOAA
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Speaker 1: tracks ENSOs using the Relative Oceanic Nino Index, R-O-N-I, which
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Speaker 1: gathers data from moored buoys and satellites to track sea
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Speaker 1: surface temperatures from the East Central Equatorial Pacific. A decrease
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Speaker 1: in average sea surface temperature hints at a forthcoming La Nina.
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Speaker 1: El Ninos, on the contrary, are marked by an increase
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Speaker 1: in temperatures and they typically return in a two to
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Speaker 1: seven year cycle. The coming El Nino isn't defying that schedule,
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Speaker 1: but what was unexpected was how it would return with
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Speaker 1: a vengeance The June 2026 Relative Oceanic Nino Index reached
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Speaker 1: a 1.1 degree Celsius increase, the fourth highest for June
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Speaker 1: in the past 124 years. Researchers fully expect that number
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Speaker 1: to reach 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the year.
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Speaker 1: In fact, the July index climbed even higher than that estimate,
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Speaker 1: ringing in at 2.1 degrees. Quote, only seven El Nino
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Speaker 1: events in the last 75 years have reached this level,
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Speaker 1: LaRue says. It is entirely possible that we see this
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Speaker 1: event rival the strongest El Nino event we've seen in
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Speaker 1: the entire record, end quote. These numbers have inspired a
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Speaker 1: sense of impending doom as El Nino will supercharge temperatures
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Speaker 1: in regions already struggling with excess heat due to climate change,
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Speaker 1: such as the northern U.S., Southeast Asia, and Australia. UN
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Speaker 1: Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez said in a very strong El Nino, we'll, quote,
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Speaker 1: pour fuel on the fire of a warming world, end quote.
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Speaker 1: And while scientists have a good idea of what makes
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Speaker 1: ENSO tick, Andrew Kuszczewicz, a faculty lecturer at the Columbia
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Speaker 1: Climate School and an expert on disaster preparedness, says that
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Speaker 1: no two El Ninos are the same. Quote, just because
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Speaker 1: we have a very strong understanding of what El Nino
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Speaker 1: is in terms of the coupling between the atmosphere and
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Speaker 1: the subsurface, every El Nino is different. Khrushchev, I'm sorry,
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Speaker 1: Khrushchevich says, there's uncertainty in terms of when impacts will
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Speaker 1: appear and to what extent those impacts will occur and
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Speaker 1: also the duration of those impacts, end quote. The ENSO cycle,
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Speaker 1: differs from more acute weather phenomena such as floods, tornadoes,
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Speaker 1: and hurricanes as it's not inherently bad, it's just a
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Speaker 1: part of the Earth's natural thermostat. In fact, the disappearance
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Speaker 1: of ENSO would cause a complete collapse of the marine
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Speaker 1: ecosystem as well as force the continuous accumulation of warm
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Speaker 1: water in the Western Pacific. And while some worry about
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Speaker 1: the ensuing knock-on effects from El Nino around the world,
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Speaker 1: others are borderline praying for the relief this ENSO might bring.
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Speaker 1: One of the regions most eagerly awaiting the impact of
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Speaker 1: this very strong El Nino are the Colorado River Basin
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Speaker 1: states in the southwest U.S. These seven states are currently
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Speaker 1: in the throes of a mega drought crisis that threatens
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Speaker 1: the aquatic artery that runs from Colorado to the Gulf
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Speaker 1: of California, and a very strong El Nino could help
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Speaker 1: revitalize critical reservoirs such as Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
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Speaker 1: El Nino is also known to dampen Hurricane season in
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Speaker 1: the Atlantic due to increased vertical wind shear, another possible benefit.
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Speaker 1: Now let's turn to BBC News. The headline reads, It's
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Speaker 1: offensively cheap. How solar power is quietly becoming bigger than nuclear.
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Speaker 1: After defying projections, solar's dramatic growth means it is now
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Speaker 1: overtaking nuclear as a global power source. Here are seven
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Speaker 1: reasons for solar success and where it might go from here.
