environment and related links, week ending March 12th
We’re Losing the Race Against Antibiotic Resistance, but There’s Also Reason for Hope -- A century ago, the top three causes of death were infectious diseases. More than half of all people dying in the United States died because of germs. Today, they account for a few percent of deaths at most. We owe much of that, of course, to antibiotics. It is hard to overstate how much less of a threat infectious diseases pose to us today. But we take antibiotics for granted. We use them inappropriately and indiscriminately. This has led many to worry that our days of receiving benefits from them are numbered. When I was a medical student, doctors around me were panicking about methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Before then, infection with that bacteria had been almost exclusively contained to health care facilities. . Today, community-acquired MRSA is so common that we pretty much just assume the presence of MRSA for any infections we believe are caused by staph. Concern about the rise of resistance often focuses on overuse of antibiotics. There’s plenty of evidence that we, the users, are the problem. In a recent multicountry study conducted by the World Health Organization, almost two-thirds of people believed that antibiotics could be used to treat colds and the flu, which are, of course, caused by viruses. Antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses. The same people also knew that antibiotic resistance was a real problem that could affect them, but this knowledge did not seem to prevent them from misusing the drugs. Bacteria are very good at the evolution game, and killing off more susceptible strains leaves the more resistant ones to fill the gap. Bacteria have also become good at transmitting resistance abilities through plasmids, small, circular DNA molecules that can be transferred from bacteria to bacteria. The widespread use of antibiotics in the raising of animals has clearly contributed to the development of resistance as well. The Food and Drug Administration estimates that more kilograms of antibiotics are sold in the United States for food-producing animals than for people.
Flesh-eating bacteria: Vibro Vulnificus in Florida ocean hospitalizes 32, kills 10 - New warnings issued Monday surrounding a bacteria found in the ocean that has already killed several people in Florida. It is called Vibrio vulnificus, a cousin of the bacterium that causes Cholera and it thrives in warm saltwater. "Since it is naturally found in warm marine waters, people with open wounds can be exposed to Vibrio vulnificus through direct contact with seawater," the Florida Department of Health said in a statement. The Florida Department of Health reports 13 people have contracted the bacteria and 3 have died from the strain. Last year, 41 people were infected and 11 died. Florida isn't the only state to report Vibrio vulnificus infections. Alabama, Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi have also recorded cases. "It's quite discouraging because the beach is one of the more popular hobbies in Florida," said Tracy Brown of West Palm Beach. Brown, who was enjoying a day at the beach with her daughter, had not really heard about the Vibrio bacterium. She was stunned to hear someone could become sick by simply entering the water. "The last thing you want to think about is going to the beach and leaving with something you least expect," said Brown. Florida Department of Health experts said anyone with a compromised immune system or anyone with an open cut should not go into the water. Those who do jump into the ocean should wash off before heading home . "It's definitely something to take serious, but there are a number of other bacteria, that you could run into," said Tim O'Connor, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Health.
I shower once a week. Here’s why you should too - When I was a kid, bathtime was a once-a-week affair. We weren’t an unhygienic family – this is just how most of us lived in the 1960s, and I do not remember any horrific body odors resulting from it. By the time I was an adult, I was showering every day. With hindsight, I should have stuck to the old ways. The average 10-minute shower uses 60 litres of water. A power shower uses three times that and a bath about 80 litres. So a family of four each having a daily 10-minute power shower (I know that is a very conservative estimate for some teenagers) will consume a staggering 0.25m litres of water every year. The annual average costfor electricity for four 10-minute showers per day would be up to about £400, or £1,200 if a power shower is involved. Even worse, the power-shower family would be emitting a staggering 3.5 tonnes of CO2. As we can afford only one tonne of carbon emissions per person – for everything from food to transport – if we are to keep global temperatures below the critical 2C threshold, this would consume nearly all of the family’s carbon budget. The daily bath or shower, then, is terrible for the environment and our bank balances. That’s one reason I have reverted to a weekly shower, with a daily sink-wash that includes my underarms and privates. But there are health consequences too. I first became aware of these when I was a touring ballet dancer and met a friend whose skin had been severely damaged by excessive use of soap products. He was condemned to treat himself with medical creams for the rest of his life. According to dermatologist Joshua Zeichner, parents should stop bathing babies and toddlers daily because early exposure to dirt and bacteria may help make skin less sensitive, even preventing conditions like eczema in the long run. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends three times a week or less as toddlers’ skin is more sensitive; and as the elderly have drier skin, they should not be frequently washing all of their bodies with soap.
