As thousands of people pour into emergency rooms and millions line up to be vaccinated, Brazil’s public health officials and recently even its military are fighting to control vector-borne diseases. Mosquitoes are carrying illnesses like dengue and yellow fever into Brazil’s largest cities, including Rio and Brasília, and the tropical disease, chikungunya, previously unheard of in Italy, was reported there last year. The two recent outbreaks in Brazil have caused a total of more than 80 deaths, 57,000 new infections, and widespread panic. As a result of global warming, mosquitoes, ticks, rodents and other vectors are expanding their geographic range and altering long-established patterns of disease. Climate changes worldwide are also causing serious problems with food and water supplies, increasing mental health concerns, and exacerbating air pollution, which elevates chronic disease risk.

Global temperature increases of 0.9°F (0.5°C) over the past century have led to an estimated 150,000 deaths and the loss of 5.5 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) annually, with the rates expected to double over the next several decades. The World Health Organization (WHO) has documented 39 new or re-emerging diseases since the 1960’s, many linked to global warming — an explosion of illnesses that has not been seen since the Industrial Revolution when masses of people moved to cities, increasing the spread of disease. (…)

As global climate change produces more extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and flooding, spikes in the prevalence of other weather sensitive diseases can be expected. Furthermore, deforestation, a major contributor to global warming, has brought animals and ticks in contact with humans, resulting in the emergence of a new infectious illness, Lyme’s Disease, first reported in 1975. Global warming is projected to expand the range of ticks that carry this disease.

The earth’s water supply has also been profoundly affected by global warming, endangering the health of people and the planet. Water is essential to all aspects of life, yet 99% of water on Earth is unsafe or unavailable to drink. As a result of global warming, water will become even more scarce and contaminated as climate patterns change, extreme weather events occur, and glaciers melt. The 20th century has witnessed the greatest increase in temperature of any century in the past thousand years, bringing with it a change in precipitation patterns and a rise in sea levels. Global sea levels rose at an average rate of 0.07 inches per year from 1961-2003 (rising at an even greater rate of 0.12 inches per year on average from 1993-2003) reducing fresh water availability and elevating water temperatures that threaten already scarce water supplies. (…)

Changes to the earth’s water supply have threatened populations around the globe with new diseases and sanitation concerns. 1.1 billion people worldwide lack safe drinking water and 2.6 billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation infrastructure. In the United States alone, more than 750,000 cases of diseases associated with unsafe drinking water occurred between 1980 and 1996.

{ Huffington Post | Continue reading }

Climate change might be causing reef fish to get lost, unable to return to breeding grounds from the open ocean, which could have profound implications for the survival of reef ecosystems, Australian scientists say.

Climate change-induced environmental stress, including warmer and more acidic seawater, could be hindering the development of the ear bones in young reef fish, which rely on sound for navigation, the marine experts said on Friday.

The scientists from the James Cook University and the Australian Institute of Marine Science found that fish with asymmetrical ear bones struggle to return to their home reef.

‘In our opinion, ear bone asymmetry in the early life stages of reef fish interferes with their capacity to find and settle on coral reefs,’ fish ecologist Monica Gagliano said in a statement.

Fish at the end of their ‘ocean stage’ after hatching navigate by homing-in on reef-associated sounds, such as the gurgling of fish and the snapping of crustaceans, said the scientists, whose study was published on Friday in the British scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.

Vertebrate animals make sense of sounds by comparing differences in the acoustic signal between their two ears. To do this well, ear structures must be relatively symmetrical.

Asymmetrical ear bones do not appear to make the fish deaf, but might interfere with the ability of the fish to hear effectively.

{ The Straits Times | Continue reading }

illustration { Josh Keyes }

{ wieden + kennedy london }

Just seven years ago, climate change wasn’t listed as a potential hazard in Threatened Birds of the World. Now it gets its own heading in the annual book, and with good reason: a new study finds that climate change may trigger the extinction of 30 percent of land bird species by the year 2100. (…)

Using the elevation of species’ ranges, the newest suite of climate predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a set of habitat-loss scenarios, the researchers calculated the extinction risk of more than 8400 species of land birds in the world. In the most likely outcome—a rise of 2.8 degrees Celsius by the turn of the century, according to the IPCC—400-550 birds could go extinct. If temperatures climb even more, that number would increase drastically.

