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By: Jennifer Chu

The world’s oceans act as a massive conveyor, circulating heat, water and carbon around the planet. This global system plays a key role in climate change, storing and releasing heat throughout the world. To study how this system affects climate, scientists have largely focused on the North Atlantic, a major basin where water sinks, burying carbon and heat deep in the ocean’s interior.
But what goes down must come back up, and it’s been a mystery where, and how, deep waters circulate back to the surface. Filling in this missing piece of the circulation, and developing theories and models that capture it, may help researchers understand and predict the ocean’s role in climate and climate change.

Recently, scientists have found evidence that the missing piece may lie in the Southern Ocean — the vast ribbon of water encircling Antarctica. The Southern Ocean, according to observations and models, is a site where strong winds blowing along the Antarctic Circumpolar Current dredge waters up from the depths.

“There’s a lot of carbon and heat in the interior ocean,” says John Marshall, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Oceanography at MIT. “The Southern Ocean is the window by which the interior of the ocean connects to the atmosphere above.”

Marshall and Kevin Speer, a professor of physical oceanography at Florida State University, have published a paper in Nature Geoscience in which they review past work, examine the Southern Ocean’s influence on climate and draw up a new schematic for ocean circulation.

A revised conveyor

For decades, a “conveyor belt” model, developed by paleoclimatologist Wallace Broecker, has served as a simple cartoon of ocean circulation. The diagram depicts warm water moving northward, plunging deep into the North Atlantic; then coursing south as cold water toward Antarctica; then back north again, where waters rise and warm in the North Pacific.

However, evidence has shown that waters rise to the surface not so much in the North Pacific, but in the Southern Ocean — a distinction that Marshall and Speer illustrate in their updated diagram.
 

Marshall says winds and eddies along the Southern Ocean drag deep waters — and any buried carbon — to the surface around Antarctica. He and Speer write that the updated diagram “brings the Southern Ocean to the forefront” of the global circulation system, highlighting its role as a powerful climate mediator.

Indeed, Marshall and Speer review evidence that the Southern Ocean may have had a part in thawing the planet out of the last Ice Age. While it’s unclear what caused Earth to warm initially, this warming may have driven surface wind patterns poleward, pulling up deep water and carbon — which would have been released into the atmosphere, further warming the climate.

Shifting winds

In a cooling world, it appears that winds shift slightly closer to the Equator, and are buffeted by the continents. In a warming world, winds shift toward the poles; in the Southern Ocean, unimpeded winds whip up deep waters. The researchers note that two manmade atmospheric trends — ozone depletion and greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels — have a large effect on winds over the Southern Ocean: As the ozone hole recovers, greenhouse gases rise and the planet warms, winds over the Southern Ocean are likely to shift, affecting the delicate balance at play. In the future, if the Southern Ocean experiences stronger winds displaced slightly south of their current position, Antarctica’s ice shelves may be more vulnerable to melting — a phenomenon that may also have contributed to the end of the Ice Age. 

“There are huge reservoirs of carbon in the interior of the ocean,” Marshall says. “If the climate changes and makes it easier for that carbon to get into the atmosphere, then there will be an additional warming effect.”

Jorge Sarmiento, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at Princeton University, says the Southern Ocean has been a difficult area to study. To fully understand the Southern Ocean’s dynamics requires models with high resolution — a significant challenge, given the ocean’s size.

“Because it’s so hard to observe the Southern Ocean, we’re still in the process of learning things,” says Sarmiento, who was not involved with this research. “So I think this is a very nice snapshot of our current understanding, based on models and observations, and it will sort of be a touchstone for future developments in the field.”

Marshall and Speer are now working with a multi-institution team led by MIT’s collaborator, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, to measure how waters upwell in the Southern Ocean. The researchers are studying the flow driven by eddies in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and have deployed tracers and deep drifters to measure its effects; temperature, salinity and oxygen content in the water also help tell them how eddies behave, and how quickly or slowly warm water rises to the surface.

“Any perturbation that is made to the atmosphere, whether it’s due to glacial cycles or ozone or greenhouse forcing, can change the balance over the Southern Ocean,” Marshall says. “We have to understand how the Southern Ocean works in the climate system and take that into account.”

China's worsening air pollution, after decades of unbridled economic growth, cost the country $112 billion in 2005 in lost economic productivity, a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has found.

