John Hanno – Page 208 – The Tarbabys Blog

It Would Be Nice If Republicans Would Actually Read A Bill

HuffPost

It Would Be Nice If Republicans Would Actually Read A Bill

Bruce Maiman – January 19, 2023

From left to right: House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) talks to reporters during a news conference with Rep. Anthony D'Esposito (R-N.Y.), Rep. Michael Cloud (R-La.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) on Jan. 10 in Washington, D.C. — From left to right: House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) talks to reporters during a news conference with Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.), Rep. Michael Cloud (R-La.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) on Jan. 10 in Washington, D.C.

While President Joe Biden’s document drama puts him in a tricky political situation, let’s not lose sight of the Republican Party’s “to be continued” style of incompetent governance.

Looking back at their first two weeks running the House of Representatives, you have to conclude one of two things: Either Republicans are stupid, or they think their constituents are.

Voters sent a clear message in the midterms: We’re tired of “crazy.” We want bipartisanship, not extremism.

Moreover, supporters of abortion rights, angered by the Supreme Court’s unraveling of Roe v. Wade, turned out in droves and delivered several key elections for Democrats, according to CNN exit polling. Republicans surely would have liked to win some of those districts, no?

So, what happened? Week one: Republican extremists turned the speakership vote into Crazy Town.

Week two: Republicans passed a pair of anti-abortion bills and, in a real insult to everyone’s intelligence, voted to repeal tens of billions of dollars in IRS funding via the so-called Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act. Consider this tweet from Rep. Ashley Hinson (R), of Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District:

A screenshot of a tweet from Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa).

Look, you can have your opinion on abortion, and maybe you like the extremists, but can someone please read a bill? Or at least listen to some “Schoolhouse Rock”?

You have to love how these hoopleheads clamored for a rule requiring bills to be released at least 72 hours before a floor vote so lawmakers would have ample time to read them. At the same time, they had seven months to read the Inflation Reduction Act, but evidently couldn’t pencil that in. Passed in August, the act explains — justifies, really — its nearly $80 billion in IRS funding.

Incidentally, Democrats implemented that 72-hour rule in 2019 when Republicans rammed through a tax bill just hours after introducing a final version.

Hinson is probably just repeating what Republican leaders are saying now. Or what any Republican with a pulse was shrieking last summer. Or the howls of the campaign ads and political mailers you might have seen ahead of the November midterms: Eighty-seven thousand new IRS agents to audit small businesses and hard-working Americans!

Even seasoned Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who you’d think would know to read a bill, have been in full scaremongering mode, all deploying the same talking points.

Here’s the reality: The IRS is understaffed, overwhelmed and digitally dated. Thirty years ago, the IRS had 117,000 employees. Today, it has 78,000. It faces an expected wave of 50,000 retirements this decade. Its budget has been slashed by nearly 20% since 2010.

These circumstances have created a massive backlog. For example, according to the Treasury Department, nearly 200 million taxpayers called the IRS for assistance in the first half of 2021. There were 15,000 employees available to assist them. That’s one person for every 13,000 calls.

Funding from the Inflation Reduction Act aims to address these shortfalls by hiring 87,000 new IRS employees ― over the next 10 years, not all at once. And most of the hires will be to replace all those retirees.

So, dear Republican voter, did your favorite lawmaker explain any of that to you? No? Why not?

Will all the money go toward hiring IRS agents to audit taxpayers? Nope.

· $45.6 billion will go toward hiring more enforcement agents, shoring up legal support and investing in “investigative technology.”

· $25.3 billion will cover routine costs, like rent, facilities, printing and postage.

· $3 billion will go to customer services, such as prefiling assistance and education, and the possibility of creating a free direct e-file program.

· $5 billion will go toward modernizing the IRS’s business systems and customer service technology. Some agency computers still use programming language that dates back to the 1960s.

So, Republican voter: Why didn’t your favorite lawmakers explain that? Maybe they didn’t read the bill ― or reports from the Government Accountability Office, the Treasury Department, the Congressional Research Service or the Congressional Budget Office, or even a letter from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to the IRS commissioner, affirming these commitments ― which means they didn’t do their job. Maybe they’re just repeating someone else’s talking points. Maybe they’re stupid enough to believe those talking points ― or maybe they think you are. Maybe they think you’re too lazy to do your own research to learn what’s in the legislation.

Feel better?

Audits have declined most dramatically for the wealthy. For example: In 2012, the percentage of companies with at least $20 billion in assets subjected to audit was 93%. By 2020, it was just 38%.