This is due in part to what the researchers call the “escalator effect.” Climate change can cause range shifts as species are forced to leave their current locations when conditions become inhospitable. The most familiar of these shifts are poleward—things in the northern hemisphere move north, and things in the southern hemisphere head south. But on a climate escalator, species that live at higher altitudes may have nowhere to go but up. And up. And up some more, until they reach the highest point available to them. Once that’s topped, there’s often nowhere for them to go but extinct.

{ Conservation Magazine | Continue reading }

illustration { Charley Harper }

In booming economies from Asia to Eastern Europe, cement is the glue of progress. The material that binds the ingredients of concrete together, cement is essential for constructing buildings and laying roads in much of the world.

Some 80 percent of cement is made in and used by emerging economies; China alone makes and uses 45 percent of global output. Production is doubling every four years in places like Ukraine.

But making cement creates pollution, in the form of carbon dioxide emissions, and the greenest of technologies can reduce that by only 20 percent.

Cement plants already account for 5 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming.

Compounding the problem, cement has no viable recycling potential, as the abandoned buildings that line roads from Tunisia to Mongolia demonstrate. Each new road, each new building, needs new cement.

“The big news about cement is that it is the single biggest material source of carbon emissions in the world, and the demand is going up,” said Julian Allwood, a professor of engineering at Cambridge University.

{ International Herald Tribune | Continue reading }

Scientists sometimes refer to the effect a hotter world will have on this country’s fresh water as the other water problem, because global warming more commonly evokes the specter of rising oceans submerging our great coastal cities. By comparison, the steady decrease in mountain snowpack — the loss of the deep accumulation of high-altitude winter snow that melts each spring to provide the American West with most of its water — seems to be a more modest worry. But not all researchers agree with this ranking of dangers.

Last May, for instance, Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one of the United States government’s pre-eminent research facilities, remarked that diminished supplies of fresh water might prove a far more serious problem than slowly rising seas. When I met with Chu last summer in Berkeley, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which provides most of the water for Northern California, was at its lowest level in 20 years. Chu noted that even the most optimistic climate models for the second half of this century suggest that 30 to 70 percent of the snowpack will disappear. “There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster,” Chu said, “and that’s in the best scenario.” (…)

I asked if limiting the growth of the Las Vegas metro area wouldn’t help. Mulroy bristled. “This country is going to have 100 million additional people in it in the next 25 to 30 years,” she replied. “Tell me where they’re supposed to go. Seriously. Every community says, ‘Not here,’ ‘No growth here,’ ‘There’s too many people here already.’ For a large urban area that is the core economic hub of any particular area, to even attempt to throw up walls? I’m not sure it can be done.” Besides, she added, the problem isn’t growth alone: “We have an exploding human population, and we have a shrinking clean-water supply. Those are on colliding paths. This is not just a Las Vegas issue. This is a microcosm of a much larger issue.” Americans, she went on to say, are the most voracious users of natural resources in the world. Maybe we need to talk about that as well. “The people who move to the West today need to realize they’re moving into a desert,” Mulroy said.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

photo { Retro Vegas }

Global warming is a hot topic, and people all over the world are trying to help cut back on greenhouse gases.

But maybe animals should pitch in too… livestock specifically.

Scientists are calling on farmers to change what they feed their cows to cut back on their “emissions.” It’s estimated that a single cow can belch out anywhere from 25-130 gallons of methane a day. That’s a problem, because methane is about 25-50 times more harmful than carbon dioxide.

Researchers are trying to figure out how farmers can alter the cows’ feed, to cut down on those methane “emissions.”

{ Tampa Bays 10 }

The Animal Methane AutoFlamer straps to a cow’s back and positions an electronic sparker strategically near the source of methane emissions. An electronic methane detector activates the sparker and ignites the gas, reducing it to its basic and harmless elements. There is a solar cell to recharge the system, and a spun-glass sleeve to protect the tail from the flames.

Dairymen and cattlemen could charge the public admission to set up a picnic blanket and watch the evening flames or participate in flame games such as Flame Bingo.

{ halfbakery | continue reading }

MORE »

A rise of two degrees centigrade in global temperatures – the point considered to be the threshold for catastrophic climate change which will expose millions to drought, hunger and flooding – is now “very unlikely” to be avoided, the world’s leading climate scientists said.

