“This stuff cycles around so much, comes to the ground, goes back into the air, gets in people,” Streets said. “A treaty is a good start.”

Using available control technologies for coal, global mercury emissions could be reduced by up to 60 percent by 2020 compared with today’s practices, according to the 2011 Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme report.

Despite climate question marks, Hurley points to his recent research as evidence of what decreasing emissions could do.

“Global reductions would mean less mercury in fish, lakes and people,” Hurley said. “And, as we demonstrated, it would happen pretty quickly.”

This article originally ran at Environmental Health News, a news source published by Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit media company.

6 Comments

1. 1. lvaasjo 12:51 PM 1/18/13

   ... and Steven Harper wants to shut down the lakes program. The man is tragedy on all fronts.

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2. 2. sault 01:39 PM 1/19/13

   Good thing Ontario is completely phasing out coal power!

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3. 3. Jamie Oz 11:10 PM 1/19/13

   So, mercury emissions are a massive & dangerous problem, yet the mandated compact fluorescent light bulbs contain mercury, which is released when bulbs break.
   Insanity rules.

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4. 4. greenhome123 01:37 AM 1/20/13

   I don't believe compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs are mandated, congress simply banned sale of incandescent bulbs. There are other alternatives, like LED lights, which don't have mercury in them. Plus LED's last longer than compact fluorescent light bulbs and are cheaper if you consider that you have to change them a lot less often. Now, we just have to wait for prices of solar power to drop so China and the rest of the world will burn less coal and fossil fuels. I believe solar will be main energy source in about 10 years if it continues on its current exponential growth.

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5. 5. sault in reply to Jamie Oz 02:03 PM 1/20/13

   The mercury contamination risk from eating a can of tuna is greater than the contamination risk from breaking a CFL. Have you eliminated most fish from your diet yet since you're soooo afraid of mercury?
   
   In addition, you DO know where most of the mercury pollution comes from, right? Hint: COAL POWER PLANTS! Saving energy by switching to CFLs actually PREVENTS way more mercury from getting into the environment through coal power plant smokestacks than the CFLs themselves carry!
   
   I mean, how often do you go around breaking light bulbs anyway? There are recycling programs for these bulbs too, so basically all your fears are unfounded. Please do a little research so you don;t have to keep living in fear of a light bulb!

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6. 6. sault in reply to greenhome123 02:05 PM 1/20/13

   Incandescent bulbs weren't banned; Congress merely implemented lighting efficiency standard and incandescent bulbs would have a VERY difficult time meeting the standard. It's not impossible, but meeting the standard is a long shot for this antiquated technology.

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