Regulators are redefining the meaning of public health to include new aspects relevant to the everyday lives of American citizens.

If you thought public health only included disease prevention, think again.

The American Public Health Association is meeting to discuss fresh ways to tackle public health concerns such as poverty, violence, climate change, and drinking and driving.

The 143rd conference will focus on and expand issues that are becoming increasingly significant to human health.

The Conference

Many individuals don’t realize that public health encompasses a wide variety of issues.
Image: eWashtenaw

The Chicago conference invites health professionals and policymakers to collaborate on solutions related to the theme of including health in all policies.

Speakers include U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, HHS acting assistant director for health Dr. Karen DeSalvo, Chicago Health Commissioner Dr. Julie Morita, Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen and Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland.

“If it hurts or kills people, it’s ours,” Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told Modern Healthcare.

Realigning the idea of health with other aspects of life will help to promote positive habits for individuals outside of the medical system.  At the conference, health professionals will uncover new ways to work with police to ensure neighborhood safety.

One of the goals of this initiative is to promote more outdoor activity. Also, the conference will deal with ensuring city planning officials provide sidewalks to run or walk on.

But local issues aren’t the only topics being addressed. The conference will also focus on reducing global effects of climate change.

Hotter temperatures are linked to mosquito-borne diseases, along with dangerous storms that threaten healthcare infrastructure. But according to Benjamin, many don’t believe that climate change affects public health.

Benjamin said many “still need convincing that there’s something they can do about it.” Although public health officials have a variety of concerns, an overarching goal is to help add climate change to the overall focus.

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Researchers predict that temperatures will continue to increase, making 2015 the hottest year the Earth has ever experienced.

Despite claims from climate change contrarians, global warming is not under control.

Scientists measuring the worldwide increase in temperature predict that 2015 will exceed the record-breaking heat wave that took place last year.

Tracking Temperature Changes

Multiple countries experienced the warmest temperatures on record during the month of September.
Image: NCDC

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tracks temperatures across the world. The agency recently concluded that last month was the hottest September on record.

The temperature difference between September 2014 and 2015 has seen the biggest jump since 1880. In addition, the nine months between January and September has been the hottest period on record.

Effects of El Niño

El Niño is a notoriously warm ocean phase the begins in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean and sends intense heat into the atmosphere. The weather pattern then transports the heat throughout the entire ocean.

Scientists have compared the most recent El Niño phase with the temperatures in 1997 and 1998, which shows how much damage greenhouse gases have done.

Increased heat in bodies of water causes severe, widespread effects. El Niño is associated with dry air and forest fires in Indonesia, droughts in Australia and Ethiopia and food emergencies across Africa. These patterns will continue to worsen as El Niño reaches its peak in the next few months.

Scientists predict that El Niño will cause unusual amounts of rain and snow to hit the American Southwest and California. While the rain will help to curb the drought, it may cause other dangerous natural occurrences such as floods and mudslides.

Although climate change isn’t responsible for each issue on its own,  the combination of global warming and a strong El Niño has caused disastrous effects.

Combating The Heat

Individuals in high-risk areas should stay out of the heat and keep hydrated to avoid the life-threatening effects of global warming.
Image: Newsweek

As the frequency of natural disasters increases throughout the world, politicians attempt to find a global solution to slow the temperature increase. In December, world leaders will convene in Paris to address the effects of climate change and actions to stop it.

The United Nation’s World Food Program will bring aid to Africa where food sources are greatly affected by the heat. The organization is asking for assistance to help the thousands of starving individuals in Ethiopia and other African nations.

Scientists claim that those who negate the existence of global warming are picking and choosing certain facts while ignoring others. The record-setting warmth of 2014 and 2015 has proven that climate change is still underway no matter how many politicians choose to ignore it.

The post Record-Breaking Temperatures Confirm Earth’s Hottest Year Yet appeared first on Citizens Report.

Scientists have issued a warning about a coral bleaching event that could kill thousands of reefs by the end of the year.

Scientists have confirmed that the world is currently in the middle of the third coral bleaching event to ever be recorded.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has found global evidence to support the occurrence of major changes to coral reefs caused by rising ocean temperatures.

What Is Coral Bleaching?

Coral turns white after expelling the algae that provide nutrients to the reefs.
Image: Ocean Service

Stress on coral reefs causes coral bleaching. The bleaching is characterized by a rejection of the algae living on the coral’s form. Without the algae, the white skeleton is all that remains.

The presence of symbiotic algae handles the coral’s colorful appearance. The algae also provide the coral with essential nutrients that keep them alive.

The current instance of bleaching has been classified as a bleaching event because it spans more than 100 kilometers (63 miles) in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian ocean basins.  According to the NOAA, the XL Catlin Seaview Survey, Reef Check and the University of Queensland, the event is currently happening now.

