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HOW MUCH ARE MICROPLASTICS HURTING US?

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

In today’s newsletter, we examine microplastics in humans, the rise of ‘net-zero’ hotels, art from discarded objects … and apartment dwellers’ journey to farming.

PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID LIITTSCHWAGER, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION

First, microplastics in streams and oceans began turning up in the guts of fish and shellfish. Now they are in the lungs and blood of humans.

What is the danger to us? That’s what Nat Geo’s Laura Parker is investigating.
One alarming finding: While humans have been concerned about getting microplastics from eating shrimp or mussels, we already are getting greater amounts elsewhere. “People will take in more plastic during a mussels dinner by inhaling or ingesting tiny, invisible plastic fibers floating in the air around them, fibers shed by their own clothes, carpets, and upholstery, than they will by eating the mussels,” she writes.

See her full story here.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY LAUREN ROMAN

Pictured, at top: Microplastics found among living organisms off Hawaii. Above, Japanese quail chicks in a study—the results shown here—fed microplastics weren’t more likely than unexposed chicks to get sick, die, or have trouble reproducing, though they did show minor delays in growth.

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SMARTER PLANET

COURTESY PAT KRUPTA HOTEL MARCEL

Climate-friendly hotels: The Pirelli building in New Haven (above) was once known as Connecticut’s ugliest building. Now it’s been refashioned as the nation’s most energy-efficient hotel, and its owners are trying to get it certified as a “net-zero energy hotel,” meaning it has enough renewable generation to handle its annual energy needs. How did it get so green? The Brutalist design helped: Solar power is generated on the roof. The triple-glazed windows maintain temperatures and energy-efficient appliances. Hotels—and travelers—are seeking greener options, and more are on the way.

STORIES WE’RE FOLLOWING

Energy shift creates opening for ‘world’s largest batteries’

Parks coalition presses Biden to establish six new protected monuments

Here’s what we know about the BA.2 Omicron subvariant

Environmentalists target mountains of fertilizer waste

This Himalayan hike skims the clouds—without Everest crowds

Spiders ‘catapult’ themselves to avoid getting eaten after mating

EARTH MONTH: ARTICLE OF THE DAY

PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID DOUBILET

PHOTO OF THE DAY

PHOTOGRAPH BY @JUSTIN_ANANTAWAN

One way out: How do you build a future for teens in the crowded Nairobi neighborhood of Kibera? Nurture artists and encourage them to build works from discarded objects—and to sell them. The Sun Valley Art Collective created art from beer cans, allowing the group to fight pollution at the same time. The collective has been teaching youth painting (one example pictured above), as well as cartoon making, carving, and metalwork.

IN A FEW WORDS

To go into the mangrove forests is always remarkable. From the outside, it looks like just trees, but when you look inside you see all of this life.

Angelo Bernandino

Marine ecologist in Brazil; Nat Geo Explorer

OVERHEARD AT NAT GEO

APRICOT LANE FARMS

Now I’m a farmer: What happens when two L.A. apartment dwellers buy a lemon grove—and try to make it a working farm with many crops? “It was the perfect mission for two very idealistic, naive former city dwellers,” John Chester tells Nat Geo’s Overheard podcast. He and his wife Molly had to build back the soil and fight a snail invasion before today’s Apricot Lane Farms emerged. Here’s how. (Pictured above, a Scottish Highland cow on the farm.)

HEAR THEIR STORY

FUTURE FORWARD

PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMIE PHAM, ALAMY

What’s the deal with old-growth forests? They were a focus of President Biden’s Earth Day initiative. Nat Geo’s Craig Welch breaks down the effort to save them—and provides this bit of context: “Far more than just linking us to our past, the world’s mature and old-growth forests perform amazing ecological feats, even as they face all new threats. They support a greater diversity of life, hold cleaner water, and host surprisingly complicated communication networks made of fungi that relay messages between trees underground—even trees of different species.” (Pictured above, the Hoh Rainforest of Olympic National Park in Washington State.) Here’s the story.

This just in: Nat Geo has been awarded 11 Webby Awards and was named media company of the year. Read more.

We hope you liked today’s newsletter. This was edited and curated by Monica Williams, Heather Kim, and David Beard. Have an idea or a link for us? Write [email protected]. Have a good week ahead!

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