The figure, which also took into account people's lost leisure time because of illness or death, was $22 billion in 1975, according to researchers at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

The study, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, measured the harmful effects of two air pollutants: ozone and particulates, which can lead to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

"The results clearly indicate that ozone and particulate matter have substantially impacted the Chinese economy over the past 30 years," one of the researchers, Noelle Selin, an assistant professor of engineering systems and atmospheric chemistry at MIT, said in a statement.

Ground-level ozone is produced by chemical plants, gasoline pumps, paint, power plants, motor vehicles and industrial boilers. Inhaling it can result in inflammation of the airways, coughing, throat irritation, discomfort, chest tightness, wheezing and shortness of breath.

Past studies have shown that high daily ozone concentrations are accompanied by increased asthma attacks, hospital admissions, mortality, and other markers of disease.

Particulates -- spewed out by power plants, industries and automobiles -- are microscopic solids and droplets so tiny they penetrate deep into the lungs and can even get into the bloodstream.

Lengthy exposure can result in coughing, breathing difficulties, impaired lung function, irregular heartbeat and premature death in people with heart or lung disease.

MORE DAMAGING THAN THOUGHT

The researchers made their calculations using atmospheric modeling tools and global economic modeling, which were useful in assessing the impact of ozone, that China started monitoring only recently. Using this methodology, they were able to simulate historical ozone levels.

Kelly Sims Gallagher, an associate professor of energy and environmental policy at Tufts University's Fletcher School, who was not involved in the study, said the findings revealed the problem was even worse than thought.

"This important study confirms earlier estimates of major damages to the Chinese economy from air pollution, and in fact, finds that the damages are even greater than previously thought," Gallagher said.

China is a large emitter of mercury, carbon dioxide and other pollutants. In the 1980s, China's particulate concentrations were 10 to 16 times higher than the World Health Organization's annual guidelines, the researchers said.

Even after significant improvements by 2005, the concentrations were five times higher than what is considered safe.

Chinese authorities are aware of the devastating effects of the degradation to the environment and are taking steps to tackle it.

This month, authorities announced plans to reduce air pollution by 15 percent in the capital, Beijing, by 2015, and 30 percent by 2020 through phasing out old cars, relocating factories and planting new forests.

SOURCE: Andy Wong, AP

By: Wendy Koch

China's unprecedented growth is carrying a steadily steeper price tag as its air pollution hikes the nation's health care costs, finds a new study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Although China has made substantial progress in reducing its air pollution, MIT researchers say its economic impact has jumped from $22 billion in 1975 to $112 billion in 2005. The costs result from both lost labor and the increased need for health care because ozone and particulates in air can cause respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

"The results clearly indicate that ozone and particulate matter have substantially impacted the Chinese economy over the past 30 years," Noelle Selin, an assistant MIT professor of engineering systems and atmospheric chemistry, said in announcing the findings that appear in the February edition of the journal Global Environmental Change.

The study, by researchers at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, said pollution's economic impact has grown, because population growth increased the number of people exposed to it and higher incomes raised the costs associated with lost productivity.

The study "finds that the damages are even greater than previously thought," said Kelly Sims Gallagher, an associate professor of energy and environmental policy at Tufts University's Fletcher School, in the MIT announcement.

The researchers calculated these long-term impacts using atmospheric and economic modeling tools, which were especially important when it came to assessing the cumulative impact of ozone. They said China has only recently begun to monitor ozone , and it's become the world's largest emitter of mercury, carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

In the 1980s, they said China's particulate-matter concentrations were at least 10 to 16 times higher than the World Health Organization's annual guidelines. Even after major improvements, by 2005, they said the concentrations were still five times higher than what is considered safe and led to 656,000 premature deaths in China each year.

China is taking steps to mitigate air pollution, in partly by boosting its support for renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. Its hefty subsidies to its solar industry have prompted some U.S. manufacturers to file a complaint with the International Trade Commission. In January, the nation set a target to reduce its 2010 levels of carbon intensity (the amount of carbon emitted per unit of gross domestic product) 17% by 2015.

Despite improvements in air quality, the economic impact of air pollution has increased dramatically, new MIT study shows.

By: Vicki Ekstrom, Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change

Although China has made substantial progress in cleaning up its air pollution, a new MIT study shows that the economic impact from ozone and particulates in its air has increased dramatically.