The latest study from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) put the inevitability of drastic global warming in the starkest terms yet, stating that major impacts on parts of the world – in particular Africa, Asian river deltas, low-lying islands and the Arctic – are unavoidable and the focus must be on adapting life to survive the most devastating changes. (…)

Plus two degrees: the consequences

Africa: Between 350 and 600 million people will suffer water shortages or increased competition for water. Yields from agriculture could fall by half by 2020 while arid areas will rise by up to 8 per cent. The number of sub-Saharan species at risk of extinction will rise by at least 10 per cent.

Asia: Up to a billion people will suffer water shortages as supplies dwindle with the melting of Himalayan glaciers. Maize and wheat yields will fall by up to 5 per cent in India; rice crops in China will drop by up to 12 per cent. Increased risk of coastal flooding.

Australia/New Zealand: Between 3,000 and 5,000 more heat-related deaths a year. Water supplies will no longer be guaranteed in parts of southern and eastern Australia by 2030. Annual bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef.

Europe: Warmer temperatures will increase wheat yields by up to 25 per cent in the north but water availability will drop in the south by up to a quarter. Heatwaves, forest fires and extreme weather events such as flash floods will be more frequent. New diseases will appear.

Latin America: Up to 77 million people will face water shortages and tropical glaciers will disappear. Tropical forests will become savanna and there will be increased risk of coastal flooding in low-lying areas such as El Salvador and Guyana.

North America: Crop yields will increase by up to 20 per cent due to warmer temperatures but economic damage from extreme weather events such as Hurricane Katrina will continue increasing.

{ The Independant | Continue reading }

related { Rising Sea Levels to Flood U.S. Historical Sites }

Climate scientists seemed unprepared for the media backlash after a correction to a NASA analysis stripped 1998 of its title as the hottest year on record in the U.S.

That dubious honor was rightly returned to 1934, the year the infamous dust bowl devastated the Midwest. Climate data dabbler Steven McIntyre of Toronto alerted agency scientists of the error after spotting it earlier this month while sifting through recent NASA records of temperature anomalies.

Apparently a NASA team overestimated the average 1998 temps by 0.06 degree Fahrenheit, making 1934 the new hottest year title holder by a slim 0.04-degree margin.

The correction caused a veritable heat wave of excitement among conservative commentators, but NASA researchers brushed it off, noting that average global temperatures are still on an unprecedented upswing.

{ Scientific American | Continue reading }

related { Global warming totally disproved again }

Global warming is forecast to set in with a vengeance after 2009, with at least half of the five following years expected to be hotter than 1998, the warmest year on record, scientists reported on Thursday.

Climate experts have long predicted a general warming trend over the 21st century spurred by the greenhouse effect, but this new study gets more specific about what is likely to happen in the decade that started in 2005.

To make this kind of prediction, researchers at Britain’s Met Office — which deals with meteorology — made a computer model that takes into account such natural phenomena as the El Nino pattern in the Pacific Ocean and other fluctuations in ocean circulation and heat content.

To check their models, the scientists used a series of “hindcasts” — forecasts that look back in time — going back to 1982, and compared what their models predicted with what actually occurred. (…) Factoring in the natural variability of ocean currents and temperature fluctuations yielded an accurate picture, the researchers found.

{ Reuters/Yahoo | Continue reading }

‘Global Warming Is Not Hot’
Admiring the charity work of Angelina Jolie, Hilton applies her “hot” label to issues such as breast cancer and multiple sclerosis “because I lost my grandmothers to both of those diseases. And also helping the environment & global warming is not hot.”

Once a slave to pink, this “new” Hilton is trying her very best to go green. “I’m ordering a hybrid car,” she proudly announces. “I’m trying to get a Hummer one designed. I like hybrids, but a lot of them aren’t that cute. I’m thinking silver & or maybe I’ll get a green one!” (…)

The “annoying” paparazzi, along with obsessive fans, she claims, are the reasons she is putting her Hollywood Hills home on the market. “I’m so sad I have to sell it because I’ve completely made it my own, and it’s decorated perfectly for me,” she says. “It’s hard to move, but there’s too many people who know where I live. There’s like 20 tour buses coming a day. Random guys from all around the world just showing up and leaving things. I’m scared.”

{ ABC news | Continue reading }