548
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Fedizen@lemmy.world 57 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Apparently its also why fish are high in mercury because mercury in burnt coal eventually finds its way to the ocean.

[-] halcyoncmdr@piefed.social 32 points 1 day ago

It's not even really an eventually, it's about a direct as you get. It is exhausted into the sky, gets caught in the water cycle and rains back down to earth.

[-] TriplePlaid@wetshav.ing 23 points 1 day ago

It is also the most serious contributor to acid rain.

https://www.gem.wiki/Sulfur_dioxide_and_coal

The EPA estimates that more than 65%, or over 13 million tons per year, of SO2 production in the U.S. comes from electric utilities, 93 percent of which is produced by coal power plants.

[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

There was a related article, that I found as one of the most hopeful and positives for the environment…..

I don’t remember how long they said mercury remains in the food chain but what I got out of it was that global coal is peaking and likely to decline rapidly and mercury settles out of the food chain in decades so my children may eventually be able to eat tuna and other seafood without worrying about mercury!

[-] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 0 points 1 day ago

specifically tuna, its the bioaccumulation on the food web, the TUNA eats other animals that have mercury in it, that eats smaller animals that filter mercury, it piles up.

[-] Fedizen@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago

That's the trophic structure part. The other part is mercury pollution from mining and fossil fuels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_in_fish

this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
548 points (99.5% liked)

Not The Onion

20209 readers
2174 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Please also avoid duplicates.

Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS