[BCNnet] Time Mag article "Mercury Rising"

[Randi Doeker - Chicago]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1531326-1,00.html
That's the link to the current Time Magazine article titled "Mercury
Rising."  I guess the good news is that the subject got three pages, with
graphics.

 

..the game changer was the recent study of Northeastern songbirds...Netting
178 species of songbirds and testing their blood and feathers, Evers found
that all of them were indeed contaminated, some in concentrations exceeding
0.1 parts per million. That doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot higher
than it ought to be, and it's surely on the rise. ... What's more, if the
birds are contaminated, so are other animals that eat the same diet--not to
mention predators that eat the birds. Says Evers: "It creeps up the food
chain and continues to biomagnify as it goes."

The wetlands study darkened the picture further. ... "There's mercury that's
been accumulating since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution," ... "During
droughts, you get a meter-thick carpet of dry peat in some places, and all
you need then is a match. Lightning usually provides that."

 

Randi Doeker

Chicago

 

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