Teen Girls See Big Drop in Chemical Exposure With Switch in Cosmetics --A new study led by researchers at UC Berkeley and Clinica de Salud del Valle de Salinas demonstrates how even a short break from certain kinds of makeup, shampoos and lotions can lead to a significant drop in levels of hormone-disrupting chemicals in the body. The results, published yesterday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, came from a study of 100 Latina teenagers participating in the Health and Environmental Research on Makeup of Salinas Adolescents (HERMOSA) study. Researchers provided teen study participants with personal care products labeled free of chemicals such as phthalates, parabens, triclosan and oxybenzone. Such chemicals are widely used in personal care products, including cosmetics, fragrance, hair products, soaps and sunscreens and have been shown in animal studies to interfere with the body’s endocrine system. “Because women are the primary consumers of many personal care products, they may be disproportionately exposed to these chemicals,” . “Teen girls may be at particular risk since it’s a time of rapid reproductive development and research has suggested that they use more personal care products per day than the average adult woman.”
Meet the ‘rented white coats’ who defend toxic chemicals | Center for Public Integrity: The National Institutes of Health’s budget for research grants has fallen 14 percent since its peak in 2004, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. With scarce resources, there’s little money for academics to study chemicals that most already deem to be toxic. Yet regulatory officials and attorneys say companies have a strong financial interest in continuing to publish research favorable to industry. Gradient belongs to a breed of scientific consulting firms that defends the products of its corporate clients beyond credulity, even exhaustively studied substances whose dangers are not in doubt, such as asbestos, lead and arsenic. Gradient’s scientists rarely acknowledge that a chemical poses a serious public health risk. The Center for Public Integrity analyzed 149 scientific articles and letters published by the firm’s most prolific principal scientists. Ninety-eight percent of the time, they found that the substance in question was harmless at levels to which people are typically exposed. “They truly are the epitome of rented white coats,” said Bruce Lanphear, a Simon Fraser University professor whose own research showing that even tiny amounts of lead could harm children has been called into question by Gradient scientists. A panel of experts convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concludedin 2012 that there is no reliable evidence for a safe level of lead.
'Don't Drink The Water' In Newark Public Schools, Officials Say: Elevated levels of lead and discoloration caused officials to shut off the water taps at 30 schools in Newark, New Jersey, on Wednesday. The state Department of Environmental Protection and the city's school district are currently using alternate water sources, according to a joint release from both parties. City officials have emphasized that this is a problem with lead piping in the various schools and that overall Newark's water is unaffected. "The problem is localized in the finite number of schools, and those are the schools that are the oldest and still have lead piping," Frank Baraff, the city's communications director, told The Huffington Post Wednesday. The city's water supply is "perfectly safe," he said. Baraff, who said the school district and state officials are committed to total transparency as they work to alleviate the issue, also stressed that the situation is not as severe as the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Still, there was no mistaking the seriousness of the issue. The affected buildings range from high schools to elementary schools citywide. Baraff said he's been communicating with local hospitals in the area, and that families have already started bringing in their children for blood tests. "At this point, the main recommendation is... don't drink the water in any of the schools,"
Newark School Officials Knew of Lead Risks, 2014 Memo Shows - In August 2014, as 35,000 students prepared to return to Newark’s public schools, Keith Barton, the managing director of operations for the district, sent a memo with an urgent message to all principals, custodians and building managers: Before anyone drank from the water fountains, they should run the water for at least 30 seconds.Mr. Barton directed custodians to run and flush every water fountain for two minutes before school started each day, and to tell cafeteria workers to run and flush cold water faucets in kitchens for two minutes before preparing food.The memo, he wrote, was part of an effort “to reduce the risk of possible lead contamination.”That effort failed. On Wednesday, water at 30 of Newark’s 67 schools was shut off after being found to contain high levels of lead. The move left state and school officials trying to reassure nervous parents that they had the situation under control, even as questions swirled about how the problem had been handled in the first place. The potential danger of lead exposure was something school officials in Newark had been aware of for years, and the district had installed lead-reduction filters on water fountains and kitchen prep sinks, particularly in schools built before 2006, according to Mr. Barton’s memo. But it took a crisis in Flint, Mich., tofocus attention on the issue of lead contamination in Newark, New Jersey’s largest city.
Flint’s Water Crisis: A Chronicle of Disenfranchisement, Denial, and Buck-Passing - Yves Smith - The ACLU of Michigan just released a must-see short documentary on the Flint water crisis. It’s important that this not be forgotten even as the scandal has died down and eyes are moving off Michigan now that the Democratic debate and state primary have passed. This piece is powerful because it’s told by the local citizens who were abused (and this is not an overstatement) by emergency managers who were instructed to prioritize making bond payments. Even though readers may know many of the elements of this story from the extensive media coverage, it has a completely different impact not simply seeing it put together in one place, chronologically as it unfolded, but witnessing the appalling record of official efforts to deny that there was a problem (including deliberately constructing completely unrepresentative tests) and repeatedly telling flat out lies. It’s also not hard to discern that the emergency managers, their allies, and the state government held the Flint citizens in utter contempt. The class/race bias and condescension are palpable. The documentary is also a testament to the persistence of the efforts of Flint citizens in mustering allies (such as the ACLU as well as the environmental engineers at Virginia Tech) to develop rock-solid evidence of the contamination of the water and publicize the developing public health crisis. The fact that the city’s overlords and state officials thought they could get away with what amounts to poisoning of a population this large is another symptom of elite insularity. Again, this is a relatively short video given the ground that it covers. I hope you’ll view it and circulate widely.
