Fracking harms the health of babies, study shows

By Nathalie Baptiste on Dec 14, 2017

This story was originally published by Mother Jones and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The practice of drilling into the ground to release natural gas — known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking — first made national headlines in 2011 when drinking water taps in fracking towns in Pennsylvania began catching fire because flammable methane was seeping into water supplies.

Since then, fracking has been linked to earthquakes in Oklahoma and a myriad of health issues. Proponents of fracking say the practice has reduced energy costs and has created thousands of jobs. But environmental groups, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, say that for people living near sites, fracking can havesevere health affects such as respiratory illnesses and cancer.

A new study from the journal Science Advances found that infants born to women living near fracking sites in Pennsylvania were especially vulnerable to adverse health outcomes. “As local and state policymakers decide whether to allow hydraulic fracturing in their communities, it is crucial that they carefully examine the costs and benefits,” said Michael Greenstone, a coauthor of the study and the director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, in a press release. “This study provides the strongest large-scale evidence of a link between the pollution that stems from hydraulic fracturing activities and … the health of babies.”

The researchers analyzed vital statistics of more than 1.1 million births in Pennsylvania between 2004 and 2013. They studied infants born to women living 1 kilometer (or slightly over half a mile) away from fracking sites, as well as women living within 3 kilometers (or less than 2 miles), and women living between 3 to 15 kilometers (or less than 2 miles to 9 miles) away.

They found that fracking reduces the health of infants born to mothers living within 3 kilometers from a fracking site. But for mothers living within 1 kilometer, the affects were acute. The probability of low infant birth weight, meaning the infant weighs less than 5.5 pounds, increased to 25 percent.

Studies show that low birth weight can lead to infant mortality, asthma, lower test scores while school-age, and lower earnings as adults. The study also found that mothers whose babies may have been exposed to nearby fracking sites tend to be younger, less educated, and less likely to be married — factors that can also lead to poor infant health.

But there are significant differences between the mothers who give birth close to fracking sites and those who don’t. Black mothers included in the study were more likely to live nearest to fracking sites, exposing their infants to higher risks of pollution. “This difference arises because over time, more wells were drilled near urban areas such as Pittsburgh, where higher numbers of African Americans live,” the authors wrote. Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, has 63 active fracking wells. Many other fracking sites are located in lower-income communities.

Nationwide, between July 2012 and June 2013, as many as 65,000 infants were exposed to pollution from fracking, because their mothers lived within 1 kilometer of a fracking site.

“Given the growing evidence that pollution affects babies in utero,” said coauthor Janet Currie, who is a economics and public affairs professor at Princeton University, “it should not be surprising that fracking has negative effects on infants.”

(GRIST)

Children growing up in the 1980s were vaguely aware of the threat of nuclear annihilation the way children today are vaguely aware of the threat of being eaten by sharks. You heard horror stories and you saw movies about it, but it was something more than distant. It was like playacting royalty: Kings and queens exist, sure, but obviously they are not things you are going to bump into any time soon.

Our parents’ experience with the threat of nuclear war was different. There were the Soviets, bristling with warheads. The world order was still new for the baby boomers, and fragile. Those born the year World War II ended were 17 during the Cuban missile crisis, and they had more than a decade of nuclear-war preparation under their belts. Bert the Turtle offered them the best advice that American authorities had in their tool belts: If a nuke explodes near you, cover your head.

“Duck and Cover,” 1955. (Civil Defense Administration)

For nearly all of the 1990s, the threat of nuclear attack shifted to the background, transforming itself into the fear that a terrorist would obtain a nuclear device or set off a dirty bomb. It has been only recently, with North Korea’s tests of high-yield nuclear devices and long-range missiles, that the threat of a nuclear strike by a foreign adversary again has started to seem like something that might actually happen.

Might. North Korea has yet to demonstrate that it can fit a warhead onto a missile, that it can target a missile accurately or that it can successfully combine the two to deliver an atomic weapon anywhere within the United States. But it has moved much closer to that goal over the past 12 months, making the threat of a possible strike by that country seem much more real than it did even a decade ago. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) told the Atlantic magazine in an interview this week that he thinks there may be as much as a 70 percent chance of the United States launching a preemptive military strike against the country should it conduct another test of a nuclear weapon — ramping up the likelihood that North Korea would retaliate significantly.

