Tag: global warming

WHO report warns we’re underestimating the mental health risks of climate change

A new report from the World Health Organization says we aren’t prepared enough for the mental and physical health risks caused by climate change. The study, titled the WHO Health and Climate Change Survey Report, took survey data from 101 countries and assessed the impact of climate-related events on residents’ health. The results were disheartening.

Although the countries could identify climate-related risks like “heat stress, injury, or death from extreme weather events, food, water, and vector-borne diseases (such as cholera, dengue, or malaria),” only 48% have actually conducted an assessment to predict how the changing climate can harm public health. Furthermore, despite the assessment, at least 60% of those countries were still unprepared to protect the health of their citizens. Only 38% had the means to partially implement a plan of action. Less than 10% could afford to fully fund a plan.

This is bad news. Extreme weather events caused by climate change — such as flooding, tropical storms, uncontrollable wildfires, and record-breaking heatwaves — can more easily spread diseases and threaten the world’s food supply. And the damage isn’t just physical; the report noted that depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other mental health issues can arise from the trauma of experiencing a climate-related disaster.

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Deadly Fungal Infection Emerged Because of Global Warming, Study Says

A new study on the mysterious origins of a deadly fungal infection that seemed to have simultaneously emerged in far-flung corners of the globe finds that global warming may be to blame.

Candida auris, a fungus that can kill anyone who comes into close contact with a carrier, was first identified in 2009 in a Japanese patient with an ear infection. It then started showing up in hospitals in Asia, Africa and South America in patients without a clear link — and no one could figure out why.

“The greatest mystery is how you end up with the same fungal species emerging in three different continents at roughly the same time when they are genetically different,” says Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of the molecular microbiology and immunology department at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He’s also the lead author of the new Candida auris study, published Tuesday in the journal mBio.

View the complete July 24 article by Sanya Mansoor on the Time website here.

By 2080, global warming will make New York City feel like Arkansas

“Heading south” will have a whole new meaning in a few decades.

New York City, welcome to Arkansas. Minneapolis, say hello to Kansas. And San Francisco, your new home is L.A.

Because of global warming, hundreds of millions of Americans will have to adapt to dramatically new climates by 2080, a study published Tuesday suggests.

View the complete February 12 article by Doyle Rice on The USA Today website here.

NOAA scientists debunk Trump’s ‘global waming’ tweets with a cartoon

Cartoon tweeted out bu NOAA scientists Tuesday morning. Credi: NOAA

“Winter storms don’t prove that global warming isn’t happening.”

U.S. government climate scientists took the unprecedented step of tweeting out a rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s recent tweets implying that winter storms and cold weather in the U.S. somehow disprove global warming.

“Large parts of the Country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record setting cold,” Trump tweeted out last week. “Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!”

On Monday evening, he tweeted again: “What the hell is going on with Global Waming? [sic] Please come back fast, we need you!”

View the complete January 29 article by Joe Romm on the ThinkProgress website here.

Antarctic ice loss has tripled in a decade. If that continues, we are in serious trouble.

The following article by Chris Mooney was posted on the Washington Post website June 13, 2018:

Credit: ThermService via MorgueFile.com

Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting at a rapidly increasing rate, now pouring more than 200 billion tons of ice into the ocean annually and raising sea levels a half-millimeter every year, a team of 80 scientists reported Wednesday.

The melt rate has tripled in the past decade, the study concluded. If the acceleration continues, some of scientists’ worst fears about rising oceans could be realized, leaving low-lying cities and communities with less time to prepare than they had hoped.

The result also reinforces that nations have a short window — perhaps no more than a decade — to cut greenhouse-gas emissions if they hope to avert some of the worst consequences of climate change. Continue reading “Antarctic ice loss has tripled in a decade. If that continues, we are in serious trouble.”

How Global Warming Fueled Five Extreme Weather Events

The following article by Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich was posted on the New York Times website December 14, 2017:

A wildfire in Azusa, Calif., in 2016. New research has analyzed 27 extreme weather events from that year for links to climate change. Credit Gene Blevins/Reuters

Extreme weather left its mark across the planet in 2016, the hottest year in recorded history. Record heat baked Asia and the Arctic. Droughts gripped Brazil and southern Africa. The Great Barrier Reef suffered its worst bleaching event in memory, killing large swaths of coral.

Now climate scientists are starting to tease out which of last year’s calamities can, and can’t, be linked to global warming.

In a new collection of papers published Wednesday in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, researchers around the world analyzed 27 extreme weather events from 2016 and found that human-caused climate change was a “significant driver” for 21 of them. The effort is part of the growing field of climate change attribution, which explores connections between warming and weather events that have already happened. Continue reading “How Global Warming Fueled Five Extreme Weather Events”

Trump Takes a First Step Toward Scrapping Obama’s Global Warming Policy

The following article by Lisa Friedman was posted on the New York Times website October 4, 2017:

A power plant in Homer City, Pa. President Trump has vowed since the campaign to repeal the Clean Power Plan, which was designed to cut emissions from the power sector. Credit Keith Srakocic/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will repeal the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s effort to fight climate change, and will ask the public to recommend ways it could be replaced, according to an internal Environmental Protection Agency document.

The draft proposal represents the administration’s first substantive step toward rolling back the plan, which was designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector, after months of presidential tweets and condemnations of Mr. Obama’s efforts to reduce climate-warming pollution. Continue reading “Trump Takes a First Step Toward Scrapping Obama’s Global Warming Policy”

Pruitt Disbelief in Global Warming

The following letter to the editor was submitted to, but did not appear in, the Minneapolis Star Tribune March 10, 2017:

Did I just mishear a comment by Scott Pruitt, the new GOP approved EPA Administrator, on CNBC regarding his disbelief in the science of global warming and the impact of human generated greenhouse gases on the planet?

I thought I heard him say: “I think that measuring with precision that the earth is round is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of roundness, if any. So no, I would not agree that it’s primarily round as we see it. We don’t know that its round yet. We need to continue the debate if its round and continue the review and the analysis.”

This reminds me of a line from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl – “You’re off the edge of the map, mate. Here there be monsters.”

J. Albers

WMO: Five hottest years on record have occurred since 2011

_92322067_mediaitem92322066We know we now have a president-elect who refuses to believe in climate change or that it’s something China is doing to us. But, that doesn’t stop climate change from happening.

The following article by Matt McGrath was published on the BBC website November 8, 2016:

New data released by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) shows that the five years from 2011 to 2015 were the warmest on record.

The report, published at global climate talks in Morocco, strongly links human activities to rising temperatures. Continue reading “WMO: Five hottest years on record have occurred since 2011”