Senator Mike Lee defends delay of Flint aid bill, says Michigan has ‘large rainy-day fund’ — Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee issued his first statement Friday explaining why he has a “hold” on a $250 million bill to provide federal funds to Flint, Michigan, and other communities facing problems with their drinking water. Lee, a tea party favorite, says the problems in Flint are “man-made” and the state has “a large rainy-day fund totaling hundreds of millions of dollars” that should be used before federal resources are utilized. “The people and policymakers of Michigan right now have all the government resources they need to fix the problem,” Lee said. “The only thing Congress is contributing to the Flint recovery is political grandstanding.” The bill, agreed to by bipartisan negotiators two weeks ago, would finance water projects in affected communities around the country like Flint where the drinking water supply was poisoned by lead pipes causing serious health hazards for its residents. The bill also has provisions to deal with the health problems caused by the lead.
$1.2 million for Gov. Rick Snyder's attorneys a 'kick in the teeth to taxpayers' — Gov. Rick Snyder plans to pay attorneys $1.2 million for Flint water work, while Attorney General Bill Schuette requested $1.5 million to pay a law firm investigating the crisis. Gov. Rick Snyder expanded contracts for attorneys in connection with the Flint water crisis, according to a March 8 agenda of the State Administrative Board. "It's beyond outrageous that Snyder wants to take $1.2 million from Michigan taxpayers to pay for defense attorneys over his involvement in the poisoning of Flint's water," Michigan Democratic Party Chair Brandon Dillon said in a March 8 statement. The agenda states Snyder "authorized an agreement with Barris, Sott, Denn & Driker, for the provision of legal services related to civil litigation about municipal drinking water in the City of Flint, Michigan, in an amount not to exceed $400,000." Snyder "authorized an agreement with Warner Norcross & Judd LLP, for the provision of legal services related to records management issues and investigations regarding municipal drinking water in the City of Flint, Michigan, in an amount not to exceed $800,000."
Exclusive: Navy Secretly Conducting Electromagnetic Warfare Training on Washington Roads: Without public notification of any kind, the US Navy has secretly been conducting electromagnetic warfare testing and training on public roads in western Washington State for more than five years. An email thread between the Navy and the US Forest Service between 2010 and 2012, recently obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by Oregon-based author and activist Carol Van Strum in November 2014, revealed that the Navy has likely been driving mobile electromagnetic warfare emitters and conducting electromagnetic warfare training in the Olympic National Forest and on public roads on Washington's Olympic Peninsula since 2010. In one of the 2012 emails, Navy contractor Gerald Sodano explained that the Navy "utilized EW [electronic warfare] ranges outside the local vicinity." But he went on to say that the aim of establishing an electromagnetic warfare range on the Olympic Peninsula would be to conduct all training locally on the Olympic Peninsula, rather than further afield. This means that rather than using expansive training areas the Navy already has access to in Yakima in eastern Washington State, the Navy aims to use the Olympic National Forest and areas adjacent to Olympic National Park instead.
Mystery cancers are cropping up in children in aftermath of Fukushima - Months after the disaster, Fukushima Prefecture set about examining the thyroids of hundreds of thousands of children and teens for signs of radiation-related cancers. The screening effort was unprecedented, and no one knew what to expect. So when the first round of exams started turning up thyroid abnormalities in nearly half of the kids, of whom more than 100 were later diagnosed with thyroid cancer, a firestorm erupted. One result, says Kenji Shibuya, a public health specialist at University of Tokyo, was “overdiagnosis and overtreatment,” leading dozens of children to have their thyroids removed, perhaps unnecessarily. Activists trumpeted the findings as evidence of the dangers of nuclear power. The large number of abnormalities appearing so soon after the accident “would indicate that these children almost certainly received a very high dose of thyroid radiation from inhaled and ingested radioactive iodine,” antinuclear crusader Helen Caldicott wrote in a post on her homepage. Scientists emphatically disagree. “The evidence suggests that the great majority and perhaps all of the cases so far discovered are not due to radiation,” says Dillwyn Williams, a thyroid cancer specialist at University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. In journal papers and in a series of letters published last month in Epidemiology, scientists have attacked the alarmist interpretations. Many acknowledge that baseline data from noncontaminated areas were needed from the outset and that the public should have been better educated to understand results and, perhaps, to accept watchful waiting as an alternative to immediate surgery. But most also say the findings hint at a medical puzzle: Why are thyroid abnormalities so common in children? The “surprising” results of the screening, Williams says, show that “many more thyroid carcinomas than were previously realized must originate in early life.”