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Speaker 1: The world's solar power is crossing a threshold. A decade ago,
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Speaker 1: it barely registered on a global scale, providing just 1%
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Speaker 1: of the world's power. In 2026, it will almost certainly
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Speaker 1: increase to 10% of power and overtake nuclear, a mainstay
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Speaker 1: of electricity since the late 1970s. Globally, solar electricity generation
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Speaker 1: quietly overtook nuclear power, just in 2025, according to statistics
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Speaker 1: from UK-based energy think tank Ember. Over the past 12 months,
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Speaker 1: up to September 2026, though, its data shows it clearly
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Speaker 1: now outstripping nuclear, producing 13% more power. Solar generating more
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Speaker 1: electricity than all the world's nuclear power plants is a
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Speaker 1: pretty insane stat for sure, says Dave Jones, co-founder of Ember.
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Speaker 1: From China's vast arrays to a recent solar upsurge driven
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Speaker 1: by escalating oil prices, the incredible rise of solar power
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Speaker 1: has defied all projections. Here are the seven ways it
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Speaker 1: has become an apparently unstoppable force and what the future
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Speaker 1: looks like from here. One, an underestimated force. Quote, solar
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Speaker 1: is now the engine of the power transition, says Jan Rosenau.
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Speaker 1: a professor of energy and climate policy at the University
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Speaker 1: of Oxford in the UK. Solar has become the fastest
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Speaker 1: growing source of new electricity in history and by far
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Speaker 1: the largest source of new electricity globally. In 2025, it
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Speaker 1: met three quarters of the growth in the world's demand
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Speaker 1: for electricity, overtaking wind power generation. Wind power is also
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Speaker 1: growing just a little more slowly. It wasn't expected, says Rosenau.
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Speaker 1: Mainstream projections, he says, have underestimated solar year after year.
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Speaker 1: Outlooks such as those from the International Energy Agency, an
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Speaker 1: influential intra-governmental organization based in Paris, quote, assumed linear growth
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Speaker 1: and slowly falling costs and got both wrong, end quote.
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Speaker 1: Over 2026, multiple sources indicate solar electricity generation will almost
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Speaker 1: certainly far exceed nuclear globally. Nuclear's electricity generation has remained
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Speaker 1: more or less constant since 2000, while solar has increased
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Speaker 1: some 2,700-fold. Number two, offensively cheap. Solar, a mature technology
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Speaker 1: for some 15 years now, became the cheapest electricity in
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Speaker 1: history in 2020. Since then, solar has scaled, efficiency has risen,
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Speaker 1: and the amount of silicon and silver used in panels
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Speaker 1: has gone down leading prices to fall yet further, says Jones.
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Speaker 1: Massive Chinese manufacturing scale and current overcapacity have pushed module
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Speaker 1: prices to record lows, says Rosenow. In particular, a large
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Speaker 1: fall in the price of panels in 2023-24 pushed us
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Speaker 1: into the current era of what Jones calls offensively cheap solar.
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Speaker 1: A panel in itself is just so unbelievably cheap, he says,
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Speaker 1: it's well under $ 100, and that's going to keep you
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Speaker 1: generating electricity for 30 or 40 years without any input
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Speaker 1: at all. Of course, it's not just in purely economic
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Speaker 1: terms that solar is bringing down costs. Researchers have calculated
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Speaker 1: the United States' rising wind and solar generation brought it
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Speaker 1: $ 249 billion in climate and health benefits between 2019 and 2022.
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Speaker 1: Number three, global uptake. China is still the world's biggest
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Speaker 1: solar power by far, but it is by no means
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Speaker 1: the only player. Um, Despite the U.S. imposing a variety
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Speaker 1: of tariffs on solar, it remains the second country where
10:18
Speaker 1: it comes to installations, which are still skyrocketing, especially in
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Speaker 1: states won by President Trump in 2024. In fact, the
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Speaker 1: United States now has enough solar to power more than
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Speaker 1: one-third of its households. Tariffs and other federal policies that
10:33
Speaker 1: constrain renewable energy growth are certainly expected to raise costs
10:37
Speaker 1: and slow expansion relative to what we otherwise would have seen.
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Speaker 1: says Alicia Zhao, an expert in U.S. mitigation pathways at
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Speaker 1: the University of Maryland. However, economics are a key part
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Speaker 1: of why solar has been able to grow so quickly.