The resulting tax gap — what people owe versus what they pay — is estimated to be more than $600 billion. Much of this is due to drastic cuts in the IRS’s budget, courtesy of Tea Party fanatics a decade ago.

Since then, the number of IRS auditors has fallen by more than 40% even as the tax code has gotten more complex. The agency’s auditors are no match for the battery of pricey accountants and tax attorneys who help the affluent avoid or evade their tax obligations.

Sidebar: In the past decade, the tax code has been amended or revised more than 4,000 times. Keep in mind that the agency doesn’t make those changes; Congress does. So while Congress was making tax law more complex, it gelded the agency tasked with tending to its directives.

The poster boy for this is former President Donald Trump. We still don’t know why the IRS didn’t enforce its own policy of mandatory audits of the sitting president.

If you hate paying taxes, you should really hate the people who don’t pay their fair share. If the uber-wealthy don’t pay all the taxes they legally owe, guess who makes up the difference through higher tax rates? You and me. As Leona Helmsley supposedly said, “Only the little people pay taxes.”

Taxes are monies we pay for services we say we want. Less tax revenue means more borrowing to pay for those services, which increases the deficit.

In fact, the Congressional Budget Office notes that without the new funding, the deficit would actually grow by about $114 billion over the next decade. In other words, the repeal would cost more than the actual funding. How’s that for stupid?

Sorry, but I don’t like being robbed by tax cheats. I want lots of IRS agents to keep them from picking my pocket. There is another consequence to all this neutering: The worse IRS customer service gets, the more cheating the wealthy can get away with, causing the rest of us to become more resentful toward and fearful of the agency.

The idea of the “overbearing IRS” is just another shibboleth Republicans use to rile up their base for the benefit of the GOP’s fat cats while securing votes for reelection. No honest, conscientious American has anything to fear from the IRS. Indeed, polls have repeatedly shown that most Americans regard paying taxes as a civic duty.

Remember: This month, a New York judge fined the Trump Organization $1.6 million (the max allowed by law) after convictions on 17 counts of tax fraud. Meanwhile, Trump’s longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg drew five months in prison for his involvement in the tax scams. These are the people who hate and fear the IRS.

How can Republicans continually whine about the deficit when they’re trying to undercut the means to collect the money that would help reduce it?

They whine about waste, but they waste time and tax dollars on votes for bills they know won’t go anywhere in the Senate, let alone survive a presidential veto. Where do they think the funding for their pork projects comes from? Magic?

Maybe you think taxes should be higher or lower, or that we should have a more simplified tax code. But so long as we have taxes (and unless you want anarchy, we need taxes), we’ll need an agency to manage and administer those monies, and to ensure that citizens and businesses are playing by the rules. And that agency must be properly staffed and funded.

House Republicans claim they want the IRS to function better. If they want a smaller, more efficient and effective government, they should be the first ones to leave ― especially the ones running interference and engaging in performance politics solely to score cheap points.

Unless, of course, we learn that the IRS funded Hunter Biden’s laptop. Ah, it’s all coming together now!

‘So much pain’: KC-area woman who spent 322 days on a ventilator with COVID dies

The Kansas City Star

‘So much pain’: KC-area woman who spent 322 days on a ventilator with COVID dies

Lisa Gutierrez – January 19, 2023

COVID-19 began stealing Gwen Marie Starkey from her Missouri family nearly two years ago. It forced the retiree to spend 322 days, nearly all of 2021, hooked to an uncomfortable noisy ventilator.

But in the end, Starkey left this earth in peace, at home with family.

Starkey, 61, of Polo, north of Kansas City, died on Jan. 2, after contracting COVID-19 in February 2021. She leaves behind her husband, Troy Starkey, two daughters, four grandsons and three sisters.

Starkey caught COVID before vaccines were widely available.

“News I never wanted to share,” her daughter, April Shaver, told The Star after her mother died. “She passed on her own. She went on hospice by choice and passed in less than a week.

“It’s been terribly difficult but we had almost a year with her at home with us.”

Starkey had just retired after 30 years at the Ford Motor Co. Kansas City Assembly Plant in Claycomo when she and several relatives got infected during a family gathering a few days before the Super Bowl. She got the worst case.

“The next day our lives changed without us even knowing it,” said Shaver. “I even told her, ‘You died the day you got COVID because you have never been the same. I’ve been grieving you for two years.”

