Melting glaciers threaten millions downstream :
About 15 million people in 30 countries face injury or death from unstable glacial lakes, a study says. As Earth’s climate has warmed, glaciers have rapidly melted in high mountain ranges across the globe, and the resulting water accumulates in unstable gouges cut by the glaciers as they retreat. The lakes’ banks can burst, flooding nearby communities; such outbursts have killed at least 12,000 people worldwide. The first global assessment of the threat, published this week in Nature Communications, estimates that half of the 15 million people threatened live at high elevations in Asia. More than 1 million are at risk in one glacier basin, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. Other high-risk areas identified in the report are in Peru and China.
EU eyes ban on ‘forever’ chemicals:
In one of the most sweeping proposals of its kind, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) is considering asking the European Union to ban per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), called forever chemicals because they accumulate and persist in the environment. On 7 February, ECHA published a proposal that would ban the entire PFAS category, which includes more than 10,000 substances. Used in thousands of consumer products such as stain-resistant fabrics and nonstick cookware, PFAS have been linked to health problems. ECHA will begin a 6-month scientific evaluation of the health and socioeconomic impacts of a ban. Those results will be forwarded to the European Commission, which together with member states will decide whether to restrict the substances. Other governments have taken more limited steps to restrict the chemicals, and industry groups have generally opposed restricting the entire class of compounds, arguing they have many essential uses.