Multiple credible studies have found that agricultural workers who handle paraquat—or live near areas where it is applied—face a higher incidence of Parkinson’s disease, which can eventually turn even the simplest movements into daunting challenges.
Animal research further underscores paraquat’s toxic effects on nerve cells, although proving direct causation for individuals affected by Parkinson’s remains difficult.
Herbicide under US scrutiny over potential Parkinson’s link
Paraquat (trivial name; /ˈpærəkwɒt/), or N,N′-dimethyl-4,4′-bipyridinium dichloride (systematic name), also known as methyl viologen, is a toxic organic compound with the chemical formula [(C6H7N)2]Cl2. It is classified as a viologen, a family of redox-active heterocycles of similar structure.[5] This salt is one of the most widely used herbicides worldwide.[6] It is quick-acting and non-selective, killing green plant tissue on contact.
Paraquat is nasty sounding stuff. I can’t get the image of a guy stirring liquid pesticides with arm out of my head. I saw it a long time ago in the Nat Geo magazine. The guy was in Central America and likely never told to not do that. I will bet he is not alive.
There seems to be a multiple of things in the environment causing Parkinson’s disease. Steve’s Parkinson’s disease may not be related to Paraquat but there are plenty of other chemicals out there. I mentioned the Dark Waters movie before where deadly pollutants were dumped in West Virginia. The first world is more regulated but even so there are huge volumes of toxics just dumped all the time, legally and illegally. There is the rest of the world where it is worse, much worse.
Firefighters are warning that the smoke pouring out of neighborhoods in Southern California is a poisonous soup, in part because of the ubiquity of plastics and other petrochemical products inside them. “It’s one of the reasons why we can’t put firefighters in front of these houses,” the Cal Fire battalion chief David Acuna told me on Monday. After any lifesaving work has been done, keeping firefighters in the toxic air is too great a risk.
What Happens When a Plastic City Burns
How many people will be affected by this. Pollution used to get more press I think.
They found that groundwater can travel underground for hundreds of kilometers before emerging as streamflow. In the Midwest, groundwater flows long distances—especially where the mountains meet the plains. One groundwater flow along the base of the Rocky Mountains spanned 148 miles (238 kilometers). The study also revealed groundwater’s vast connection networks: Almost 90% of U.S. watersheds take in water from one neighbor and pass it to another.
The findings bear staggering implications. While out of sight, groundwater constitutes 99% of the world’s unfrozen fresh water and provides drinking water to 145 million Americans. It is also essential to our food supply, irrigating 60% of agriculture worldwide. But groundwater is being depleted at an alarming rate—and it’s long been difficult to model. This study’s new retrospective analyses and predictive simulations provide opportunities to track this vital resource and understand the far-reaching impacts of leakages from the likes of oil and gas well pads.
Groundwater simulation uncovers hidden paths and long-distance flows on a continental scale
Over 97 million US residents exposed to unregulated contaminants in their drinking water, analysis reveals
Always good news when pollution has more agency in groundwater.
The second important new discovery is that groundwater from very deep aquifers contributes significantly to streamflow. Maxwell’s team found that deep groundwater from aquifers 10 to 100 meters below the surface contributed more than half of the baseflow in 56% of the subbasins. The greatest depths occurred in regions with the steepest topography gradients, such as the Rocky and Appalachian mountain ranges.
This bit is interesting.