California Widow Sues Monsanto Alleging Roundup Caused Her Husband’s Cancer - A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against Monsanto Co. by the widow of a prominent Cambria, California farmer alleging that Monsanto had known for years that exposure to glyphosate—the main ingredient in the agribusiness giant’s flagship weedkiller Roundup—could cause cancer and other serious illnesses or injuries. The lawsuit, which seeks wrongful death and punitive damages, was filedtoday in Los Angeles federal court by attorneys Michael Baum, Cynthia Garber and Brent Wisner of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., of Kennedy & Madonna on behalf of Teri McCall. Teri McCall claims Roundup caused her husband of 43-years, Anthony Jackson “Jack” McCall, to develop terminal cancer after he used the herbicide on his 20-acre fruit and vegetable farm for nearly 30 years. According to a press release from the law firms, Jack McCall was admitted to a hospital in September 2015 to treat swollen lymph nodes in his neck. He found out that same day that the swelling was caused by anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL), a rare and aggressive version of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Glyphosate, which is the most widely applied pesticide worldwide, was declaredas “probably carcinogenic to humans” last March by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The organization also observed that non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other haematopoietic cancers are the cancers most associated with glyphosate exposure.
Why Is Glyphosate Sprayed on Crops Right Before Harvest? -- Glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, is recognized as the world’s most widely used weed killer. What is not so well known is that farmers also use glyphosate on crops such as wheat, oats, edible beans and other crops right before harvest, raising concerns that the herbicide could get into food products. Glyphosate has come under increased scrutiny in the past year. Last year the World Health Organization’s cancer group, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, classified it as a probably carcinogen. The state of California has also moved to classify the herbicide as a probable carcinogen. A growing body of research is documenting health concerns of glyphosate as an endocrine disruptor and that it kills beneficial gut bacteria, damages the DNA in human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells and is linked to birth defects and reproductive problems in laboratory animals. A recently published paper describes the escalating use of glyphosate: 18.9 billion pounds have been used globally since its introduction in 1974, making it the most widely and heavily applied weed-killer in the history of chemical agriculture. Significantly, 74 percent of all glyphosate sprayed on crops since the mid-1970s was applied in just the last 10 years, as cultivation of GMOcorn and soybeans expanded in the U.S. and globally. Farmers often had trouble getting wheat and barley to dry evenly so they can start harvesting. So they came up with the idea to kill the crop (with glyphosate) one to two weeks before harvest to accelerate the drying down of the grain. The pre-harvest use of glyphosate allows farmers to harvest crops as much as two weeks earlier than they normally would, an advantage in northern, colder regions.
Farmers union head skeptical of Trans-Pacific Partnership | Crop Protection News: The U.S. Department of Agriculture is trying to gain support on Capitol Hill for its Trans-Pacific Partnership by telling partners on about the benefits it anticipates, including job growth and rural prosperity. However, the National Farmers Union (NFU), which represents over 200,000 family farms and ranches, believes the USDA’s promises are the same kind made with previous trade pacts that did not come to fruition. “While access to global markets is important for American agriculture, a trade agreement that does little to fix currency manipulation, rein in foreign predatory trade practices, or improve the $531 billion trade imbalance is not the solution,” NFU President Roger Johnson said. The NFU believes the TPP will hurt rural communities more than help them by opening American jobs up to cheaper, foreign labor. “In its current form, the TPP stands to hurt our rural economies by pitting American jobs against foreign labor that is paid mere pennies per hour,” Johnson said. “Beyond the farm gate, any consumer that cares about where their food comes from should be concerned with the TPP. This is an issue that affects all Americans alike. I continue to urge Congress to give thoughtful consideration to opposing the TPP.”
Food Fraud Infographic | Big Picture Agriculture: Sadly, the amount of food fraud in the world is horrendous. What a poor testament of human nature, greed, and self-honor. The only thing that can combat this is growing your own, knowing your supplier or local grower, more testing, and more public awareness.
We Might Be Severely Underestimating Climate Change’s Impact On Agriculture -- For all intents and purposes, climate change is not going to be good news for agriculture. Studies have shown that it will likely reduce crop yields, create a malnutrition crisis, and make large portions of the globe inhospitableto staple crops like maize or bananas. But researchers from Brown and Tufts universities have a dire message for the world: studies linking climate change to a decrease in crop production might be underestimating the true impact of climate change on agriculture. “The real missing pieces have been about peoples’ decision making,” “This is not just about suitability. It’s not just about the climate. It’s farmers making decisions in real time.” The study, published Monday in Nature Climate Change, looked at how climate change might affect crop production in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a rapidly developing agricultural region of the country that produced 10 percent of the world’s soybeans in 2013. But the study didn’t just look at crop yields, or the productivity of a certain crop per given unit of land. The study took a much broader approach, looking at how farmers might react to climate shocks — how much land farmers will put into rotation if the climate changes, and how many different crops a farmer might grow. It’s not just about the climate. It’s farmers making decisions in real time. “They need to get their crops in the ground as soon as they can, they are planting short cycle soy varieties that they need to harvest at the peak of the rainy season, and then they need to plant that corn at the peak of the rainy season, and then hope that the rainy season lasts long enough so the corn gets enough water.”