In recent decades, China has experienced unprecedented growth. But that growth comes with a steep price tag, according to the study, which appears in the February edition of the journal Global Environmental Change. The study, by researchers at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, analyzes the costs associated with health impacts from ozone and particulate matter, which can lead to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

Quantifying costs from both lost labor and the increased need for health care, the study finds that this air pollution cost the Chinese economy $112 billion in 2005. That’s compared to $22 billion in such damages in 1975.

“The results clearly indicate that ozone and particulate matter have substantially impacted the Chinese economy over the past 30 years,” even though there have been significant improvements in air quality detected over this period, says Noelle Selin, an assistant professor of engineering systems and atmospheric chemistry at MIT.

The researchers discovered this large economic impact because they looked at pollution’s long-term effect on health, not just the immediate costs. In doing so, they found two main causes for the increase in pollution’s costs: rapid urbanization in conjunction with population growth increased the number of people exposed to the pollution, and higher incomes raised the costs associated with lost productivity.

“This suggests that conventional, static methods that neglect the cumulative impact of pollution-caused welfare damage or other market distortions substantially underestimate pollution's health costs, particularly in fast-growing economies like China,” says Kyung-Min Nam, one of the study’s authors and a postdoc in the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

Nam gives one example from the study showing that pollution led to a $64 billion loss in gross domestic product in 1995. That compares to static estimates from the World Bank that found the loss to be only $34 billion.

In this way, Selin says, “this study represents a more accurate picture than previous studies.”

Kelly Sims Gallagher, an associate professor of energy and environmental policy at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, agrees: “This important study confirms earlier estimates of major damages to the Chinese economy from air pollution, and in fact, finds that the damages are even greater than previously thought.”  

The researchers calculated these long-term impacts using atmospheric modeling tools and comprehensive global economic modeling. These models proved especially important when it came to assessing the cumulative impact of ozone, which China has only recently begun to monitor. Using their models, the MIT researchers were able to simulate historical ozone levels.

China has become the world’s largest emitter of mercury, carbon dioxide and other pollutants. In the 1980s, China’s particulate-matter concentrations were at least 10 to 16 times higher than the World Health Organization’s annual guidelines. Even after significant improvements by 2005, the concentrations were still five times higher than what is considered safe. These high levels of pollution have led to 656,000 premature deaths in China each year from ailments caused by indoor and outdoor air pollution, according to World Health Organization estimates from 2007.

“The study is evidence that more stringent air-pollution control measures may be warranted in China,” Gallagher says — because of not just the health effects of pollution, but also the economic effects.

China is taking steps to respond to these health and economic concerns. In January, the nation set a target to limit its carbon intensity (the amount of carbon emitted per unit of gross domestic product) by 17 percent by 2015, compared with 2010 levels.

While the MIT study looked at the benefits of pollution-control measures on health in China, it did not calculate the costs of implementing such policies. That is work the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change’s new China Energy and Climate Project hopes to accomplish.

“We’re just getting started on an exciting program of work that will involve modeling the energy, environmental and economic impacts of climate and air-quality policies in China,” says Valerie Karplus, director of the China Energy and Climate Project. “The current study has provided initial insights and a strong foundation for this research going forward.”

The China Energy and Climate Project will analyze the impact of existing and proposed energy and climate policies in China on technology, energy use, the environment and economic welfare.

By Josh Max

It’s official – we don’t want cars that get 200 or more miles to the gallon, and it’s consumers’ fault, not automakers’.
A new report issued by Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Christopher Knittel says major innovations in miles-to-the-gallon have been stymied by cars that are larger and more powerful than they were 30 years ago.  



Between 1980 and 2006, the average gas mileage of vehicles sold in the United States increased by slightly more than 15 percent — a relatively modest improvement, says Knittel. “But during that time, the average weight of those vehicles increased 26 percent, while their horsepower rose 107 percent. All factors being equal, fuel economy actually increased by 60 percent between 1980 and 2006.” If cars had stayed the same weight and size since 1980, says Knittel, we’d all be getting an average of 73 MPG instead of our current average of 27.  



“Most of that technological progress has gone into [compensating for] weight and horsepower,” he says, adding that we ought to make drivers cough up for their own pollution.



“When it comes to climate change, leaving the market alone isn’t going to lead to the efficient outcome,” Knittel says. “The right starting point is a gas tax.”



Knittel conducted his study by using data from auto trade journals, manufacturers and data from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, which revealed that Americans have chosen to buy larger, less fuel-efficient vehicles over the last 30 years despite far more public awareness of pollution, global warming and other serious environmental issues.  In 1980, for example, light trucks accounted for about 20 percent of passenger vehicles sold in America. By 2004, light trucks, including SUVs, accounted for 51 percent of sales.