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Speaker 1: Even with rising costs, solar is still one of the
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Speaker 1: cheapest sources of new power in the U.S., and it
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Speaker 1: is getting built regardless of political lines. India, meanwhile, is
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Speaker 1: moving away from fossil fuels far faster than China did,
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Speaker 1: and new solar has met 60% of the rise in
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Speaker 1: power demand in the past two years. In Australia, over
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Speaker 1: 4 million homes now have rooftop solar, well over a
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Speaker 1: third of all households. Number four, unreliable fossil fuels. Countries
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Speaker 1: like Pakistan and Lebanon have also begun installing solar at
11:26
Speaker 1: breakneck speeds, while across Africa, countries are installing some 100,000
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Speaker 1: solar panels per day. In many places, escalating diesel prices
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Speaker 1: driven by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and U.S.-Israel war with Iran
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Speaker 1: has swung the cost needle yet further in solar's favor.
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Speaker 1: This is especially the case in many African countries where
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Speaker 1: home diesel generators are a mainstay due to unreliable grids.
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Speaker 1: Rooftop solar panels, nearly all of them imported from China,
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Speaker 1: have now taken off as an alternative. Ethiopia has even
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Speaker 1: banned the import of petrol and diesel cars in a
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Speaker 1: bid to tackle oil dependency and pollution. Solar panels. is
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Speaker 1: also rapidly providing new electricity where fossil-based grids can't keep
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Speaker 1: up with demand. Pakistan, for example, has become a surprising
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Speaker 1: poster child for the solar revolution due to its extraordinarily
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Speaker 1: rapid rise in installations. In 2019, solar provided less than
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Speaker 1: 2% of its electricity. Now it's 24%, driven by costly,
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Speaker 1: unreliable grid electricity combined and cheap solar imports from China. Quote,
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Speaker 1: what's really incredible in Pakistan is, generally, most of the
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Speaker 1: solar boom has been out of people's pockets, says Jones.
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Speaker 1: People can afford it without needing to take out loans,
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Speaker 1: end quote. A similar story has been seen in several
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Speaker 1: other Sunbelt countries, from Lebanon to Nigeria. Solar lets households
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Speaker 1: act without waiting for governments or utilities, says Roselle. In
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Speaker 1: uncertain times, that speed and independence is extremely valuable. And
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Speaker 1: number five, battery revolutions. Solar power, of course, can only
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Speaker 1: be produced during the day when the sun is shining.
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Speaker 1: To turn it into electricity that can be dispatched at
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Speaker 1: any time, it needs to be paired with batteries. Fortunately,
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Speaker 1: batteries have been having their own cost revolution, transforming their
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Speaker 1: ability to support the solar rollout. Solar plus storage is
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Speaker 1: now routinely cheaper than new fossil plants in sunny regions,
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Speaker 1: says Rosenow. Batteries have largely solved the daily problem of
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Speaker 1: shifting midday sun into the evenings. In California, for example,
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Speaker 1: solar and batteries met on average over a quarter of
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Speaker 1: electricity demand from 1900 to 2100, the evening peak, over
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Speaker 1: the first half of 2026. U.S. states, such as Vermont,
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Speaker 1: are now rolling out grid-integrated systems of home batteries, often
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Speaker 1: paired with solar. Barriers still remain for longer-term storage of
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Speaker 1: solar across seasons, cloudy periods, and monsoon seasons, both Rosenau
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Speaker 1: and Jones say. It means the integration of solar into
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Speaker 1: the wider electricity system still matters. And number six, electrify everything.
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Speaker 1: Solar is seen as a key part of the push
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Speaker 1: toward electrification, reducing fossil fuel use in areas that previously
14:25
Speaker 1: didn't use electricity, such as via electric cars. Electrification has
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Speaker 1: been chosen as a major theme at this year's UN
14:33
Speaker 1: Climate Talks in Turkey. That's where solar is going, to
14:37
Speaker 1: not just be king of electricity, but king of energy,
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Speaker 1: says Jones. Still, it all requires a plan, says Julia Sauter,
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Speaker 1: chief executive of the Long Duration Energy Storage Council. Quote,
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Speaker 1: there is an inherent danger in uncontrolled electrification, and adding
14:55
Speaker 1: massive new loads without built-in flexibility creates a fragile system,
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Speaker 1: she wrote. Electrification is not automatically resilient. The limits on
15:05
Speaker 1: solar are now grids, storage, and how fast we electrify demand,
15:10
Speaker 1: says Rosenow, not panels or cost. The bigger question is
15:15
Speaker 1: no longer whether solar grows, but whether our power systems
15:20
Speaker 1: and institutions can keep up. In the U.S., data centers
15:25
Speaker 1: and electrification mean power demand is growing for the first
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Speaker 1: time in decades. Quote, renewables already make up over 90%
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Speaker 1: of new capacity in the United States. This need for secure,
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Speaker 1: quickly deployable energy could create a critical opportunity for further
15:42
Speaker 1: renewable energy growth, even without support from the current federal government,
15:47
Speaker 1: says Zhao. Number seven, expanding tech. In the past few years,
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Speaker 1: plug-in panels, or balcony solar, have started spreading rapidly in Germany.