Why the Oregon Refuge Occupiers Had a Legitimate Grievance…..Just Not the One They Went After - The history of the refuge and grazing, the diversion of water, the low grazing prices charged ranchers, and the over grazing of land in the early years is mostly correct. To take over a refuge and federal land, it is hard to understand why someone would risk life and limb to challenge the local authorities, the government, and the military. In any case, it is a sure recipe to lose, go to prison, or die when you challenge the authorities, are armed, and considered dangerous. One man did pay with his life and the rest are under restraint by the authorities. This short commentary is not so much an argument of whether their stance was right or wrong as much as whether it was worth it or the right one to make. By taking over the Refuge, I believe the protesting ranchers left the public with the wrong impression. The domination of the beef production by the meat packers and retailers plus the failure of Government to react to it has increased the costs faced by smaller ranchers and contributed to the controversy of grazing rights. With the consolidation of meat packers and the rise of giant retailers such as WalMart, prices for bringing cattle to feed lots decreased forcing cattlemen to reduce cost. Two ways to reduce cost are increase the size of your herds which requires more land or increase the numbers of meat packers so no one meat packer can influence the market. Smaller ranches have higher costs in production over larger ranches result from the numbers of cattle brought to market. Fewer cattle to feed lots or markets result in higher costs per head. In my opinion, the argument should be made with the government about the consolidation of meat packer market. Grazing rights and the ownership of land by the Federal Government is not necessarily the right argument to make. Whether the Government can own or control land was decided by SCOTUS (Light vs. U. S. and U.S vs. Grimaud) years previous and after the Sagebrush wars when the Federal Government started to charge fees for access after land was designated as national parks.
GOP congressman furious after Obama thwarts plan to sell sacred Apache land to foreign mining firm: Two Arizona congressional representatives are angry that President Barack Obama has intervened to prevent sacred Apache land from being sold off to foreign business interests, according to Tucson Weekly. Republican Congressman Paul Gosar had joined forces with Democratic U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick in an effort to sell off the ancestral Native American land, known as Oak Flat or Chi’chil Bildagoteel to the Apache community, to mining firm Resolution Copper, owned by an Australian-British corporation. According to the New York Times, it would have been the first time in history Native American lands would have been handed over to a foreign company by Congress. The land was set to be handed over due to last-minute language added to a must-pass military spending bill. But according to the Weekly, the Obama administration prevented that from happening. The site has long been used for Apache coming-of-age ceremonies, particularly for girls. “This fraudulent action is the latest in a long list of egregious bureaucratic abuses of power by the Obama Administration. I will continue to fight this overreach,” Gosar wrote in a statement. “Shame on the Park Service and Forest Service for ramming a bogus historic place listing down the throats of Arizonans,” Gosar continued. “Clearly, the Obama Administration cares more about pandering to extremist environmental groups and a D.C. lobbyist from the Clinton Administration than following the law and listening to the American public.”
‘Sitting on the edge of a knife’: Deforestation ramps up in Queensland -- The northeastern Australian state of Queensland is home to lush tropical forests, unique wildlife, and rivers that feed into the largest reef system in the world. But researchers write that Queensland’s wilderness is under increasing strain, with data showing a big ramp-up in deforestation over the last two years. In total, satellite data compiled and analyzed by the Queensland Government indicate more than 296,000 hectares of woody vegetation (ranging from very sparse woodland to dense forest) was lost in the state between 2013 and 2014. This number is up nearly 400 percent from 2009-2010, which saw around 77,500 hectares lost, according to the data. Scientists from the University of Queensland and other Australian institutions responded to the findings in an article published last week in The Conversation, an academic and research online news source. They write that much of this clearing is the result of pasture expansion, and is occurring despite ambitious restoration goals in greater Australia. “There’s a strong rural lobby in Queensland that’s simply grown accustomed to clearing lots of land,” Bill Laurance, a research professor at James Cook University and co-author of the article, told Mongabay. “They feel entitled to do this, as though it’s their traditional right. According to them, nobody—especially the government—is going to tell them what to do.
23 Million Salmon Dead Due to Toxic Algal Bloom in Chile - Chile’s salmon industry is once againin a tailspin as the ongoing and toxic algal bloom in the country’s coastal waters has led to the death of nearly 23 million fish—or 15 percent of Chile’s salmon production—putting the total economic blow from lost production around $800 million, Reutersreported. Jose Miguel Burgos, the head of the government’s Sernapesca fisheries body, told Reuters that the amount of dead fish in Chile could fill 14 Olympic-size swimming pools. The 100,000 tonnes in lost production—including Atlantic salmon, Coho and trout—is equivalent to some $800 million in exports, Burgos added. Chile exported $4.5 billion of farmed salmon, on 800,000 tonnes of shipments last year. Algal blooms are becoming an increasingly frequent phenomenon in fresh and saltwater bodies around the world that can contaminate or kill aquatic life and make people sick. Warming waters from climate change, inorganic fertilizers, and manure runoff from industrial agriculture and wastewater treatment plants have been pegged as conditions that can cause algal blooms.
