What is the root cause of the mass bat die-off? More than one million of these mammals have been wiped out in the eastern part of the country. Their noses have become engorged with a seemingly unstoppable strain of white fungus. Yet, there is little-to-no discussion of what changes in the environment have occurred to facilitate this epidemic.
One clue may be the highly acidic environment in the northeast, which toxic mold has an affinity to.
The primary suspects are SOx and NOx, which the United States set reduction targets for over 20 years ago.
"Both are strong acids, and both create serious problems for the environment," says William Schlesinger, president of the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y. Acid rain degrades cement and limestone as well as leaches critical soil nutrients, which injures plants. It also liberates toxic minerals from the ground that flow into stream runoff where they can kill fish.
Sulfur emissions from power plants were one of the primary motivations for the U.S.'s Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, which set reduction targets for both sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). However, whereas sulfur dioxide emissions decreased almost 70 percent from 1990 to 2008, emissions of one NOx—nitrogen dioxide (NO2)—went down only 35 percent for that same period, and amendment targets have yet to be made, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "This comes as scientists have grown increasingly aware of the consequences of the remaining nitric acid deposition," Schlesinger says.
...Nitric acid rain is derived primarily from power plant, car and truck emissions as well as from gases released by fertilizer use. Part of the problem dates back to WWI, when two German scientists invented the Haber–Bosch process, which took nonreactive nitrogen from the air (N2) and converted it into reactive, usable ammonia (NH3). Most of the nitrogen harvested via this process has been used in fertilizers, and the runoff from farms has created dead zones in Chesapeake Bay and at the mouths of the Columbia and Mississippi rivers. Some efforts have been made to regulate the agricultural nitrogen runoff, but atmospheric emissions of agricultural ammonia remain virtually unrestricted.
Whereas power plants have been cutting NOx and SOx emissions, a more nefarious source of the pollutants may have emerged. In 2002, an exemption was given to oil and gas companies classifying their mining run-off as “special waste”. This included highly toxic compounds such as barium sulfate, which can devastate the nervous system by blocking potassium ion channels, leading to conditions like Addison's.
A weaponeer at the Pentagon had the brilliant idea of purchasing this material and spraying it out of 747s...