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Speaker 1: These generate less electricity than rooftop panels, but feed it
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Speaker 1: directly into homes via a standard socket. They have now
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Speaker 1: been approved in several other countries and U.S. states, including California. Meanwhile, agrivoltaics,
16:12
Speaker 1: which combines food production and solar panels, is being counted
16:15
Speaker 1: as a solution to concerns in some areas about the
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Speaker 1: land use of solar. Other technologies, from floating and mirror
16:23
Speaker 1: solar panels, Two perovskite panels and solar windows could all
16:28
Speaker 1: see growth in coming years. In 2026, the world's solar
16:32
Speaker 1: capacity will go on rising, but the rate of expansion
16:36
Speaker 1: may slow down for the first time ever, says Jones.
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Speaker 1: This is down to China. Last summer, it changed its
16:43
Speaker 1: regime for managing and supporting new solar installations, leading to
16:47
Speaker 1: a burst of installations in 2025 to fall under the
16:51
Speaker 1: old price regime. Elsewhere, it's a different picture. Quote, if
16:55
Speaker 1: you exclude China, there's more panels being installed this year
16:58
Speaker 1: than last year, says Jones. By 2030, the International Energy
17:02
Speaker 1: Agency thinks solar power generation will have reached double that
17:07
Speaker 1: of 2025 levels, with solar overtaking hydro to become the
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Speaker 1: world's third largest electricity source. Wherever grid power is costly
17:16
Speaker 1: and unreliable, the economics keep pulling people towards solar, says Rosenau.
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Speaker 1: There is one caveat. If Chinese solar panels are difficult
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Speaker 1: to import, this will not happen at speed. Now from
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Speaker 1: BBC Wildlife. New status for swamp. The United States Okefenokee
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Speaker 1: Swamp has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site
17:43
Speaker 1: for its exceptional biodiversity and its important role as a
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Speaker 1: carbon sink. This vast freshwater environment covers 1,646 square kilometers
17:54
Speaker 1: of southeast Georgia and northeast Florida and is home to
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Speaker 1: hundreds of species, including at least 856 plants, 238 birds,
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Speaker 1: 90 reptiles and amphibians, 48 mammals, and 39 fish. Okefenokee's wetlands, savannas,
18:03
Speaker 1: and forests are are an important refuge for migratory birds
18:17
Speaker 1: as well as several threatened plant and animal species, such
18:20
Speaker 1: as the endangered longleaf pine tree, the gopher frog, and
18:24
Speaker 1: the eastern indigo snake. The non-venomous eastern indigo is the
18:29
Speaker 1: United States' longest native snake species, typically growing to 1.5
18:35
Speaker 1: to 2.4 meters. To put that into perspective, the average
18:39
Speaker 1: bed is around 2 meters long. Secretive bobcats slink through
18:44
Speaker 1: the pine forests, otters play in the waterways, and black
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Speaker 1: bears forage among the scrub. The swamp is also home
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Speaker 1: to a significant population of American alligators. There are estimated
18:56
Speaker 1: to be around 15,000 of these large reptiles living in
19:00
Speaker 1: the wetlands, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
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Speaker 1: which manages the site. Now let's turn to popular mechanics.
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Speaker 1: Scientists say the West Coast's worst-case earthquake isn't the one
19:17
Speaker 1: everybody has been fearing. I have lived in Portland, Oregon
19:24
Speaker 1: for nearly seven years, and I've been part of dozens
19:26
Speaker 1: of discussions, whether at bars or book clubs, regarding the
19:30
Speaker 1: big one, the much-anticipated seismic apocalypse that threatens the Rose City,
19:35
Speaker 1: along with Seattle, Vancouver, and to a lesser extent, San Francisco.
19:41
Speaker 1: And this article, by the way, is written by Darren Orff.