About a month after she was hospitalized, Starkey told her family on FaceTime that she didn’t work all those years at the Ford plant just to die in a bed with COVID.

Gwen Starkey spent her 60th birthday in a hospital bed. She spent nearly all of 2021 on a ventilator after getting COVID-19.

Taking on the naysayers

In the first of several stories The Star wrote about Starkey’s battle, Shaver said it shocked her to see her mother — healthy, active, an avid gardener — felled so quickly.

She had never seen her mother so helpless, her hands so gray and lifeless. She watched her mother become “a body in a bed” as life moved on around her.

Starkey’s father died while she was on the ventilator. She celebrated her 60th birthday in the hospital.

Outside of Kindred Hospital Northland in the summer of 2021, April Shaver of Kansas City held her 2-year-old son, Malakai, up to the window during a visit to see her mother, Gwen Starkey.

Watching her mother suffer, Shaver lost patience with the naysayers. She became so angry at people who called COVID a hoax that she posted a photo of herself holding her mom’s hand in the hospital. She wrote on Facebook: “This. Is. Covid. Please stop trying to say it’s not real.”

It was rare for COVID patients to spend that long on a ventilator. Sharkey became national news in July 2021 when Shaver appeared on “Erin Burnett OutFront” on CNN to talk about her mother’s health.

Starkey’s illness became a frustrating series of strides and setbacks, of hope and helplessness. She had collapsed lungs. Her kidneys failed.

She couldn’t speak for months after doctors tunneled into her throat with a tracheotomy tube. Sick as she was, she rode in ambulances several times, moving from one facility to another as her health waxed and waned.

She was admitted to Liberty Hospital in February 2021, transferred to Saint Luke’s in Kansas City, moved to a transitional care hospital in the Northland, returned to Saint Luke’s when she faltered, returned to Kindred Hospital Northland and entered MidAmerica Rehabilitation Hospital in Johnson County last January.

She had just come off a ventilator then, earning a “Certificate of Ventilator Liberation” certificate.

She finally returned home to Polo last February but was never able to get out of bed again, Shaver said. She was hospitalized several times during her year at home.

Gwen Starkey of Polo, Missouri, spent the last year of her life at home with family members, including her 4-year-old grandson, Kai.

‘Ready to go’

Having her at home wasn’t “your usual family time,” Shaver said. Mostly, her mom just wanted “uneventful” peace and quiet.

Starkey still had to endure dialysis, riding 40 minutes back and forth to nearby Richmond three times a week. Missing an appointment sometimes led to a short hospital stay. But some days it was just too much. She chose not to go because the trip alone exhausted her.

In early December, during one of her mother’s good spells, Shaver went to Texas and got a tattoo on her right forearm: a butterfly and flowers like the ones in her mom’s garden. “Before I left she was so full of life and I was so happy because I felt like she was bouncing back,” she said. “But when I came back it felt like she was declining again.”

The timeline of Starkey’s last days “was just so bizarre,” Shaver said.

The day after Christmas, Starkey decided she wanted hospice care. The next day, Shirkey Hospice and Palliative Care from Richmond arrived. Family members said goodbye.

“I had my breakdown, confessed all my childhood secrets to her,” Shaver said. “It was happy, sad, everything you’d expect a goodbye to be.”

But her mom had a dream that God told her: “It’s not your time.” So Starkey sent hospice away.

But on Dec. 30, Starkey went to yet another dialysis session and changed her mind. She was ready to go.

On New Year’s Eve, family members said goodbye again.

On New Year’s Day, Starkey was unresponsive.

On the night of Jan. 2, she died.

Gwen Starkey never fully recovered from COVID-19. She spent the last year at home in bed. This is one of the last photos of her with family members in December.

One regret?

“She was in so much pain. You could look at her and could just tell,” said Shaver. “When I had my heart-to-heart with her, I was sobbing, my dad was sobbing, my husband was sobbing. She was completely dry-eyed. She was ready to go. She was good with God.”

When Starkey first got sick, the family waited to take her to the hospital. Loved ones, and Starkey herself, were scared that if she was put on a ventilator she would die. They had heard horror stories about COVID patients dying on the machines.

No one wanted to take her to the hospital. She didn’t want to go either, said Shaver, who has had COVID three times. She is vaccinated and boosted.

“Had we known, we would have sent her to the hospital several days before,” Shaver told The Star.