Causes Of The Environmental Event

Rising ocean temperatures are the main cause of coral bleaching.
Image: NASA

According to NOAA, each bleaching event has been caused by an increase in ocean temperatures. Each event has occurred during unusually warm temperatures common during El Niño years.

The event is extremely dangerous because it could result in the death of more than 12,000 square kilometers (about 4,600 square miles) of coral reefs by the end of the year. El Niño temperatures will continue until 2016, which means that bleaching instances are likely to increase.

“Coral reefs are the litmus test of our oceans, a visual representation of the health of our seas,” CNN anchor and meteorologist Derek Van Dam said in an article. “When coral becomes bleached or white in color, this sensitive ecosystem is negatively impacted, which creates a profound ripple effect on the world’s food chain.”

While most people have ignored the threats to coral reefs, the XL Catlin Seaview Survey has been mapping its progress. The survey data is collected by a custom-made camera that travels on an underwater scooter and takes a 360-degree image of the ocean.

Scientists had tested coral in 26 different countries before and after the event began. According to Richard Vevers, the survey’s executive director, the goal of the survey is to track a global baseline of coral reefs that will illustrate how they have changed over time.

Raising Awareness For Threatened Reefs

More than 12,000 square kilometers of coral reefs could be destroyed if the event goes unchecked.
Image: UVM

While some reefs recover after ocean temperatures cool, most will die out. The team observed a bleached reef off American Samoa and discovered that about 95 percent of the coral had died.

The survey will post its data to Google Street View to raise awareness and allow internet users to understand the effects of coral bleaching. Vevers said coral bleaching hasn’t yet grabbed the world’s attention.

“This is the equivalent of rainforest turning white and no one noticing,” Vevers said.

The survey is meant to direct attention to the severity of the bleaching event to make positive change, Vevers said at the December at the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris.

“The XL Catlin Seaview Survey team will be at COP21 with this imagery,” Vevers said. “We’re also using virtual reality technology with Google Cardboard so we can take the policy makers and the media to go see the coral bleaching firsthand.”

 

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By studying historical wildfire patterns, researchers linked the increase in burning in the Western hemisphere to even the slightest instances of global warming.

Wildfires in the Western part of America have been doing more damage in recent years than ever before. Scientists have discovered a reason for the spike.

A recent University of Wyoming study shows the increase in expansiveness, frequency and intensity of wildfires is caused by the effects of global warming.

The Study

The study analyzes the history of wildfires across a subalpine forest in northern Colorado over the past two millennia.
Image: Science Blogs

The study was conducted at the University of Wyoming and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It proves that the small instances of warming are linked to the monumental increase in wildfires.

The researchers evaluated charcoal samples from 2,000 years of wildfires that were taken from lake beds in a subalpine forest, which is located above 8,000 feet in northern Colorado’s Mount Zirkel Wilderness. They measured an increase in wildfire frequency throughout history and compared the results to the circumstances of warming today.

The Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) was 1,100 to 1,200 years ago at a time when the warming was similar to present day. The average temperatures in Northern Colorado were 0.5°C warmer than they were a century before.

Before this period, about 50 percent of the sample sites burned each century, increasing to 83 percent during the MCA and declining to 33 percent afterward. The majority of sites burned every 360 years prior to the MCA before burning every 120 years during the warm period at a 260 percent increase.

The temperatures cooled, but only after the fires began to stop. Researchers attribute this to a lack of forest left to burn.

They found that even a minimal increase in average temperature, about 0.5°C (0.9°F),  could alter wildfire activity at higher elevations. The study shows that the planet may be entering into a new era of high-elevation wildfires incomparable to the last 1,000 years.

Record-breaking droughts and sweltering heat have caused more than 50,000 wildfires affecting more than 9 million acres in the West and Alaska in 2015. Since 2006, the recent warming-induced wildfires have destroyed the most land.

Alaska temperatures have risen by 3°F in the last 50 years which is the estimated cause of wildfires. The study suggests that every 1°C (1.8°F) of warming causes an area burned by wildfire in the West that could quadruple.

Drawing Conclusions

“The large increase in the number of sites burned by fires highlights the risk that large portions of individual landscapes may burn as climates continue to warm today,” according to the study.
Image: Emergency Journalism

The study is the first to discover how much land across an entire mountain range burned over a period of 2,000 years. This shows that large wildfires similar to those burning today occurred during a temperatures increase, the study’s lead author, the University of Wyoming Ph.D. candidate John Calder, said.

“When we look into the past for evidence of these large wildfires we only see them one time when temperatures rose about 1°F,” he said.

“Our study then adds more evidence that the recent increase in large wildfires is related to climate change because the only time we see these types of large wildfires in the last 2,000 years was when we had a similar amount of warming.”

