HERE'S some climate change news from Mother Jones covering the spread of disease from the tropics to formerly temperate zones and the bipartisan efforts in the nation to address and adapt to the changes we are facing. Not doom and gloom, more an FYI....
Estimated Population at Risk for Dengue Fever in 1990 (A) and 2085 (B) Based on Climate Data from 1961 to 1990
This past summer, Aedes aegypti—the
invasive African mosquito best known for carrying the potentially
deadly diseases dengue and yellow fever—made its unexpected debut in
California, squirming up from Madera to Clovis to Fresno and the Bay Area.
For a blood-sucking nightmare, Aedes aegypti is surprisingly attractive: Its dark skin and bright white polka-dots make it hard to miss. Unfortunately, it is also notoriously difficult to control. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Aedes aegypti can lay its eggs in less than a teaspoon of liquid and survive without water for months.
While Aedes aegypti has long resided in Texas and the southeastern United States, this is the first time it's reached California. News outlets have covered the story extensively, but few have mentioned climate change's role in the mosquito's spread. The CDC says it's "likely that Ae. aegypti is continually responding or adapting to environmental change." In a 2012 report, the World Health Organization (WHO) pointed out that "temperatures, precipitation and humidity have a strong influence on the reproduction, survival and biting rates" of Aedes aegypti.
Climate change studies predict that dengue—which infects as many as 100 million people a year—will expose an additional 2 billion by 2080. In 2009, the mosquito kicked off a Florida outbreak of dengue in a state that hadn't seen the disease in more than 70 years, and Thailand is currently undergoing its worst dengue epidemic in more than 20 years.
Dengue's initial symptoms often resemble the flu, but advanced infections—which cause lung and heart problems, severe abdominal pain, and bleeding from the nose and mouth—kill 15,000 people in 100 countries annually.
Yellow fever is no picnic, either: The disease was one of the world's most feared before the development of a vaccine in 1936. Its name comes from the illness' trademark jaundice, and it also causes severe stomach bleeding (often resulting in black vomit). It kills 15 percent of those infected and closer to 50 percent when left untreated.
In the past, yellow fever in the United States made its way as far north as New York City. In 1793, an outbreak even wiped out 10 percent of Philadelphia. Luckily, citizens figured out that they could stop its spread by overturning containers of standing water where mosquitoes bred, and yellow fever was largely eradicated in the United States. In the last 40 years, there have been only nine cases of yellow fever in the United States, all of which were contracted abroad. But in Africa and Central and South America, it's a much bigger problem: Roughly 200,000 new cases of yellow fever occur every year. Over the last 20 years, outbreaks have occurred in more countries with more frequency, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2010, Uganda had its first outbreak in more than 40 years. WHO reports the increasing number of cases is likely linked to climate change.
There is no vaccine for dengue, and American citizens typically do not get vaccinated against yellow fever unless they travel to a region where it's endemic. So far, there have been no cases of dengue or yellow fever connected to California's new Aedes aegypti, and none of the insects have tested positive for the diseases. But public health officials remain vigilant. "We were shocked," one insect control official in Madera, California, told the Los Angeles Times. "We never expected this mosquito in California."
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/10/did-climate-change-bring-yellow-fever-carrying-mosquitoes-california
Federal
agencies are required to clear the way for more climate change
adaptations, like this house being raised out of the floodplain in
Virginia.
Just a few days after the Treasury Department announced it would no longer back funding for most overseas coal-fired power plants, today President Obama issued a new executive order
that lays the groundwork for how the US will prepare for climate change
within its borders. The order is the latest in a series of policies
stemming from the president's Climate Action Plan;
earlier this year, for example, the administration issued new
greenhouse gas emission limits for power plants and cars. But rather
than addressing carbon pollution, per se, today's plan focuses on how
cities and states can prepare for the climate impacts already on the
way.
"We need to work on bipartisan solutions, and put politics aside," said Mayor James Brainard of Carmel, Indiana, a Republican who is one of the local officials taking part in a new advisory task force created by today's order. "The climate is changing, and we need to be prepared for it."
So what does the order call for? Here's what you need to know:
Prioritize climate-ready projects: In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, many civic planning experts called for future infrastructure plans—for bridges, roads, housing development, and the like—to emphasize climate resilience (a popular buzzword among climate wonks that means being able to quickly bounce back from disasters).
Today's order requires federal agencies to support and incentivize "smarter, more climate-resilient investments" through grants, guidance, and other forms of assistance. These could include moving roads away from crumbling coasts or requiring seaside homes to be built higher above the floodplain. The order also directs agencies to "identify and seek to remove or reform barriers that discourage" resilient investments—for example, policies that currently encourage cities to apply weak rebuilding standards after natural disasters.
