Category Archives: environment

An Economic Perspective on the International System | DQ-en

Demand, Supply, and a Rational World Order World order is the global community of nation states placed in a setting to reveal two features: (1) the distribution of power across individual nation st…

Source: An Economic Perspective on the International System | DQ-en

Zika Virus in Central America – Watch – Level 1, Practice Usual Precautions – Travel Health Notices | Travelers’ Health | CDC

What is the current situation?

In November 2015, the first local transmission of Zika virus infection in Central America was reported in El Salvador. Local transmission means that mosquitoes in the area have been infected with Zika virus and are spreading it to people. Zika virus is now being reported in other countries in Central America.As of December 10, 2015, the following Central American countries have reported cases of Zika virus:

  • El Salvador
  • Guatemala
  • Panama

CDC recommends that travelers to Central America protect themselves from mosquito bites. The Ministry of Health of Brazil is concerned about a possible association between the Zika virus outbreak and increased numbers of babies born with birth defects. For this reason, pregnant women should take extra precautions to avoid mosquito bites.

Source: Zika Virus in Central America – Watch – Level 1, Practice Usual Precautions – Travel Health Notices | Travelers’ Health | CDC

ArtLeaks | It is time to break the silence!

Daniel T’Seleie, from the Dene First Nation, Canada, said:“In the Arctic, we are seeing severe impacts from global climate change, simultaneously we are defending our traditional homelands and culture  from aggressive assaults on sacred and important subsistence use areas, such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. How are we to survive if the fossil fuel industry, companies such as ENI and Total continue to impede our rights? They are committing climate genocide on us, there is no way that we can allow corporations continue to generate a social license to operate by sponsoring our cultural institutions such as the Louvre.” . The Italian oil giant, Eni, has been widely criticised by environmentalists over its plans to drill in the Arctic [4] and Total was challenged just last year over its decision to purchase a shipment of Arctic oil, shortly after it had publicly declared it had no interest in Arctic oil extraction [5]. Total also has projects in the Canadian tar sands, one of the most carbon-intensive fossil fuels [6].Ragnhild Freng Dale from Stopp Oljesponsing Av Norsk Kulturliv (Norway) said:“We know that the COP is not on route to give us the deal we need to stay within a safe limit of global warming. Oil companies like Total and Eni have business plans to keep drilling for more fossil fuels in ever riskier places, when the climate science is clear it needs to stay in the ground to protect current and future generations from runaway climate change. We need to separate our cultural institutions and the climate negotiations from oil companies’ influence.”

Source: ArtLeaks | It is time to break the silence!

Exposure to toxic chemicals correlates with limited vaccine response | Vaccine News – Big Oops! C#@p!

Scientists from the University of Rochester (UR) Environmental Health Sciences Center recently conducted a study that suggests having toxic chemical exposure in early life can inhibit a baby’s vaccine response.

Source: Exposure to toxic chemicals correlates with limited vaccine response | Vaccine News

Flooding: ‘Up here in the north-east, we’re just forgotten about’ | UK news | The Guardian

“There’s been so much on the TV about Cumbria and the north-west – but what about us?” asked Andy Feeley as he helped his brother Ian clear his ruined house in the pretty town of Corbridge, Northumberland. Sodden carpets, muddy sofa cushions and soggy kitchen units were heaped up in the back garden, the shed tipped on its side, tools spewing out on to the grass.

Source: Flooding: ‘Up here in the north-east, we’re just forgotten about’ | UK news | The Guardian

Avian Flu Diary: Russia: H5 Avian Influenza In Wild Mallard – {If wild birds were the primary vector, avian influenza would be ever present globally and it is not. Industrialized poultry farming and transport is, I believe, the chief cause and facilitator… NH}

The fall often heralds the spread of avian flu in the Northern Hemisphere, which can often be carried long distances by migratory birds. In recent weeks we’ve seen outbreaks in France and Germany, and so all of Europe is on alert for signs of encroachment.From the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance of the Republic of Mordovia and Penza region (Rosselkhoznadzor) we are notified of a recent detection of avian influenza in a wild duck from Zagorsk, in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia.