19:47
Speaker 1: Scientists have modeled this doomsday story. dozens of times. Entire
19:52
Speaker 1: books have been written about it, and communities across the
19:55
Speaker 1: region have banded together in preparation. In other words, the
19:58
Speaker 1: big one is definitely on people's minds. Off the coast
20:02
Speaker 1: of the Pacific Northwest, the Juan de Fuca Plate is
20:06
Speaker 1: plunging beneath the North American Plate. forming the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
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Speaker 1: Scientists estimate that this fault contains megathrust potential, meaning rumbles
20:18
Speaker 1: could exceed magnitude 9 in intensity. In its entire history,
20:23
Speaker 1: the United States has only recorded two such earthquakes. One
20:28
Speaker 1: happened in Alaska in 1964, and the other, the Cascadia
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Speaker 1: Subduction Zone, circa 1700. Over the past 10,000 years, the
20:40
Speaker 1: region has experienced 19 earthquakes above magnitude 8, with an
20:45
Speaker 1: average frequency of once every 500 years. The U.S. Geological
20:52
Speaker 1: Survey estimates a 10 to 15 percent chance of the
20:56
Speaker 1: big one striking the West Coast in the next 50 years.
21:01
Speaker 1: Even if the Pacific Northwest reaches the end of the
21:04
Speaker 1: century without a major rumble, That likelihood only goes up.
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Speaker 1: In the end, as geological history shows us, it's not
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Speaker 1: a matter of if, but when. Now a new study
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Speaker 1: published in the journal Geosphere is complicating matters even further
21:23
Speaker 1: because the big one might actually be a 1-2 seismic punch.
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Speaker 1: The culprit is a complicated synchronization between the Cascadia subduction
21:33
Speaker 1: zone and the lower San Andreas Fault, which runs nearly
21:38
Speaker 1: the length of Western California. We're used to hearing the
21:43
Speaker 1: big one, Cascadia, being this catastrophic huge thing, says Oregon
21:48
Speaker 1: State University's Chris Goldfinger. It turns out it's not the
21:52
Speaker 1: worst case scenario. Cranking the tragedy volume to 11, Goldfinger
21:57
Speaker 1: and his colleagues used deep sea sediment cores to show
22:01
Speaker 1: that earthquakes on these two faults have struck close together
22:05
Speaker 1: within the past 3,100 years. Earthquakes typically trigger underwater landslides,
22:11
Speaker 1: which send turbidity currents, that's fast-moving slurries of water and sediment,
22:17
Speaker 1: racing down the seafloor. As they settle, those currents leave
22:21
Speaker 1: behind distinctive deposits called turbidites. Slopes can also collapse on
22:26
Speaker 1: their own, but turbidites are often a telltale sign of
22:29
Speaker 1: a past earthquake. In their study, the scientists studied sediment
22:33
Speaker 1: cores extracted north and south of Cape Mendocino, the approximate
22:38
Speaker 1: location where the two fault systems converge off the coast
22:41
Speaker 1: of Northern California. Typically, turbidites form with coarse material on
22:46
Speaker 1: the bottom and finer silt material at the top. But
22:49
Speaker 1: south of Cape Mendocino, the researchers found that the reverse
22:53
Speaker 1: was true. That reversal could only be explained by two
22:56
Speaker 1: quakes in sequence. First, a Cascadia rupture deposited the fine silt,
23:03
Speaker 1: and soon afterward, a San Andreas rupture dumped coarser sediment
23:06
Speaker 1: on top of it. The time separation between the Cascadia
23:10
Speaker 1: subduction zone and northern San Andreas fault ruptures is not known,
23:14
Speaker 1: the authors write. Several doublet beds appear to have the
23:19
Speaker 1: upper unit embedded in the tail of the initial event,
23:23
Speaker 1: implying minutes to hours of separation, end quote. If the
23:29
Speaker 1: major earthquakes were to occur in rapid succession in the
23:32
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest and California, the result would undoubtedly be the
23:36
Speaker 1: largest natural disaster in U.S. history, likely surpassing Hurricane Katrina
23:42
Speaker 1: in 2005 by a wide margin. Major population centers, including Seattle, Portland,
23:47
Speaker 1: and Vancouver, B.C., would be decimated, even if the Federal
23:52
Speaker 1: Emergency Management Agency coordinated disaster relief to absolute perfection, an
23:57
Speaker 1: outcome that's far from certain. Delivering aid would be immensely difficult.
24:01
Speaker 1: For example, the Oregon Department of Transportation estimates at least
24:06
Speaker 1: 60% of critical bridges in the region will be unusable.