Starkey’s husband of more than 25 years spent the last two years as her caretaker, at her bedside in all those hospital rooms, at her side at home. Shaver worries that he needs looking after now. “He went from being needed all day to sitting in a room that’s quiet and empty,” she said.

Her mom requested a party after she was gone. The family plans to have one in the summer.

“The last thing she said to me, Shaver said, was, ‘Everything is going to be OK.”

From Gwen Starkey’s funeral. She was an avid gardener and her daughter, April Shaver, got a tattoo of flowers in her mother’s memory.

Researchers find a more sustainable way to grow crops under solar panels

Engadget

Researchers find a more sustainable way to grow crops under solar panels

Translucent solar cells that split the light spectrum could allow for more productive use of arable land.

Kris Holt, Contributing Reporter – January 18, 2023

Researchers say they have determined a way to make agrivoltaics — the process of growing crops underneath solar panels — more efficient. They found that red wavelengths are more efficient for growing plants, while the blue part of the spectrum is better for producing solar energy. Solar panels that only allow red wavelengths of light to pass through could enable farmers to grow food more productively while generating power at the same time.

Previous studies have found that agrivoltaics can reduce the amount of water required for crops, since they’re shaded from direct sunlight. Researchers at Michigan Technological University determined in 2015 that shading can reduce water usage by up to 29 percent. Majdi Abou Najm, an associate professor at University of California, Davis’ department of land, air and water resources, told Modern Farmer that by splitting the light spectrum, crops can get the same amount of carbon dioxide with less water while shielding them from heat.

The researchers put the idea to the test by growing tomatoes under blue and red filters, as well as a control crop without any coverings. Although the yield for the covered plots was about a third less than the control, the latter had around twice the amount of rotten tomatoes. Abou Najm noted that the filters helped to reduce heat stress and crop wastage.

A blue filter over crops with a temperature reading super imposed.

For this approach to work in practice, though, manufacturers would need to develop translucent solar panels that capture blue light and allow red light to pass through. Matteo Camporese, an associate professor at the University of Padova in Italy and lead author of a paper on the topic, suggested that translucent, carbon-based organic solar cells could work. These cells could be applied onto surfaces such as glass.

There are other issues, including the fact wavelength-selective agrivoltaic systems may need to account for different crop types. Harvesting those crops efficiently might require some out-of-the-box thinking too. Still, the research seems promising and, with a growing global population, it’s important to consider different approaches to using our resources more productively.

“We cannot feed 2 billion more people in 30 years by being just a little more water-efficient and continuing as we do,” Abou Najm said. “We need something transformative, not incremental. If we treat the sun as a resource, we can work with shade and generate electricity while producing crops underneath. Kilowatt hours become a secondary crop you can harvest.”

Skipped Showers, Paper Plates: An Arizona Suburb’s Water Is Cut Off

Skipped Showers, Paper Plates: An Arizona Suburb’s Water Is Cut Off

Jack Healy – January 16, 2023

A water hauler sets up hoses to fill the tank at a home that is listed for sale in the Rio Verde Foothills outside of Scottsdale, Arizona, on Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times)

RIO VERDE, Ariz. — Joe McCue thought he had found a desert paradise when he bought one of the new stucco houses sprouting in the granite foothills of Rio Verde, Arizona. There were good schools, mountain views and cactus-spangled hiking trails out the back door.

Then the water got cut off.

Earlier this month, the community’s longtime water supplier, the neighboring city of Scottsdale, turned off the tap for Rio Verde Foothills, blaming a grinding drought that is threatening the future of the West. Scottsdale said it had to focus on conserving water for its own residents, and could no longer sell water to roughly 500 to 700 homes — or around 1,000 people. That meant the unincorporated swath of $500,000 stucco houses, mansions and horse ranches outside Scottsdale’s borders would have to fend for itself and buy water from other suppliers — if homeowners could find them, and afford to pay much higher prices.

Almost overnight, the Rio Verde Foothills turned into a worst-case scenario of a hotter, drier climate, showing what happens when unregulated growth collides with shrinking water supplies.

For residents who put their savings into newly built homes that promised desert sunsets, peace and quiet (but relegated the water situation to the fine print), the turmoil is also deeply personal. The water disruption has unraveled their routines and put their financial futures in doubt.

“Is it just a campground now?” McCue, 36, asked one recent morning, after he and his father installed gutters and rain barrels for a new drinking-water filtration system.

“We’re really hoping we don’t go dry by summer,” he said. “Then we’ll be in a really bad spot.”