"What we're seeing here is a promise that resources that might have been dedicated just to rebuilding, there would now be a mandate to rebuild in a more resilient fashion," said Rachel Cleetus, a climate economist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The order gives a nod to natural systems, too: Federal agencies are required to look for ways to protect places like watersheds, marshes (which are themselves an important protective barrier from sea level rise), and forests from climate impacts and are directed deliver specific recommendations to the White House within nine months.
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/11/what-you-need-know-about-obamas-new-climate-order
| Mon Nov. 4, 2013 3:00 AM PST
Estimated Population at Risk for Dengue Fever in 1990 (A) and 2085 (B) Based on Climate Data from 1961 to 1990 For a blood-sucking nightmare, Aedes aegypti is surprisingly attractive: Its dark skin and bright white polka-dots make it hard to miss. Unfortunately, it is also notoriously difficult to control. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Aedes aegypti can lay its eggs in less than a teaspoon of liquid and survive without water for months.
While Aedes aegypti has long resided in Texas and the southeastern United States, this is the first time it's reached California. News outlets have covered the story extensively, but few have mentioned climate change's role in the mosquito's spread. The CDC says it's "likely that Ae. aegypti is continually responding or adapting to environmental change." In a 2012 report, the World Health Organization (WHO) pointed out that "temperatures, precipitation and humidity have a strong influence on the reproduction, survival and biting rates" of Aedes aegypti.
Climate change studies predict that dengue—which infects as many as 100 million people a year—will expose an additional 2 billion by 2080. In 2009, the mosquito kicked off a Florida outbreak of dengue in a state that hadn't seen the disease in more than 70 years, and Thailand is currently undergoing its worst dengue epidemic in more than 20 years.
Dengue's initial symptoms often resemble the flu, but advanced infections—which cause lung and heart problems, severe abdominal pain, and bleeding from the nose and mouth—kill 15,000 people in 100 countries annually.
Yellow fever is no picnic, either: The disease was one of the world's most feared before the development of a vaccine in 1936. Its name comes from the illness' trademark jaundice, and it also causes severe stomach bleeding (often resulting in black vomit). It kills 15 percent of those infected and closer to 50 percent when left untreated.
In the past, yellow fever in the United States made its way as far north as New York City. In 1793, an outbreak even wiped out 10 percent of Philadelphia. Luckily, citizens figured out that they could stop its spread by overturning containers of standing water where mosquitoes bred, and yellow fever was largely eradicated in the United States. In the last 40 years, there have been only nine cases of yellow fever in the United States, all of which were contracted abroad. But in Africa and Central and South America, it's a much bigger problem: Roughly 200,000 new cases of yellow fever occur every year. Over the last 20 years, outbreaks have occurred in more countries with more frequency, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2010, Uganda had its first outbreak in more than 40 years. WHO reports the increasing number of cases is likely linked to climate change.
There is no vaccine for dengue, and American citizens typically do not get vaccinated against yellow fever unless they travel to a region where it's endemic. So far, there have been no cases of dengue or yellow fever connected to California's new Aedes aegypti, and none of the insects have tested positive for the diseases. But public health officials remain vigilant. "We were shocked," one insect control official in Madera, California, told the Los Angeles Times. "We never expected this mosquito in California."
Front page image: ashleigh290/Flickr
Why This Red-State Republican Mayor Backs Obama on Climate Change
| Fri Nov. 1, 2013 1:04 PM PDT
Federal
agencies are required to clear the way for more climate change
adaptations, like this house being raised out of the floodplain in
Virginia. "We need to work on bipartisan solutions, and put politics aside," said Mayor James Brainard of Carmel, Indiana, a Republican who is one of the local officials taking part in a new advisory task force created by today's order. "The climate is changing, and we need to be prepared for it."
So what does the order call for? Here's what you need to know:
Prioritize climate-ready projects: In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, many civic planning experts called for future infrastructure plans—for bridges, roads, housing development, and the like—to emphasize climate resilience (a popular buzzword among climate wonks that means being able to quickly bounce back from disasters).
Today's order requires federal agencies to support and incentivize "smarter, more climate-resilient investments" through grants, guidance, and other forms of assistance. These could include moving roads away from crumbling coasts or requiring seaside homes to be built higher above the floodplain. The order also directs agencies to "identify and seek to remove or reform barriers that discourage" resilient investments—for example, policies that currently encourage cities to apply weak rebuilding standards after natural disasters.