Source: Avian Flu Diary: Russia: H5 Avian Influenza In Wild Mallard

California water nuked – what about crops, as well as people?

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — In a trailer park tucked among irrigated orchards that help make California’s San Joaquin Valley the richest farm region in the world, 16-year-old Giselle Alvarez, one of the few English-speakers in the community of farmworkers, puzzles over the notices posted on front doors: There’s a danger in their drinking water.Uranium, the notices warn, tests at a level considered unsafe by federal and state standards. The law requires the park’s owners to post the warnings. But they are awkwardly worded and in English, a language few of the park’s dozens of Spanish-speaking families can read.”It says you can drink the water – but if you drink the water over a period of time, you can get cancer,” said Alvarez, whose working-class family has no choice but keep drinking and cooking with the tainted tap water daily, as they have since Alvarez was just learning to walk. “They really don’t explain.”Uranium, the stuff of nuclear fuel for power plants and atom bombs, increasingly is showing in drinking water systems in major farming regions of the U.S. West – a naturally occurring but unexpected byproduct of irrigation, of drought, and of the overpumping of natural underground water reserves.An Associated Press investigation in California’s central farm valleys – along with the U.S. Central Plains, among the areas most affected – found authorities are doing little to inform the public at large of the growing risk.That includes the one out of four families on private wells in this farm valley who, unknowingly, are drinking dangerous amounts of uranium, researchers determined this year and last. Government authorities say long-term exposure to uranium can damage kidneys and raise cancer risks, and scientists say it can have other harmful effects.In this swath of farmland, roughly 250 miles long and encompassing major cities, up to one in 10 public water systems have raw drinking water with uranium levels that exceed federal and state safety standards, the U.S. Geological Survey has found.More broadly, nearly 2 million people in California’s Central Valley and in the U.S. Midwest live within a half-mile of groundwater containing uranium over the safety standards, University of Nebraska researchers said in a study published in September.Everything from state agencies to tiny rural schools are scrambling to deal with hundreds of tainted public wells – more regulated than private wells under safe-drinking-water laws.That includes water wells at the Westport Elementary School, where 450 children from rural families study outside the Central California farm hub of Modesto.At Westport’s playground, schoolchildren take a break from tether ball to sip from fountains marked with Spanish and English placards: “SAFE TO DRINK.”The school, which draws on its own wells for its drinking fountains, sinks and cafeteria, is one of about 10 water systems in the farm region that have installed uranium removal facilities in recent years. Prices range from $65,000 for the smallest system to the millions of dollars.Just off Westport’s playground, a school maintenance chief jangles the keys to the school’s treatment operation, locked in a shed the size of a garage. Inside, a system of tubes, dials and canisters resembling large scuba tanks removes up to a pound a year of uranium from the school’s wells.The uranium gleaned from the school’s well water and other Central California water systems is handled like the nuclear material it is – taken away by workers in masks, gloves and other protective garments, said Ron Dollar, a vice president at Water Remediation Technology, a Colorado-based firm.It is then processed into nuclear fuel for power plants, Dollar said.

Source: News from The Associated Press

On Artificial Turf Issue, U.S. Women Dig In at Last – The New York Times

“We have become so accustomed to playing on whatever surface is put in front of us,” the team wrote in an open letter posted Monday on The Players’ Tribune. “But we need to realize that our protection — our safety — is priority No. 1.”Good for them. With their stock and their visibility as high as it has ever been, the players realized that there has never been a better time to find their voices.So goalkeeper Hope Solo shared a photo with her one million Twitter followers and forward Alex Morgan, who battled a leg injury for much of the past year, grumbled publicly about the “horrible” conditions. Morgan even told Fox Sports that she now encourages her teammates to speak their minds and ask “whether we should be playing on it if the men wouldn’t be playing on it.”And there’s the rub. The men’s national team does not play on artificial turf. Even when it schedules a game in a stadium that has it, sod is laid down for the game, no matter the cost. The women, however, were to play eight of the 10 games of their current World Cup victory tour on artificial turf.

Source: On Artificial Turf Issue, U.S. Women Dig In at Last – The New York Times