In a scramble to conserve, people are flushing their toilets with rainwater and lugging laundry to friends’ homes. They are eating off paper plates, skipping showers and fretting about whether they have staked their fates on what could become a desiccated ghost suburb.

Some say they know how it might look to outsiders. Yes, they bought homes in the Sonoran desert. But they ask, are they such outliers? Arizona does not want for emerald-green fairways, irrigated lawns or water parks.

“I’m surrounded by plush golf courses, one of the largest fountains in the world,” said Tony Johnson, 45, referring to the 500-foot water feature in the neighboring town of Fountain Hills.

Johnson’s family built a house in Rio Verde two years ago, and landscaped the yard with rocks, not thirsty greenery. “We’re not putting in a pool, we’re not putting in grass,” he said. “We’re not trying to bring the Midwest here.”

The heavy rain and snow battering California and other parts of the Mountain West over the past two weeks is helping to refill some reservoirs and soak dried-out soil. But water experts say that one streak of wet weather will not undo a 20-year drought that has practically emptied Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir, and has strained the overburdened Colorado River, which supplies about 35% of Arizona’s water. The rest comes from the state’s own rivers or from aquifers in the ground.

Last week, Arizona learned that its water shortages could be even worse than many residents realized. As one of her first actions after taking office, Gov. Katie Hobbs unsealed a report showing that the fast-growing West Valley of Phoenix does not have enough groundwater to support tens of thousands of homes planned for the area; their development is now in question.

Water experts say Rio Verde Foothills’ situation is unusually dire, but it offers a glimpse of the bitter fights and hard choices facing 40 million people across the West who rely on the Colorado River for the means to take showers, irrigate crops, or run data centers and fracking rigs.

“It’s a cautionary tale for homebuyers,” said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. “We can’t just protect every single person who buys a parcel and builds a home. There isn’t enough money or water.”

Porter said a number of other unincorporated areas in Arizona rely on water service from larger nearby cities like Prescott or Flagstaff. They could find themselves in Rio Verde’s straits if the drought persists and the cities start taking drastic conservation measures.

There are no sewers or water mains serving the Rio Verde Foothills, so for decades, homes there that did not have their own wells got water delivered by tanker trucks. (The homes that do have wells are not directly affected by the cutoff.)

The trucks would fill up with Scottsdale water at a pipe 15 minutes’ drive from the Rio Verde Foothills, and then deliver water directly to people’s front doors. Or rather, to 5,000-gallon storage tanks buried in their yards — enough water to last an average family about a month. When the tanks ran low, homeowners would call or send an electronic signal to the water haulers for another delivery.

It was a tenuous arrangement in the middle of the desert, but homeowners said the water always arrived, and had come to feel almost as reliable as a utility hookup.

Now, though, the water trucks can’t refill close by in Scottsdale, and are having to crisscross the Phoenix metro area in search of supplies, filling up in cities a two-hour round trip from Rio Verde. That has meant more driving, more waiting and more money. An average family’s water bill has jumped to $660 a month from $220, and it is unclear how long the water trucks will be able to keep drawing tens of thousands of gallons from those backup sources.

Heavier water users like Cody Reim, who moved into a starter house in Rio Verde two years ago, are being hit even harder. He said his water bills could now exceed $1,000 a month — more than his mortgage payment. Reim and his wife have four young children, which in normal times meant a lot of dishwashing, countless toilet flushes and dozens of laundry cycles to clean soiled cloth diapers.

Reim, who works for his family’s sheet-metal business, is planning to become his own water hauler, lashing large containers to his pickup and setting out to fill them up. He guesses that fetching water will take him 10 hours every week, but he said he would do anything to stay in Rio Verde. He loves the dark skies and the baying coyotes at night, and how his children can run up and down a dirt road that with views of the Four Peaks Wilderness.

“Even if this place went negative and I’d have to pay somebody to take it, I’d still be here,” he said of his house. “There’s no other option.”

Cities across the Southwest have spent years trying to cut down on water consumption, recharge aquifers and find new ways to reuse water to cope with the drought.

Experts say that most Arizona residents do not have to worry about losing their drinking water any time soon, though deeper cuts loom for agricultural users, who use about 70% of Arizona’s water supply. Phoenix and surrounding cities have imposed few water restrictions on residents.

Rio Verde Foothills once felt like a remote community far from the urban centers of Scottsdale or Phoenix, residents said, a quilt of ranches and self-built houses scattered among mesquite and palo verde trees.