Scientists may have found a new bug capable of transmitting Zika — and it could be bad news for how far the virus can spread -- Another, far more common mosquito could transmit the Zika virus, Brazilian researchers suggest. Currently, Zika is mainly transmitted from person to person via one species of mosquito, the Aedes aegypti. But scientists are exploring the idea that the virus could spread via a far more common species called the Culex quinquefasciatus, Reuters reports. Culex quinquefasciatus is 20 times more common than Aedes aegyptiin Brazil. Once infected with Zika, only a small proportion of people ever show symptoms, which most commonly include fever, rash, joint pain, and red eyes. There is no vaccine or treatment available for the virus. Zika poses a big concern because of its connections with birth defects in babies whose mothers have had Zika symptoms and with a neurological condition called Guillain-Barré Syndrome. To find out if this other, more common mosquito species could carry Zika, researchers injected 200 of them with the virus. They then watched to see if it made its way into the bug's salivary glands, which is where it would need to be to infect a person. It did, which means it's possible that could happen outside the lab as well. The bug is a subtropical species, with a range as far north as Virginia and covering most of Central and South America. They're active in the night, as opposed to Aedes aegypti, which is a daytime biter. It's been known to carry other viruses, including West Nile virus.
WHO: Zika Sexual Transmission Is Unexpectedly Common: — The sexual transmission of the Zika virus is more common than previously thought, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, citing reports from several countries.After a meeting of its emergency committee on Tuesday, the U.N. health agency also said there is increasing evidence that a spike in disturbing birth defects is caused by Zika, which is mostly spread by mosquito bites.WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said “reports and investigations in several countries strongly suggest that sexual transmission of the virus is more common than previously assumed.”She said nine countries have now reported increasing cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare condition that can cause temporary paralysis and death, in people beyond women of child-bearing age, including children, teenagers and older adults. “All of this news is alarming,” Chan said. Despite the lack of definitive evidence proving that Zika causes birth defects and neurological problems, Chan said officials shouldn’t wait for definitive scientific proof before making recommendations.“Women who are pregnant in affected countries or travel to these countries are understandably deeply worried,” Chan said.
Will Climate Change Boost Mosquito-Borne Disease? -The immense amount of coverage of the Zika virus outbreak has focused attention on the health care situation in Brazil, particularly with the Rio Olympics almost upon us. Most recently, U.S. women’s soccer goalkeeper Hope Solo has said that, because of the virus, she is unsure about whether she will participate in the games. A recent PBS Frontline report showed how Zika strained the country’s health care system — the largest in the world — which was already overwhelmed by a huge increase in two other mosquito-borne illnesses: dengue fever and chikungunya. Pouring gasoline on the fire is an economic crisis resulting in fewer doctors and nurses to a combat greater numbers of cases. And of course, it isn’t just Brazil. The spread of Zika across the Americas has prompted the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency. One of the questions raised about the outbreak is whether climate change is involved. After all, it has to varying degrees also been implicated in the spread of other mosquito-borne diseases. There have been big increases in cases of West Nile Virus and dengue in the United States, while chikungunya has recently been reported in western Europe. And if climate change is responsible, it’s easy to understand why. As temperatures around the country rise, the areas that are conducive to such mosquitoes could expand, and the insects could start to emerge earlier in the year, meaning more opportunities for bites that could spread disease. It’s notable that the 2012 West Nile Virus outbreak in the United States followed an unseasonably warm late, spring, summer and early fall. But within that overall trend, there some nuance.
El Niño rain and snow storms headed for California.-- The drought break that Californians have been waiting for all winter is about to arrive: a series of storms bringing loads of rain and snow from the El Niño–fueled Pacific Ocean. Over the next 10 days, beginning Friday, a series of Pacific storm systems will batter the California coastline, bringing intense tendrils of moisture northeastward from the deep tropical Pacific Ocean where El Niño has juiced the atmosphere’s energy. So far this winter, these storms have been largely directed on the Pacific Northwest, where on Tuesday, Seattle clinched its rainiest winter in history. That energy will now be directed squarely at California. These storms are sometimes referred to as atmospheric rivers, or, more colloquially, as the “Pineapple Express” for their origins near Hawaii. The amount of moisture one of these storms contain is comparable to the flow of the Amazon River—and it now looks like California will get at least two big ones by midmonth, one this weekend and one next weekend. The event is such a big deal that for the first time ever, Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft will be dispatched into the atmospheric rivers, laden with scientific equipment to better understand what makes them tick.
California awash in water for first time in a long while - (AP) – The first West Coast waves of a week of powerful storms arrived to provide strong evidence March will not be as parched as the month that preceded it. Steady rain fell in Northern California on Saturday and was expected to go statewide Sunday. Fresh and growing snow blanketed the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, ending a dry spell and raising hopes the drought-stricken state can get much needed precipitation. Droves of snowboarders, skiers and sledders packed Sierra slopes while tourists braved wet weather and visited San Francisco landmarks before an even more blustery storm arrived later in the day. "It doesn't matter if it rains, we want to see as much as possible because we only have four days," said Olle Klefbom, a tourist from Sweden wearing rain jackets and holding umbrellas with his family, who waited for a cable car on Saturday afternoon. "We want to go to Alcatraz this afternoon. But if it rains too hard, we'll go shopping instead." Dozens of arriving flights into San Francisco International Airport were delayed by more than two hours, and dozens more short flights were cancelled, officials said. California is not the only place expecting severe weather. Conditions are especially ripe for tornadoes in the Southeast and Great Plains. Specifically, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, southern Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina and parts of Virginia.