With that in mind, we figured it was worth consulting an expert to see what Americans might do to prepare for the threat of a nuclear strike. Meet Suzet McKinney, of the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. McKinney was formerly the deputy commissioner of the Bureau of Public Health Preparedness and Emergency Response at the Chicago Department of Public Health and is on the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

We will jump ahead to the question that motivated us to look into this: Does Bert the Turtle’s “duck and cover” actually work?

Surprisingly, yes.

“I would honestly say the duck-and-cover response from the Cold War era is really the best protection that we as individual citizens would have after a nuclear bomb or improvised nuclear device was detonated,” McKinney said. “That really is a method of personal protection against the effects of a nuclear explosion. Quite honestly, it’s inexpensive, and it’s something that’s very easy for every single member of a family or every single member of a community to understand.”

Why? If a nuclear blast happens within a few hundred yards of you, depending on the yield (that is, power) of the nuke, there’s probably not going to be much you can do one way or the other. If it happens at more of a distance, the immediate effect will in broad strokes be similar to the effect of other disasters: A blast wave that knocks over buildings and shatters windows. “Duck and cover” is the best response, because it’s essentially the same as “shelter in-place,” McKinney said, emphasizing the need to urgently protect yourself from physical harm.

“We put a lot of stock in the shelter-in-place theory,” she said. “With these nuclear bombs, the most effective [response] seems to be shielding from debris and material that can cause traumatic injury. So if you are in a place or can get to a place that you will help shield you from some of those things, then that’s what we want to promote.” Asked whether it is worth trying to get to a bomb shelter, McKinney said that, in general, it is not, given the risk of being caught outside instead of in a place of shelter.

That is what you should do in the moment. We also asked what should be done as preparation. Should we stock up radiation suits? Buy anti-radiation medication?

We should not.

“The first thing that people can do now and should be doing now is educating ourselves on the threat,” she said. “What is the threat, and what does it actually mean?” The rationale is simple: Better to know how to react now than to have to try to scramble when the nuke is en route to figure out what to do.

McKinney recommended getting information from local authorities. Some local emergency-response agencies may have information online about how to respond to such a disaster, but she also recommended attending public forums about the threat and asking leaders in person any questions you may have. If you are interested in going a step further, she recommended volunteering with emergency response teams to get better acquainted — and more comfortable — with what to expect.

More directly, McKinney recommended having emergency response kits for everyone in the family, including children, the elderly — and pets. This is not nuclear-attack specific; she recommends everyone having these anyway. What goes in those kits? The city of Chicago has a list. It includes:

• Three days’ worth of water (one gallon per person per day).
• Three days’ worth of food (ready-to-eat or just-add-water).
• Manual can opener.
• First aid items (bandages, alcohol wipes, disinfectant ointments, etc.).
• Essential medications
• Flashlight.
• Radio (battery-operated or manual )
• Batteries.
• A Ziploc bag including cash in small denominations and copies of important documents (insurance policies, medical prescriptions, etc.).
• Unscented liquid household bleach for water purification.
• Personal hygiene items, including toilet paper, feminine supplies and soap.
• Sturdy shoes.
• Heavy gloves.
• Warm clothing, a hat and rain gear.
• A local map.
• Extra prescription eye glasses, hearing aid or other vital personal items.
• Utility knife and plastic sheeting and duct tape for covering broken windows.
• Blankets or sleeping bags.
• Extra keys to your house and vehicles.
• Large plastic bags for waste and sanitation.

“There’s nothing special that people can buy or should be buying in the threat of a nuclear attack,” McKinney said. “It is the simple, common-sense things that we should all have on hand in the event of an emergency.”

If you have a bunker or basement in your home, McKinney recommends preparing it a bit further with more food and water.

The time to make these preparations and understand the proper responses is now — not because there is any real, imminent threat of a nuclear strike but because there is no reason not to have these preparations on hand anyway. McKinney reinforced the most important point she had to offer.

“I have found in my experience that when people are knowledgeable, they can be calmer and they can act in a more efficient manner,” she said.

And if you see that flash of light in the distance, do what Bert the Turtle does.

(The Washington Post)

The governor of the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico on Monday ordered a recount of the death toll from the ravages of Hurricane Maria nearly three months ago, signaling that it could be significantly higher than the original figure of 64.

Governor Ricardo Rossello called for the reassessment after reports in recent days by The New York Times and Puerto Rico's Center for Investigative Journalism independently concluded that the storm caused more than 1,000 deaths when its intense rain and 248-kilometer-per-hour winds devastated the Caribbean island on September 20.