But over the past few years, there has been a frenzy of home construction in the area, fueled by cheap land prices and developers who took advantage of a loophole in Arizona’s groundwater laws to construct homes without any fixed water supply.

To prevent unsustainable development in a desert state, Arizona passed a law in 1980 requiring subdivisions with six or more lots to show proof that they have a 100-year water supply.

But developers in Rio Verde Foothills have been sidestepping the rule by carving larger parcels into sections with four or five houses each, creating the impression of a miniature suburbia, but one that did not need to legally prove it had water.

“It’s a slipped-through-the-cracks community,” said Porter, with the Kyl Center for Water Policy.

Thomas Galvin, a county supervisor who represents the area, says there’s not much the county can do if builders split their parcels into five lots or less to get around the water supply requirement. “Our hands are tied,” he said.

People in Rio Verde Foothills are bitterly divided over how to resolve their water woes.

When some proposed forming their own self-funded water provider, other residents revolted, saying the idea would foist an expensive, freedom-stealing new arm of government on them. The idea collapsed. Other solutions, like allowing a larger water utility to serve the area, could be years off.

On Thursday, a group of residents sued Scottsdale in an effort to get the water turned back on. They argued the city violated an Arizona law that restricts cities from cutting off utility services to customers outside their borders. Scottsdale did not respond to the lawsuit.

Rose Carroll, 66, who is a plaintiff in the suit, said she would support any idea that would keep her from having to kill her donkeys.

She moved to Rio Verde Foothills two years ago, and runs a small ranch for two dozen rescued donkeys who had been abandoned, left in kill pens or doused with acid. The donkeys spend their days in a corral on her seven-acre property, eating hay and drinking a total of 300 gallons of water every day.

Carroll collected rainwater after a recent winter storm, enough for a few weeks’ worth of toilet flushes. The new cost to get water delivered to the ranch could reach an unaffordable $1,800 a month, she said, so she is putting some of the donkeys up for adoption and said she might have to euthanize others if she does not have enough water to keep them alive.

She said she got a call a few days ago, asking her to take in two more abandoned donkeys, but had to say no.

“I didn’t have the water,” she said.

Health Experts Break Down the Science That Has Politicians Debating a Gas Oven Ban

Good Housekeeping

Health Experts Break Down the Science That Has Politicians Debating a Gas Oven Ban

Zee Krstic – January 16, 2023

gas stove top burner fueled by methane gas — Can Gas Ovens Really Make You Sick?Valerii Vtoryhin – Getty Images

New research published in 2022 has linked gas stove pollution to negative health effects, prompting federal regulators to consider potential legislation.
Health experts say that gas stoves may pose an elevated risk to respiratory health due to a byproduct of burning methane gas in kitchens, known as nitrogen dioxide.
A leading environmental pollutant, nitrogen dioxide has been linked to increased asthma and lung disease for decades — but scientists are now looking at how gas stoves may contribute to the issue.
Our experts in the Good Housekeeping Institute share ways you can reduce any potential health risks associated with gas ovens without purchasing a new stove.

Recent headlines about the potential for an outright ban of gas ovens and stoves in the U.S. may have you concerned that federal regulators are coming for your oven.

But despite sparking a political debate among lawmakers on Capitol Hill, White House officials said Wednesday that new legislation concerning gas stoves and ovens won’t be officially considered any time soon, CNN reports. In short, open gas flames in home kitchens won’t be banned outright — and that it’s unlikely any potential future regulations would affect someone who already owns a gas stove top.

But concern remains over new research regarding the potential drawbacks of using gas burners at home, with some experts arguing that it’s just the latest study to back up years of evidence suggesting gas stoves may worsen respiratory health over time — and potentially trigger asthma.

In a December 2022 report published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, the use of gas stoves in home kitchens was linked to an increased risk of asthma among children, in particular.

The evidence presented by researchers estimated that nearly 13% of childhood asthma cases in the U.S. may be traced back to exposure to chemical byproducts of burning gas. This purported link was prefaced by a similar report released by the American Medical Association in late 2022 that formally recognized “the association between the use of gas stoves, indoor nitrogen dioxide levels and asthma.”

These recent developments — as well as additional data from the 1990s to as recent as 2014 — prompted the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to announce it would consider new forms of regulation on gas stoves.