L.A. officials seeded clouds during El Nino storm in hopes of more rain - Clouds over Los Angeles County were seeded with silver iodide to increase the amount of rainfall during Monday's storm, marking the first cloud seeding done by the Department of Public Works since 2002. Los Angeles County has used cloud seeding to boost water supplies since the 1950s, backing off in times of heavy rain or when wildfire devastation creates an outsized risk of flooding or debris flows. A 2009 cloud seeding contract for services was terminated after the Station Fire, which burned roughly 250 square miles of the Angeles National Forest. Then, last October, the state's severe drought led the county Board of Supervisors to approve a new one-year contract with Utah-based North American Weather Consultants for as much as $550,000 a year. This week's storm offered a good opportunity for "the first go-round for cloud seeding" this season, Department of Public Works spokesman Steve Frasher said. North American Weather Consultants has set up land-based generators in 10 locations between Sylmar and Pacoima, Fraser said. Only some of those generators were used Sunday night, as weather conditions were not ideal in all areas. The generators shoot silver iodide into the clouds, creating ice particles. Water vapor freezes onto those particles, which fall as rain.
Drought-hit California county still relying on water tanks, despite rainfall – Reveal reported in early January about the water tank program in Tulare County, California. What began as an emergency response measure to the drought was becoming the norm for hundreds of families who no longer had running water. At the crisis’ peak, Tulare County reported about 1,400 private well failures. To combat the problem, the county began installing 3,000-gallon tanks and delivering water to residents for free. Homeowners were the only ones who qualified for the program initially. Socorro Ambriz’s well ran dry in July. She didn’t qualify for the tank program because she rented her home. So Ambriz and her family cobbled together a system to get water into her house. After our story ran, Ambriz paused her routine. Heavy rains brought water back to her well, at least for now. But more than 800 domestic wells still are dry, according to Tulare County officials. And where the water has returned, the supply remains unpredictable. Ambriz knows that, and so do county officials, who have advised residents to continue using their tanks because the well water could contain unsafe levels of arsenic or nitrates. Tim Lutz of the Tulare County Health and Human Services Agency said residents should test their water before using it and, until they know it’s safe, continue to use bottled water for drinking and cooking. But no one knows how long the water will last. [more]
Vietnam hit by worst drought in 90 years - Vietnam is suffering its worst drought in nearly a century with salinization hitting farmers especially hard in the crucial southern Mekong delta, experts said Monday. “The water level of the Mekong River has gone down to its lowest level since 1926, leading to the worst drought and salinization there,” Nguyen Van Tinh, deputy head of the hydraulics department under the Ministry of Agriculture, told AFP. The low-lying and heavily cultivated Mekong region is home to more than 20 million people and is the country’s rice basket. Intensive cultivation and rising sea levels already make it one of the world’s most ecologically sensitive regions. Scientists blame the ongoing 2015-2016 El Nino weather phenomenon, one of the most powerful on record, for the current drought. Water shortages have also hampered agriculture in nearby Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. Le Anh Tuan, a professor of climate change at the University of Can Tho in the heart of the Mekong region, said as much as 40-50 percent of the 2.2 million hectares (5.4 million acres) of arable land in the delta had been hit by salinization. “We do not have any specific measures to mitigate the situation,” Tuan told AFP, adding that residents had been urged to save water for domestic rather than agricultural use.
Drought in eastern Mediterranean worst of past 900 years A new NASA study finds that the recent drought that began in 1998 in the eastern Mediterranean Levant region, which comprises Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Turkey, is likely the worst drought of the past nine centuries. Scientists reconstructed the Mediterranean’s drought history by studying tree rings as part of an effort to understand the region’s climate and what shifts water to or from the area. Thin rings indicate dry years while thick rings show years when water was plentiful. In addition to identifying the driest years, the science team discovered patterns in the geographic distribution of droughts that provides a "fingerprint" for identifying the underlying causes. Together, these data show the range of natural variation in Mediterranean drought occurrence, which will allow scientists to differentiate droughts made worse by human-induced global warming. The research is part of NASA's ongoing work to improve the computer models that simulate climate now and in the future. "The magnitude and significance of human climate change requires us to really understand the full range of natural climate variability," said Ben Cook, lead author and climate scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York City. "If we look at recent events and we start to see anomalies that are outside this range of natural variability, then we can say with some confidence that it looks like this particular event or this series of events had some kind of human caused climate change contribution,"
Why This City of 21 Million People Is Sinking 3 Feet Every Year -- Mexico City is sinking. Home to 21 million people, who consume nearly 287 billion gallons of water each year, the city has sunk more than 32 feet in the last 60 years because 70 percent of the water people rely on is extracted from the aquifer below the city. Many of Mexico City’s buildings are seriously leaning because of the land subsidence. “There’s no fixing it,” journalist Andrea Noel told producer Alan Sanchez in the video below from Fusion. “Once land is subsided, it’s subsided.” The water table is sinking at a rate of 1 meter (3.2 feet) per year. As the city population grows and water demand increases, the problem will only get worse. “It needs to be stopped because it’s too late to be remedied,” Noel said. “The city needs to find a way to figure out their water problem. They really need to look into alternatives like collecting rainwater, which makes so much sense in a city like this, which gets so much rainfall every year.” It’s not just Mexico City either. A recent NASA analysis found that 4 billion people—nearly two-thirds of the world population—are at risk as water tables drop all over the world.