Rossello had previously resisted calls for a death recount, but said in a statement, "This is about more than numbers, these are lives: real people, leaving behind loved ones and families.

"We always expected that the number of hurricane-related deaths would increase as we received more factual information--not hearsay--and this review will ensure we are correctly counting everybody,'' he said. "We also want the most accurate count and understanding of how people lost their lives to fully account for the impact of these storms, and to identify ways in which we can prevent fatalities in advance of future disasters."

The new toll could account for deaths from "natural causes" that occurred after the storm, but were likely linked to the storm's destruction of the island's power grid and other utilities, significantly impacting rescue and health care efforts in the days and weeks after the storm.

Restoration of power for the 3.4 million people who live in Puerto Rico has been painstakingly slow, with more than a third of the island still without electricity.

(voanews.com)

• Andrew Griffin
• @_andrew_griffin
• Monday 6 November 2017 11:11 GMT

Let it go: The Arctic will never be frozen again

By Eric Holthaus on Dec 18, 2017

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Zack Labe

✔@ZLabe

Monthly #Arctic temperature ranks (1=warmest [red], 39=coldest [blue]) over the satellite era - including November 2017

Available at http://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/arctic-temperatures/ …

11:04 AM - Dec 4, 2017

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In an interview with NPR, marine scientist Jeremy Mathis, director of NOAA’s Arctic Program, went a step further. When it comes to the Arctic, Mathis said “there is no normal” anymore: “The environment is changing so quickly in such a short amount of time that we can’t quite get a handle on what this new state is going to look like.”

Using 1,500 years of natural records compiled from lake sediments, ice cores, and tree rings as context, the NOAA report says the Arctic is changing at a rate far beyond what’s occurred in the region for millennia.

“The rate of change is unprecedented in at least the last 1,500 years and probably going back even further than that,” Mathis said. “Not only are we seeing big changes, we’re seeing the pace of that change begin to increase.”

In the NOAA report, Arctic scientists lay out their best ideas of what this shift could mean for the world. Their depictions are sobering.

Take, for instance, the hypothesis of University of Alaska-Fairbanks permafrost scientist Vladimir Romanovsky: So far, 2017 has seen the highest permafrost temperatures in Alaska on record. If that warming continues at the current rate, widespread thawing could begin in as few as 10 years. The impact of such defrosting “will be very very severe,” Romanovsky says, and could include destruction of local infrastructure — like roads and buildings — throughout the Northern Hemisphere and the release of additional greenhouse gases that have been locked for generations in the ice.

View image on Twitter

BuzzFeed Storm

✔@BuzzFeedStorm

NOAA: Arctic saw 2nd warmest year, smallest winter sea ice coverage on record in 2017 http://www.noaa.gov/media-release/arctic-saw-2nd-warmest-year-smallest-winter-sea-ice-coverage-on-record-in-2017 …

6:49 PM - Dec 12, 2017

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The loss of sea ice is already having profound changes all the way down at the base of the Arctic food web. As more sunlight hits darkly-colored open water, more heat energy is retained, and temperatures are rising further. That’s kicking off what Mathis, of NOAA’s Arctic Program characterizes as “an almost runaway effect,” involving a lengthening of the growing season, a greening of the tundra, a surge in wildfires, and a boom in plankton growth. All that adds up to a wide-ranging disruption to patterns that Arctic natives have relied on for millennia.

The effects are being felt further afield, too. “We’re fairly confident now,” Mathis said, that the warming Arctic is “creating conditions where more extreme weather events are beginning to show up in North America.” For example, separate research published earlier this month found a robust link between dwindling Arctic sea ice and an expanding risk of California drought.

The report’s urgent language begs the question: What concrete actions will a science-denying White House take as a result of this new information?

Acting NOAA Administrator Gallaudet said he personally presented the report at the White House last month, adding that Trump administration officials are “addressing it and acknowledging it and factoring it into their agenda.”

That the Arctic is now a relic of a time gone by — the first major part of the planet on a countdown clock — should shock us. It’s one of those facts that those of us who closely follow climate change knew was coming. And with its arrival, it is devastating in its totality.

The loss of the Old Arctic is as close as humanity has come so far to irreversibly transforming its planet into something fundamentally different than what has given rise to civilization over the past 10,000 years. This is a terrifying transition, and one worth mourning. But it’s also a reminder that our path as individuals and as a society is not fixed.

If the Arctic can change this quickly, then so must we.