Lawmakers are currently debating whether or not regulation should be implemented that could require gas stoves to be sold with a hood that vents to the outdoors among other proposals, per Bloomberg, but others in the healthcare field are seizing the moment to educate American families about ways to improve their kitchen hygiene.

If you’re among the more than 40 million American households currently using gas ovens in their kitchens, according to the U.S. Energy Information Association, there are several ways you can improve indoor air quality that doesn’t include quitting your stove altogether.

Many risks can be reduced by better ventilation in your kitchen, explains Nicole Papantoniou, the Good Housekeeping Institute‘s Kitchen Appliances & Innovation Lab Director. That all starts with the hooded vent above your oven, which should be turned on well before you begin cooking — and regularly cleaned to avoid poor circulation.

Read on for more tips and to learn about the potential risks associated with gas ovens, plus what you can do right now to reduce them while cooking at home.

Why are experts worried about gas stove tops?

Believe it or not, there are many ways in which health experts say cooking at home may lead to poor air quality issues, which can impact your health over time. But a gas burner may indirectly pose more of a threat than an electric stove top, due to the byproducts that are released into the air as methane gas burns while you cook; namely, nitrogen dioxide, which has been linked to respiratory issues as well as cardiovascular risks, explains Huawei Dong, M.D., pulmonology and critical care medicine professor at the University of California, Irvine’s School of Medicine and pulmonologist at UCI Health.

“When we breathe that in, it causes irritation and local inflammation into the bronchial tubes and the airways,” Dr. Dong says, which you may not even notice if you’ve never experienced prior respiratory issues like asthma. “One of the key things that happens in asthma patients, whether you’re a child or an adult, is that the airways become inflamed and they become narrower, causing things like wheezing and shortness of breath.”

It’s important to note that nitrogen dioxide is produced whenever fossil fuels are burned, which means the overwhelming majority of this particular pollutant comes from vehicles and nearby power plants, adds Dr. Dong. And while there are established guidelines released by officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that dictate appropriate levels of nitrogen dioxide, especially as it relates to vehicle emissions and other factors, there aren’t guidelines for indoor settings just yet.

In fact, researchers have established that gas stove tops produce considerable nitrogen dioxide when they’re in use. A Stanford University study published in early 2022 suggests that the amount of nitrogen dioxide emitted from gas stoves and ovens exceeded EPA standards within minutes. But since there isn’t any regulation for indoor appliances just yet, this is where CPSC officials want to step in.

How can gas stove tops impact your health?

Gas ovens aren’t likely to be the sole reason that you develop a respiratory issue, including asthma — Dr. Dong tells Good Housekeeping that most asthma cases, including those in children, are considered “multifactorial” by doctors who treat them.

After all, genetics often play a heavy hand in how likely it is for someone to develop asthma or other breathing difficulties. But available research on nitrogen dioxide and other commonplace air pollutants indicates that there is a link between poor respiratory health and increased exposure, and the December 2022 report only further suggests that impactful exposure may be occurring indoors more frequently than we realize.

“Some of the risk for asthma certainly may come down to what we’re exposed to in the home, as well as where we live and the outdoor environments we spend time in due to air pollution,” she says. “We’ve known that for decades in seeing the development of worse asthma and lung disease — but, most of that effect is cumulative over time.”

Translation: Sitting beside an open gas burner in your kitchen for a few minutes won’t significantly increase your asthma risk, even for children and their developing lungs and immune systems. What healthcare experts are more concerned about is the exposure effect over the course of months and years — and how gas ovens may exacerbate breathing issues for someone who is already asthmatic or seriously hampered by their respiratory health. This is when Dr. Dong says more immediate, short-term symptoms are noticeable (and the need for prevention is key).

Despite the recent research, the need for more evidence on how nitrogen dioxide triggers respiratory issues indoors is needed, as there is some conflicting research on the childhood asthma link that CPSC officials referred to earlier this year. A 2013 Lancet Respiratory Medicine study that touts data collected from 500,000 children globally indicates that researchers couldn’t determine “an association” between gas stoves and self-reported asthma diagnosis or symptoms.

In the end, future regulation on gas stoves may simply focus on the sale and manufacturing of gas ovens; back in October, a peer-reviewed study published in Environmental Science and Technology illustrated that some gas stoves may leak methane gas and benzene, another pollutant, even when not in use. New manufacturing regulations may prevent this from happening, as well as encourage the use of properly installed vents that effectively remove airborne pollutants from kitchens entirely.

Are gas stoves unsafe?