And despite current national gas prices being higher than they’ve ever been in the history of the internal combustion vehicle - $3.48 per regular gallon - gas prices dropped by 30 percent when adjusted for inflation between 1980 and 2004, Knittel says. The blame, he says, lies with the consumer, not the seller.

“I find little fault with the auto manufacturers, because there has been no incentive to put technologies into overall fuel economy,” Knittel says. “Firms are going to give consumers what they want, and if gas prices are low, consumers are going to want big, fast cars. I think 98 percent of economists would say that we need higher gas taxes.”

By: Richard Harris

Listen to the story.

SOURCE: Keith Srakocic/AP

The boom in cheap natural gas in this country is good news for the environment, because relatively clean gas is replacing dirty coal-fired power plants. But in the long run, cheap natural gas could slow the growth of even cleaner sources of energy, such as wind and solar power.

Natural gas has a bad rap in some parts of the country, because the process of fracking is not popular. But many people looking at cheap natural gas from the global perspective see it as a good thing.

Henry Jacoby, an economist at the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research at MIT, says cheap energy will help pump up the economy.

"Overall, this is a great boon to the United States," he says. "It's not a bad thing to have this new and available domestic resource." He says cheap energy can boost the economy, and he notes that natural gas is half as polluting as coal when it's burned for electricity.

"But we have to keep our eye on the ball long-term," Jacoby says. He's concerned about how cheap gas will affect much cleaner sources of energy. Wind and solar power are more expensive than natural gas, and though those prices have been coming down, they're chasing a moving target that has fallen fast: natural gas.

"It makes the prospects for large-scale expansion of those technologies more chancy," Jacoby says.

Natural Gas: 'A Bridge To Nowhere'?

From an environmental perspective, natural gas could help transition our economy from fossil fuels to clean energy. It's often portrayed as a bridge fuel to help us through the transition, because it's so much cleaner than coal and it's abundant. But Jacoby says that bridge could be in trouble if cheap gas kills the incentive to develop renewable industry.

"You'd better be thinking about a landing of the bridge at the other end. If there's no landing at the other end, it's just a bridge to nowhere," he says.

In the short run, at least, the wind industry isn't too worried about this. Denise Bode, who heads the American Wind Energy Association, says low gas prices don't undercut current prices for wind, because those are mostly fixed by 20-year contracts, not market prices.

And even if wind is a bit more expensive than natural gas, she says utilities still want it in their mix. Windmills aren't subject to changing fuel prices, so the cost of production is quite predictable. That's not true for natural gas — there's no guarantee that today's cheap prices will stay as low as some predict.

"It's very difficult to really know how certain that is, so you always want to balance that with something that is certain," Bode says.

Reducing Political Will For Renewables?

What really worries her isn't natural gas — it's politics. Wind could lose a huge tax break at the end of this year. And that would have a much more dramatic effect than low natural gas prices.

"You'll see very low numbers" for new wind installations if the federal production tax credit expires," Bode says. "In fact, I think EIA [the U.S. Energy Information Administration] projects almost zero for 2013."

The solar industry's subsidies run for several more years, so they are not in that bind, at least not yet. But Trevor Houser, an energy analyst at the Rhodium Group, says these tax credits and other incentives like state renewable standards are key if renewables are to grow and mature during the natural-gas glut.

"Long-term renewable deployment in the U.S. is going to depend primarily on policy," Houser says. "Is there enough concern about environmental consequences to put in place incentives for renewable energy?"

That partly depends on how much of a premium people and companies will be willing to pay for cleaner energy. Right now, with natural gas so cheap, that premium is fairly substantial.

"If those prices hang around for another three or four years, then I think you'll definitely see reduced political will for renewable energy deployment, " Houser says. "But we don't expect prices that low to hang around that long, because low prices are in many ways self-correcting."

Gas is so cheap now that companies that produce it are struggling to make a profit. So Houser expects prices to move up. That will help close the price gap between gas and renewable energy.

Even so, there's still a huge way to go before prices and government policies do enough to significantly reduce emissions of the gases that contribute to global warming.

 By: Vicki Ekstrom, Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change

EPA's top air official, Gina McCarthy, leads roundtable discussion.

