Friday August 8th, 2014 – 11am
Posted Aug 8, 2014 12:07:50 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The second hour of the 570 Midday Show
11:00 Tamsin McMahon, Maclean’s Associate editor
Abortion remains among the most politically and emotionally divisive topics, and yet, much of the debate over women’s reproductive rights is underpinned by the notion that unplanned pregnancies are primarily a young woman’s issue. In fact, there has been a slow but profound shift in the demographics of both pregnancy and abortion. Between 1997 and 2005, the last year Statistics Canada reported on the subject, the abortion rate among teen girls fell nearly 30 per cent. It fell less dramatically among women in their 20s, who still represent the majority of abortions.
But when it comes to women in their 30s and 40s, the abortion rate-while still comparatively low-appears to be on the rise. By 2011, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, there were more abortions performed on women in their 30s and 40s than on teens. Researchers are still struggling to understand what is behind the trend in unplanned pregnancies and abortions among older women.
@tamsinrm
11:30 Carl Lamborg, marine chemist at WHOI
Hailed as ‘the most important event in the history of humanity since the domestication of animals and plants,’ the ‘revolution’ is shaping up to be downright murder on those aforementioned plants and animals.
And, in the long term, maybe even us. According to new research published in the science journal Nature, we’ve tripled the amount of mercury in the shallow parts of the ocean – a potentially dire threat to the health of the world’s population. The study, led by the U.S.-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), is the first to tally the amount of mercury in the world’s oceans borne of pollution.
“It would seem that, if we want to regulate the mercury emissions into the environment and in the food we eat, then we should first know how much is there and how much human activity is adding every year,” explained Carl Lamborg, a marine chemist at WHOI, in a press release.
The key, researchers found, was tracking levels of phosphate – a well-studied chemical that behaves much like mercury. As a nutrient molecule, phosphate also swims seamlessly through the food chain, making it a rather sturdy control chemical for the study. Researchers noted the ocean bears some 60,000 to 80,000 tonnes of mercury from pollution – the vast majority of it in shallow waters. In water less than a thousand metres deep, mercury levels have surged by 1.5 times since the pre-industrial era. In particularly shallow waters – less than 100 metres deep – those levels have tripled. All that mercury in shallow waters, Lamborg suggests, could pile up in fish. And, by extension, eaters of fish.
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