"What we're seeing here is a promise that resources that might have been dedicated just to rebuilding, there would now be a mandate to rebuild in a more resilient fashion," said Rachel Cleetus, a climate economist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The order gives a nod to natural systems, too: Federal agencies are required to look for ways to protect places like watersheds, marshes (which are themselves an important protective barrier from sea level rise), and forests from climate impacts and are directed deliver specific recommendations to the White House within nine months.
Taking cues from locals: Few
people know the importance of resilience better than Mayor Dawn Zimmer
of Hoboken, NJ, a Democrat who has spent the last year piecing her
city—and her own home, which flooded—back together after Sandy. She says
local leaders have a unique, boots-on-the-ground perspective that
should inform federal climate preparedness policy.
After Sandy, "we learned a lot," she told Climate Desk this morning. "We could share some of what we're doing."
To that end, the executive order convenes a task force with representatives from cities, states, and tribes, including Mayor Zimmer, to produce, within a year, a list of recommendations for the president about what they need from the feds. The task force includes eight governors (all Democrats, except Eddie Calvo of Guam, a Republican) and 14 mayors from places that have been on the front lines of climate change, including towns in coastal Florida and Texas that are fighting off sea level rise, and Ft. Collins, Colo., where over a thousand acres were burned by wildfire earlier this year.
Zimmer said that while the federal government is usually helpful in responding to emergencies, it should be doing much more to encourage cities to invest in climate-proof systems like protected power grids.
"Instead of waiting for the emergency to happen we should be looking at ways to build resiliency before disasters," she said. "We're going to need some help from the federal government."
Brainard, the Republican from Carmel, said mayors are uniquely qualified to weigh in on adaptation. He noted that last year farmers in his state suffered from a crippling drought that struck across the Midwest.
"A lot of people debate why the climate is changing," he said. "That's not important. Mayors are very practical people, so the real question is, what are we going to do about it?"
The order also creates a separate group of more than thirty federal agencies—including NASA, the Defense Department, and the Army Corps of Engineers—tasked with working together on climate adaptation plans; just today, the EPA released a draft climate adaptation plan that recommends changes to everything from water pipelines to waste disposal.
Scientists, raise your voices! Obama's executive order calls for more scientific data about the local impacts of climate change to be made available to policymakers at all levels of government. Specifically, federal data experts will create a climate-focused portal on Data.gov, the government's clearinghouse for open-source datasets.
Cleetus said the idea is to pave the way for adaptation improvements by removing misconceptions about basic climate science among local policymakers. (Last year, North Carolina lawmakers proposed a bill that sought to outlaw considerations of sea level rise in urban planning.)
"The whole issue has become so polarized that good, scientific information isn't getting input," she said. "Hopefully because of this order, people will be more willing to take that into account."
After Sandy, "we learned a lot," she told Climate Desk this morning. "We could share some of what we're doing."
To that end, the executive order convenes a task force with representatives from cities, states, and tribes, including Mayor Zimmer, to produce, within a year, a list of recommendations for the president about what they need from the feds. The task force includes eight governors (all Democrats, except Eddie Calvo of Guam, a Republican) and 14 mayors from places that have been on the front lines of climate change, including towns in coastal Florida and Texas that are fighting off sea level rise, and Ft. Collins, Colo., where over a thousand acres were burned by wildfire earlier this year.
Zimmer said that while the federal government is usually helpful in responding to emergencies, it should be doing much more to encourage cities to invest in climate-proof systems like protected power grids.
"Instead of waiting for the emergency to happen we should be looking at ways to build resiliency before disasters," she said. "We're going to need some help from the federal government."
Brainard, the Republican from Carmel, said mayors are uniquely qualified to weigh in on adaptation. He noted that last year farmers in his state suffered from a crippling drought that struck across the Midwest.
"A lot of people debate why the climate is changing," he said. "That's not important. Mayors are very practical people, so the real question is, what are we going to do about it?"
The order also creates a separate group of more than thirty federal agencies—including NASA, the Defense Department, and the Army Corps of Engineers—tasked with working together on climate adaptation plans; just today, the EPA released a draft climate adaptation plan that recommends changes to everything from water pipelines to waste disposal.
Scientists, raise your voices! Obama's executive order calls for more scientific data about the local impacts of climate change to be made available to policymakers at all levels of government. Specifically, federal data experts will create a climate-focused portal on Data.gov, the government's clearinghouse for open-source datasets.
Cleetus said the idea is to pave the way for adaptation improvements by removing misconceptions about basic climate science among local policymakers. (Last year, North Carolina lawmakers proposed a bill that sought to outlaw considerations of sea level rise in urban planning.)
"The whole issue has become so polarized that good, scientific information isn't getting input," she said. "Hopefully because of this order, people will be more willing to take that into account."
No comments:
Post a Comment