Looking to tap the knowledge of some of the nation's leading energy and environment experts, and update them on new and proposed standards, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's top air official visited MIT's campus last Friday, Jan. 27. Gina McCarthy, EPA's assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation who led a roundtable discussion which was hosted by MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and moderated by the program's co-director, John Reilly.

A return home for the Massachusetts native who spent more than 25 years working on environmental issues in the state, McCarthy said she saw the meeting as an opportunity to "learn from the experts who have been so valuable in providing the research and the science" her office needs to be successful.

Robust science, and clear cost-benefits associated with that science, is critical, McCarthy said — a lesson roundtable participant and environmental economics Professor Michael Greenstone helped her realize when he was the chief economist for President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers during the first year of the administration.

"I think the agency has tremendously benefitted from that, specifically the air program because we are under constant scrutiny," McCarthy said. "Everything these people know intersects very directly with the work I've been doing for the president."

The visit came just days after President Obama's State of the Union address, where he laid out his intention to take an "all-of-the-above" approach toward America's energy future.

"In this administration we are looking for everything from commitments to renewables, that would be wind and solar, but also recognizing that coal will have a place in the mix," McCarthy said of the president's vision. "We're asking ourselves from the EPA side what that means for our upcoming rules on greenhouse gases and source performance standards for powerplants. How do you write it in a way that's consistent with the rules and still allows a place for new coal and new technologies?"

Leadership on mercury
 

Joint Program on Global Change
Co-Director John Reilly

Noelle Selin, who participated in the discussion, was also excited to hear the president mention mercury.

"I do think that the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards are something we've been waiting for, for a long time, and they are a really forward-looking rule," Selin said.

She noted that Massachusetts has lead the way in controlling mercury, perhaps due to McCarthy's earlier leadership, and that the state will especially gain from the national rule because it is upwind of polluting coal-mining states to its south.

• See "MIT researcher: U.S. taking leadership on mercury in the environment" to learn more about Selin's view of the mercury standards.

Mentioning the global negotiations on mercury — scheduled to wrap up in January 2013, after the next presidential election — Selin asked what role the new standards might play in the global arena as China's mercury emissions continue to grow and endanger the gains made by the new rule.

"We were hoping that if we put out the powerplant rule [mercury standards] that would bolster our role in the discussion," McCarthy said. "It was one of the issues we considered when we were going through the process of forming the rule. We had to do our part … we had to have a legitimate position in the international discussion." 

Tapping the value of natural gas

McCarthy acknowledged that the mercury standards come while the cost of natural gas is low, which she said is "changing the energy world" and making some coal-fired powerplants "ineffective, inefficient and not competitive."

MIT Energy Initiative Director Ernest Moniz agreed: "I think we all agree that the mercury rules are absolutely critical in terms of displacing some coal, in addition to the economics of coal and gas with natural gas prices below $3 per million Btu."

But Christopher Knittel, an energy economics professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, pointed out that natural gas deposits can be viewed as a huge opportunity — but also, a huge risk.

One of the challenges with natural gas is that the extraction process — a process called hydraulic fracturing — emits Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), such as methane, which cause smog and are associated with some health effects such as cancer. Methane is also a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.

Richard Schmalensee, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, addressed another challenge: the role that states play.

"The state's roles are problematic because you've got all this gas in places that have never had experience with anything like it," Schmalensee said.

McCarthy said there is a need for standard best practices within the industry — a topic the president addressed in his speech, as he challenged natural gas companies not to follow in the footsteps of the oil industry in terms of polluting now and worrying about it later.

"The good news about that is when you capture the VOCs you capture the methane. When you capture methane you sell it," McCarthy said. "So the cost-effectiveness of those strategies is quite good."

The EPA is close to finalizing a rule in April 2012 that would reduce VOCs from the oil and natural gas industry.

Meeting the Climate Challenge

The inclusion of climate change was another exciting point for McCarthy in the president's address.

But Susan Solomon, a professor of atmospheric chemistry who recently joined MIT from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said she thought the president missed an opportunity to expand on that point.

"This issue of climate change isn't one that's going to be solved by everyone pitching in. It's not like recycling where if we can all do our part we'll be better off," Solomon said. "It really does require new technologies and investments. So the most important thing that a citizen can do is to engage in a discussion about that and I think he missed an opportunity to call for engagement, including by Republicans."

McCarthy said one of the challenges of the present situation is that nobody wants to invest in anything that doesn't offer an immediate payback. The innovative new technologies needed to actually make a difference in the climate challenge are years, perhaps decades, away and require significant investments.