China’s Expansion Spells Nicaragua’s Destruction - With 42 percent of people below the poverty line, Nicaragua has the weakest social indicators in Latin America. The country’s economic situation is mainly a result of the U.S. embargo following the 1980s Sandinista Revolution. Nicaragua also lacks diversification in its economy and infrastructure, and it has an unskilled workforce. In July 2013, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega made an agreement with Chinese businessman Wang Jing, president of the startup investment firm Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development (HKND), to create a transoceanic channel. Competing with the smaller Panama Canal, this Gran Canal initiative includes many sub-projects such as a port on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, an international airport, free trade areas, and an oil pipeline. It would also represent a firm push toward progress, economic growth, and social welfare.Even though the economic and social boost that Nicaraguans could see from with this transoceanic channel, many related issues appear to be underestimated if not concealed, despite warnings from local experts. The transoceanic channel will extend to 173 miles, and its area of influence will affect many protected areas such as natural reserves, wetlands, archipelagos, islands, and Lake Cocibolca, in particular. Due to its low depth, the lake will be drained to reach a minimal depth of 33 yards throughout the 65 miles of the canal route to allow safe passage for containers up to 547-yards-long. The drenching operation will result in over 1 billion tons of waste—the destination of which remains unknown.
Science is warning us that a food crisis is coming to Southern Africa. Will we stop it? -- In April, harvest season begins in Southern Africa. An ongoing drought means the season will yield a historically poor crop. Countries including Malawi, South Africa, and Zimbabwe will have major shortfalls of grain. By one count, more than 20 million people in the region already have limited access to food—notwithstanding the drought. Without intervention, the next year will put those people and millions more at risk of malnutrition or even starvation. But knowing all this makes intervention more possible than ever. Famines are a powerful illustration of how suddenly nature can undercut a poor or poorly prepared society. We have paid dearly for our failure to respond to them efficiently. Economist Stephen Devereux has estimated 70 million people (pdf) were killed by famine in the 20th century alone. Today, analysts employing new sources of information, better technology, and networks of human monitors have made it possible to foresee agricultural disaster far enough ahead so that resources can be mobilized to prevent starvation. The impending food crisis in Southern Africa has yet to capture the international media’s attention, but it is the subject of ongoing analysis by a network of agriculturists, climatologists and economists. Global monitoring centers, such as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network(FEWS), issue regular updates. If the crisis does devolve into a famine, the world will have known it was coming for at least six months.
Regional Climate Change and National Responsibilities by James Hansen & Makiko Sato - Global warming of about 1°F (0.6°C) over the past several decades now “loads the climate dice.” Fig. 1 updates the “bell curve” analysis of our 2012 paper[1] for Northern Hemisphere land, which showed that extreme hot summers now occur noticeably more often than they did 50 years ago. Our new paper[2] shows that there are strong regional variations in this bell curve shift, and that the largest effects occur in nations least responsible for causing climate change. In the United States the bell curve shift is just over one standard deviation[b] in summer and less than half a standard deviation in winter (Fig. 2). Measured in units of °F (or °C) the warming is similar in summer and winter in the U.S., but the practical implication of Fig. 2 is that the public in the U.S. should notice that summers are becoming hotter but is less likely to notice the change in winter. Summers cooler than the average 1951-1980 summer still occur, but only ~19% of the time. Extreme summer heat, defined as 3 standard deviations or more warmer than 1951-1980 average, which almost never occurred 50 years ago, now occur with frequency about 7%. Warming in Europe (see paper) is modestly larger than in the U.S. In China (Fig. 2) warming is now almost 1½ standard deviations in summer and one standard deviation in winter, a climate change that should be noticeable to people old enough to remember the climate of 50 years ago. Bell curve shifts in India (see paper) are slightly larger than in China. In the Mediterranean and Middle East the bell curve shift in summer is almost 2½ standard deviations (Fig. 2). Every summer is now warmer than average 1951-1980 climate, and the period with “summer” climate is now considerably longer. Given that summers were already very hot in this region, the change affects livability and productivity as noted below. Bell curve shifts in the tropics, including central Africa (see paper) and Southeast Asia (Fig. 2), which also was already quite hot, are about two standard deviations and occur all year