24:10
Speaker 1: Seattle faces another problem. Large swaths of the city sit
24:14
Speaker 1: on ground prone to liquefaction, in which waterlogged sediment behaves
24:20
Speaker 1: like a liquid during violent shaking. Streets and utilities built
24:24
Speaker 1: on that ground could buckle, choking off aid routes into
24:28
Speaker 1: the city. All of that is before the tsunamis, which
24:32
Speaker 1: would devastate coastal communities along the entire northwest shoreline. And
24:37
Speaker 1: then there's the second rupture. A San Andreas quake could
24:41
Speaker 1: leave California in ruins anywhere from hours to months later.
24:46
Speaker 1: While the authors reiterate that such a one-two punch isn't inevitable,
24:49
Speaker 1: there's a historical precedent for fault zones interacting in such
24:53
Speaker 1: a way. In 2004 and 2005, Indonesia experienced two interrelated earthquakes.
25:01
Speaker 1: The Sumatra-Andaman earthquake was quickly followed by the Nias Simului earthquake.
25:07
Speaker 1: The two quakes and their related tsunamis killed hundreds of
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Speaker 1: thousands of people. And scientists later confirmed that stress changes
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Speaker 1: caused by the first earthquake induced the second one months later.
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Speaker 1: Will something similar happen in the Pacific Northwest? It's impossible
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Speaker 1: to know for sure, but the ominous, well-worn nickname, The
25:29
Speaker 1: Big One, may not tell the whole story. Now we'll
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Speaker 1: go to National Geographic, and the headline is, These Seabirds
25:39
Speaker 1: Are So Full of Plastic They're Starving to Death. This
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Speaker 1: is dated October 28th. Just off Australia's eastern coast lies
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Speaker 1: Lord Howe Island, a pristine paradise of white sand beaches,
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Speaker 1: vibrant coral reefs and towering mountains. But on this island oasis,
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Speaker 1: an ecological crisis is unfolding. The island's iconic sable shearwaters
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Speaker 1: are bursting with plastic. More than 75% of the island's
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Speaker 1: sable shearwaters have plastic in their stomachs. While researchers pick
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Speaker 1: up these birds, they hear hundreds of bottle caps, balloon clips,
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Speaker 1: soy sauce packets, toothbrush heads and plastic pellets known as nurdles,
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Speaker 1: rattling inside. The birds are so completely full of plastic
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Speaker 1: from their esophagus all the way to their cloaca, says
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Speaker 1: Jennifer Lavers, marine scientist with the Adrift Lab, a research
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Speaker 1: cooperative focused on seabirds and marine plastic pollution. In some cases,
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Speaker 1: the birds have so much waste inside that scientists can't
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Speaker 1: even get tubes down their throats. And when they open
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Speaker 1: the birds, they find often that their organs are in
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Speaker 1: the wrong places. Quote, the heart has been shunted up
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Speaker 1: high in the body, the liver is splayed off to
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Speaker 1: the side. Everything is just being squeezed to the absolute
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Speaker 1: maximum to create more space for the plastics, end quote.
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Speaker 1: While plastic pollution has long plagued seabirds, a recent study
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Speaker 1: by Lavers and her colleagues found that the problem on
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Speaker 1: Lord Howe Island has skyrocketed in recent years. The study,
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Speaker 1: published last month in the journal Earth's Futures, examined plastic
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Speaker 1: in Sableshire Waters on Lord Howe Island over the past
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Speaker 1: 15 years. It found that in 2023, the birds began
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Speaker 1: swallowing more pieces and heavier loads of plastic and haven't stopped.
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Speaker 1: For example, researchers found a bird with 403 pieces of
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Speaker 1: plastic in its body, the most they had ever seen. Quote,
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Speaker 1: numbers that used to shock and appal me would send
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Speaker 1: our team into a tailspin of sadness. They just roll
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Speaker 1: out of your mouth now, says Lavers. You just write
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Speaker 1: them in the spreadsheet as if they're nothing because that's
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Speaker 1: like the seventh bird you've had that morning alone with
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Speaker 1: more than 30, 40, 50 grams of plastic. Globally, that
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Speaker 1: is unheard of, end quote. Well, that's all for today's
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Speaker 1: Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader was Kelly Taylor.
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Speaker 1: Now stay tuned for further programming on Radio Eye.