"And I think it's the government's job to look way beyond the immediate payback by establishing priorities for research and innovation," McCarthy said.

EPA's new greenhouse gas reporting data is one sign of progress that McCarthy believes has helped advance the climate change conversation.

"I actually think that has spurred tremendous amounts of opportunity for climate change to get back into a reasonable, rational discussion," McCarthy said. "I'm excited that the president is talking about that — as well as clean energy. Not replacing one for the other. Because it is a challenge we need to meet head on."

 

 

 

By: Vicki Ekstrom, Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change

SOURCE: EPA

Americans have long known the dangers of mercury in our environment, with doctors repeatedly warning pregnant women to remove fish from their daily diets. But despite this solid knowledge of the health impacts, the United States has never regulated mercury emissions from powerplants — our nation’s number one source of mercury — until now.

Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. The standards require coal-fired powerplants to install scrubbing technology that will cut 90 percent of their mercury emissions by 2015.

To better inform local residents about the new protections, Noelle Eckley Selin — an assistant professor in MIT's Engineering Systems Division and Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and a researcher in MIT’s Joint Program on Global Change — this week joined EPA Regional Administrator Curt Spalding and other public health experts at a public availability session at the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center.

“These mercury standards help prevent the developmental delays and neurological damages that could come from eating contaminated fish,” Selin said at the Thursday event.

At MIT, Selin looks at the pathways by which mercury reaches the environment and the effect it has on human health once it gets there. She also analyzes the steps regulators could take — and in some cases have taken — to prevent further contamination.

“There’ve been proposals for a long time to regulate these emissions from coal-fired powerplants,” Selin said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times when the rules were first released on Dec. 21, 2011. “The earlier incarnation of this was the Clean Air Mercury Rule, which was a cap-and-trade proposal for mercury, and that was challenged in the courts and then thrown out. And now this is another try at regulating, but it’s been a long time in coming.”

Massachusetts began controlling mercury in the 1990s. Since then, the state has reduced mercury emissions by 91 percent, according to Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Kenneth Kimmell.

“It has been a major source of frustration for us that even though we’ve reduced our mercury rates by so much, many of our water bodies are still off limits to fishing because of pollution from upwind states,” Kimmell said at the Thursday event.

Selin, 2009 Annual Review

Massachusetts’s experience shows that tough standards can have a substantial effect on the environment, Selin said. But federal regulations such as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards are necessary because of the pollution that comes from powerplants in coal mining and producing states.

Health benefits

Rachel Murphy of Cambridge has a 6-year-old daughter with severe asthma. Her daughter’s asthma is so bad that at times she coughs hard enough to burst blood vessels in her eyes.

“Rachel can get the best medicine possible, but she can’t control the air her daughter breathes,” New England’s American Lung Association President Jeffrey Seyler said at the event.

The air toxics standards are expected to help tens of thousands of children such as Murphy’s daughter by preventing 30,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms and about 6,300 fewer cases of acute bronchitis among children each year, according to EPA estimates.

Vulnerable populations such as infants will also be helped specifically because of the mercury standards under the new rule.

“These will especially protect newborns who are at a greater risk during their development,” Selin said. “It’s estimated more than 300,000 newborns in the U.S. are exposed in utero to dangerous levels of mercury. This can cause lower IQ and neurological damages.”

Dr. Alan Woolf, the director of the Pediatric Environmental Health Center at Children's Hospital in Boston, agrees.

“Mercury is associated with long-lasting and potentially irreversible effects on the brain and nervous system,” Woolf said at the event. “These effects can reduce a child’s intelligence, can change their behavior, and can cause seizures, muscle weakness, paralyses and other neurologic injuries limiting their future as productive citizens.”

International implications

The United States’s leadership in regulating mercury comes at an important time, as countries around the world have been negotiating a global, legally binding mercury treaty since June 2010.

The third of five planned United Nations negotiating sessions occurred in November in Nairobi, Kenya, and Selin plans to attend the fourth in June in Uruguay. She will also be bringing six graduate students, as part of a National Science Foundation grant, to the final negotiating session set to take place in early 2013.

SOURCE: EPA

In an earlier interview with MIT News, Selin said domestic politics would likely continue to be a challenge for U.S. implementation of environmental regulations and international cooperation on mercury. But with these standards — now the most stringent mercury standards of its kind in the world — she says the country has proven their leadership.

“These standards show that the U.S. is taking leadership at home to address a widespread and substantial global problem.”