However, the information is only relevant to dense, high elevation forests whereas the Colorado wildfires that burned at lower elevations are not included.

“We don’t know how the other mountain ranges burned in the region, but expanding this study into other mountain ranges is something I would like to do,” Calder said.

The study provides evidence that the West may be entering into a new phase of catastrophic wildfire at high elevations, where severe fires typically burn less often because of cooler temperatures and greater moisture.

Tania Schoennagel, a research scientist at the University of Colorado’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, believes the study provides an important link between wildfires and climate change. It sheds light on the fact that scientists can expect what will happen with current and future warming.

“The MCA is a good analog for recent warming, and a larger proportion of the study area burned during the beginning of the MCA than we have witnessed recently in similar subalpine landscapes,” she said.

“However, the regional trends in wildfire across the West this year reflect the study’s findings of wildfire increases in response to warming,” Schoennagel said. “We should expect more of the same to come.”

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Residue from carbon dioxide can be converted to carbon nanofibers to slow the progression of global warming and benefit industrial science.

Climate change predictions are pretty grim, but a new invention could help to change that bitter future.

Researchers from George Washington University have invented a solar-powered process that could convert carbon dioxide pollution into carbon residue, which could then be used to create carbon nanofibers.

Carbon nanofibers are lightweight structures that are commonly used in technologies like iPhones. Ideally, if the materials were less expensive, they could be beneficial to building larger innovations such as spaceships and airplanes.

The overall hope is to be able to grow the system to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, which would slow climate change and progress industrial science forward.

According to the EPA, the extent of future climate change will depend on what we do now to reduce the effects of global warming.

Check out the detailed description of the process from Discovery News.

The post Could Carbon Nanofibers Slow Climate Change? appeared first on Citizens Report.

Environmental experts examined 38 contrarian climate science papers that are frequently cited in arguments against global warming. They found common errors present throughout climate change denial.

A contrarian is defined as “one who takes an opposing view.” When trying to denounce the idea of climate change, contrarians often refer to Galileo Galilei, a famed astronomer who often rejected the consensus.

Today, 97 percent of experts have reached a consensus about the existence of global warming, whereas about 2-3 percent disagrees with the majority. When scientists decided to explore contrarian theories, they found common errors across 38 research papers that deny climate change.

Examining Contrarian Papers

Contrarian science cites the sun, planetary cycles or ocean cycles, but there’s no consistent alternative reasoning that has been agreed on by all contrarians.
Via:ZME Science

Researchers compared contrarian climate science conclusions in a study published in the journal of  Theoretical and Applied Climatology. They attempted to replicate contrarian findings, but ended up realizing that many of the same mistakes appeared throughout the research.

The research was conducted by Rasmus Benestad, Dana Nuccitelli, Stephan Lewandowsky, Katharine Hayhoe, Hans Olav Hygen, Rob van Dorland and John Cook. The scientists used a tool to analyze the most popular research papers that was based on an R programming language.

“We specifically chose a targeted selection to find out why they got different answers, and the easiest way to do so was to select the most visible contrarian papers … Our hypothesis was that the chosen contrarian paper was valid, and our approach was to try to falsify this hypothesis by repeating the work with a critical eye.

If we could find flaws or weaknesses, then we would be able to explain why the results were different from the mainstream. Otherwise, the differences would be a result of genuine uncertainty,” according to Benestad, a lead study author. 

The tool checked research methods and results and found a few common themes:

• Cherry picking. To confirm their point, contrarians would often pick and choose certain pieces of data. They would round it or make conclusions based on vague ideas. The statements weren’t contextualized and didn’t properly portray the findings because key information was left out.
• Models couldn’t be reproduced. Climate contrarians argue their models can predict future climate change but were unable to show temperature changes in the past.
•  Curve fitting. If the data didn’t fit the theory, researchers stretched it out by taking different variables and making them fit a given curve. These curves didn’t represent physical reality.
• Reviving myths. Contrarians have brought back false research to revive climate change myths that have already been disproved.

Conclusions About Contrarian Research

Many world leaders continue to pump pollution into the atmosphere, using contrarian research to deny the effects of climate change.
Via: Church Militant

The study only examined the most popular contrarian papers, which means more errors could potentially be found if the study was expanded. Although these kind of methodological errors could also occur in research that supports climate change, the study concludes that these mistakes were the norm and not the exception.

Perhaps one of the most interesting arguments against contrarian research is that there is no other concise theory for what is happening to the planet. Contrarian science cites the sun, planetary cycles or ocean cycles, but there’s no consistent alternative reasoning that has been agreed on by all contrarians.

Human-caused global warming has a 97 percent expert consensus. Contrarians have contradicting theories and flawed methodologies.

