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Sep 29, 2020 13 tweets 8 min read Read on X
The scaly-foot snail is one of Earth’s strangest creatures. It lives more than 2,300 metres below the surface of the sea on a trio of deep-sea hydro thermal vents at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. #climateaction @WeDontHaveTime #ForNature
Here it has evolved a remarkable form of protection against the crushing, grim conditions found at these Stygian depths. It grows a shell made of iron. Discovered in 1999, the multi-layered iron sulphide armour of Chrysomallon squamiferum #climateaction @WeDontHaveTime #ForNature
– which measures a few centimetres in diameter – has already attracted the interest of the US defense department, whose scientists are now studying its genes in a bid to discover how it grows its own metal armour. @WeDontHaveTime #ForNature
The researchers will have to move quickly, however, for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has just added the snail to its list of threatened species.@WeDontHaveTime #ForNature
German and Chinese industrial groups have revealed plans to explore the seabed around two of the three vents that provide homes for scaly-foot snails. @WeDontHaveTime #ForNature
Should they proceed, and mine the seabed’s veins of metals and minerals, a large chunk of the snail’s home base will be destroyed and the existence of this remarkable little creature will be threatened.😔@WeDontHaveTime #ForNature #ClimateAction @UNICEF
“On land, we are already exploiting mineral resources to the full,” says Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, of Stockholm University. “At the same time, the need for rare elements and metals is becoming increasingly important to supply green technologies such as wind and solar power plants.
“And so industrialists are looking to the seabed where it is now technologically and economically feasible to mine for minerals. Hence the arrival of threats to creatures like the scaly-foot snail.”@WeDontHaveTime #ForNature #ClimateAction @UNICEF
Jouffray is the lead author of an analysis, published last week in the journal One Earth which involved synthesizing 50 yrs of data from shipping, drilling, aquaculture and other marine industries and which paints an alarming pic of the impact of future exploitation of the oceans
This is “blue acceleration”, the term that is used by Jouffray and his co-authors to describe the recent rapid rise in marine industrialization, a trend that has brought increasing ocean acidification, marine heating, coral reef destruction, and plastic pollution in its wake
As they state in their paper: “From the shoreline to the deep sea, the blue acceleration is already having major social and ecological consequences”. @WeDontHaveTime #ForNature #ClimateAction @UNICEF
Many seabed grabbers include small island states that are trying to become large ocean states in the process. For example, the Cook islands in the South Pacific has claimed an area of seabed that is 1,700 times its land surface. #climateaction @WeDontHaveTime #ForNature
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More from @TuanaTang

Sep 30, 2020
The life of a wolf is a rough one – in a pack or solo – and there are many reasons a young, healthy wolf could die. She could have been kicked in the head by a deer while hunting. She could have choked on the liver of a raccoon, which happened to a wolf in Yellowstone.
She could have been hit by a car. Or she could have been killed by a poacher.🤬
Gray wolves are covered under both the Federal Endangered Species Act, as well as the California Endangered Species Act
A young female gray wolf bid goodbye to her family, left home and crossed the state line into California to find love.

https://.www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/09/wolf-california-oregon-scientists-endangered-species
Read 18 tweets
Sep 29, 2020
THREAD
Trump administration strips pollution safeguards from drinking water sources😡
Rollback of clean water protections for streams and wetlands😡
Obama-era rules have long been targeted by Trump😡
The Trump administration has completed its rollback of environmental protections for streams, wetland and other bodies of water, a process that has stripped pollution safeguards from drinking water sources used by around a third of all Americans.
Clean water protections strengthened under the Obama administration have long been targeted by Donald Trump, who has called it a “very destructive and horrible rule”. #climateaction @WeDontHaveTime #fornature
Read 24 tweets
Sep 27, 2020
Apparently #Covid19 can live on paper for up to 36 hours, maybe somebody could invent a UV lamps to irradiate letterboxes as the envelope is posted.
In the US there are trials going on of robotic UV lamps which can kill all bacteria in a hotel room after each guest
leaves, they would probably be good idea too for care homes.
Corona just illustrates, what had been visible to the naked eye for much longer. The "rich" west measure the worth of a human life (or rest life) for money for some time now.
From a purely what we could do standpoint, some million of people could be still alive, if we would put
Read 8 tweets
Sep 26, 2020
"They have exposed our societies to diseases for which no immunity has yet developed."
Errr... we need to have encountered a disease in order to have had the opportunity to develop immunity to it.
So this does not make the emergence of new pathogens by this route any different to the emergence by any other route even though it may well be accelerating the rate of emergence of new pathogens
I also have a problem with the idea that simply coming into contact with more species is really that significant except perhaps because we have been living in man made protected zones with very little contact with wildlife for some time.
Read 10 tweets
Sep 26, 2020
The Con Don and his democracy-destroying brethren in OUR United States of America
is trying to squelch absentee voting because too many people might vote against him. He is threatening to hold funding for OUR U.S. postal service to prevent it.
An absentee ballot doesn't have to be mailed. Voters can drop the completed ballot in a secure, drive in ballot
receptacle at their county headquarters and other designated places in their area.
Read 4 tweets
Sep 25, 2020
Archaeologists discover remains of vast Mayan palace in Mexico
Ancient building found 100 miles west of Cancùn estimated to be more than 1,000 years old
Archaeologists in Mexico have uncovered the remains of a vast Mayan palace over 1,000 years old in an ancient city about 100 miles west of the tourist hotspot of Cancún.
It is part of a larger complex that also includes two residential rooms, an altar and a large round oven. Archaeologists have also uncovered remains from a burial site, and hope forensic analysis of the bones could provide more clues about Kulubá’s Mayan inhabitants.
Read 4 tweets

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