“After all this, the conclusions were surprisingly unsurprising in my mind. The replication revealed a wide range of types of errors, shortcomings, and flaws involving both statistics and physics,” Benestad said.

The post Finding Common Flaws In Climate Change Denial Research appeared first on Citizens Report.

Alexis Benter

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has issued its latest recommendations, with some coming as a surprise to many consumers. For the first time the committee is urging Americans to consider “the impact of food production, processing, and consumption on environmental sustainability.” “Linking health, dietary guidance, and the environment will promote human health and the sustainability of natural resources and ensure current and long-term food security,” the committee says.

Eat Green

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has iterated that our everyday food choices affect global warming and the environment. They urge consumers to make better choices when grocery shopping because even small changes to what we buy and eat can help reduce global warming emissions, preserve our ocean resources and reduce toxic chemicals in the air, soil and water.

The NRDC offers its own guidelines to help consumers make healthier and smarter food choices.

Eat Lower on the Food Chain

Like the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, the NRDC also recommends we eat less meat. Foods that come from higher on the food chain require extensive processing, which uses more energy and releases more pollution. The NRDC estimates that if we all eliminated just a 1/4 lb serving of red meat each week, the reduction in gas emissions would be the same as getting 4 million to 6 million cars off the road.

Buy Organic

Organic farming is safer for people and the environment because it uses no synthetic pesticides and fertilizers which contaminate the air, soil and water supply.

Compost Don’t Waste Studies estimate that the average household wastes 14 percent of the food it purchases, which inevitably ends up in landfills where it releases methane into the atmosphere as it decomposes. The NRDC urges consumers to only purchase foods they know they can eat before the expiration date, and to compost food waste instead of tossing it into the garbage can.

Buy Local

The Burberry Company

Buying local is not just about supporting local farmers. Although that’s great, it’s also about reducing the pollution and energy used to transport foods domestically and internationally.

The Meat Industry Weighs In

Beyond the fact that certain politicians have made it clear they oppose the new dietary guidelines, which fuse nutrition advice with environmental advocacy, heavyweights in the meat industry have also chimed in with their objections. They suggest that a dialogue about environmental sustainability was “outside the committee’s charter.”

The post New Dietary Guidelines Ask Americans to Start Thinking of the Environment appeared first on Citizens Report.

Alexandria Clark

Montana is no stranger to large oil spills. In July 2011, an oil pipeline burst and poured 63,000 gallons of crude oil into the Yellowstone River. The same thing happened in January when another pipeline burst beneath the Yellowstone River and 50,000 gallons of crude oil leaked into the river again.

The Impact on Glendive Residents

Oil shone on the top of the water for dozens of miles. The small town of Glendive smelled of strong diesel. The local government told residents to avoid drinking the tap water because high levels of benzene contaminated the water supply. The municipal water plant cited that benzene levels were two to three times higher than what the Center for Disease Control considers a safe level to consume. This incident hurt many of those living in Glendive.

Residents flocked to their local grocery store and seized all of the remaining bottled water. Officials warned the town that it could be weeks before the water supply was safe to consume. It took Bridger Pipeline, the owner of the pipeline that burst, almost a week to bring in extra water for the citizens of Glendive.

The recent pipeline spill damaged many businesses in and around Glendive. The town benefits from the fish and farmland surrounding the Yellowstone River. The pipeline bursts changed the land forever by adding thousands of gallons of chemicals that are difficult and costly to clean up.

The Impact on Public Opinion

Following these two spills, many residents were concerned with the government’s recent approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The pipeline would be an extension of the current Keystone Pipeline, which would run over the Yellowstone River. Despite the opposition, some argue that the extension presents benefits for the members of the surrounding communities.

“The State Department has affirmed the safety of the Keystone XL Pipeline. It’s important this job-creating project is approved,” said Montana Senator Steve Daines in an article from Al  Jazeera.

While the new pipeline would be safer, nothing is perfect, and many are concerned that it will present just as many risks as the old one. Using oil stop valves may also be an option to safely stop fluids like oil from spilling.

Building the Keystone XL Pipeline would undoubtedly produce jobs, but many residents in surrounding areas do not believe the jobs are worth the environmental risks and costs. The area of Eastern Montana has been a prime spot for many companies engaging in fracking. The practice reduced unemployment throughout Montana but has lead to significant environmental risks that some believe will contribute to climate change if the operation continues at its current rate.

President Obama has vowed to veto the extension of the Keystone XL Pipeline, but it is yet to be determined whether or not he will follow through with his promises. The town of Glendive will continue to struggle with these pipeline spills if more care is not taken to reduce them. The Keystone XL Pipeline will present a safer option, but it will not end the environmental and economic risks associated with oil pipelines.

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