CPSC officials have clarified that a ban on gas stoves and ovens isn’t on the table currently — and you shouldn’t feel the need to rip out your gas stove ASAP over air quality concerns, as both Good Housekeeping Institute pros and healthcare officials agree that there are many ways to reduce any inherent respiratory risks.

Raj Dasgupta, M.D., a pulmonary critical care specialist at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, tells Good Housekeeping that nitrogen dioxide build-up can largely be dissipated through the use of an exhaust hood, or range hood, in addition to odors, smoke and grease. Additionally, opening windows for fresh air can better assist range hoods that don’t vent directly to the outdoors.

Of course, not every kitchen has a hooded vent over a gas stove top, which is the best way to ensure air pollutants don’t hang around your kitchen. If your space is only equipped with a vented fan, opening windows and providing fresh air supply is even more important, Dr. Dasgupta says.

You may also want to consider investing in an air purifier. “There aren’t a lot of downsides to having an air purifier in your home, aside from the financial investment — they help remove various contaminants from the air in your kitchen, namely smoke and odors,” he adds, as well as dust, pollen and pet dander, all of which may contribute to asthmatic risk and on-set symptoms over time as well.

Regular maintenance of your gas oven and stovetop is also crucial to ensure that air pollution remains as minimal as possible while you cook. Our experts in the Good Housekeeping Institute‘s Kitchen Appliances & Innovation Lab recommend doing the following:

Turn vents or fans on before you start cooking. It takes time for high-speed fan settings to kick in, and smoke and other pollutants in the air simply hang suspended if air flow isn’t strong enough. Putting your vent or fan on before you begin cooking ensures this won’t happen
Keep your gas burner clean. Grease, splatter and other kitchen residue can easily build up over the gas burners on your stove top, which may delay or prevent the complete ignition of a burner, which could contribute to potential gas leakage over time, according to Papantoniou. Keeping your burners clean can help prevent this from happening.
Replace fan filters and have vents serviced regularly. You can do this with the help of your oven’s manufacturer. Replacing filters regularly ensures grease and other airborne pollutants are captured effectively, leaving less work for any air purifiers you have elsewhere in your home. And if it’s possible, work with a professional

If you’re able, consider investing in a vent hood that has an optimized capture efficiency range — even if that means replacing an outdated model, advises Dan DiClerico, the Good Housekeeping Institute‘s home improvement and outdoor director. “It should be within the 70 to 80% range, and is usually included as a spec on many newer models, though manufacturers aren’t required to list it,” he adds.

The bottom line:

It’s unclear when and if federal consumer safety regulators will introduce new rules for oven and stove manufacturers. Americans should rest easy knowing that there won’t be any changes required for those who currently use gas ranges in their home — though, research is clear that these types of ovens likely pose an additional health risk compared to electric models.

Focusing on improving the ventilation in your kitchen is key if you’re worried that cooking is adding to poor air quality at home. Simply working to open as many windows or doors as you can while cooking can offset poor air quality, and is essential for anyone who is already facing established respiratory issues. And taking the time to have any hooded range vent or kitchen fan regularly serviced by HVAC professionals may reduce the risk of suspended smoke, odor and other pollutants above your stove top.

Additionally, air purifiers can work to combat pollutants in your kitchen as well as other airborne factors in your home contributing to respiratory irritation. Experts say dust, pollen, pet dander and odors are often targeted by air purifiers, but the best air purifiers also work to reduce volatile nitrogen dioxide released into kitchens over time.

The key to a longer, healthier life is dealing with inflammation – here’s how to do it

The Telegraph

The key to a longer, healthier life is dealing with inflammation – here’s how to do it

Miranda Levy – January 16, 2023

In the past few years, a new buzzword has entered conversations about illness and disease. Doctors are increasingly talking about “inflammation” – a term which describes the automatic response – or flaring up – of the body when it tries to fight infections, toxins and trauma.

Until recently, “inflammation” has generally been used to describe something you can see: the redness of a stubbed toe, or the “-itis” of a swollen pair of tonsils or appendix. Then there are the auto-immune conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease. But now attention is being given to “hidden” inflammation, a chronic, insidious lifelong process that could be responsible for common conditions from heart disease to cancer and Type 2 diabetes, and even depression and dementia.

Dr Shilpa Ravella is a transplant gastroenterologist, assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Centre and the author of a new book: A Silent Fire: The Story of Inflammation, Diet and Disease.

“We used to largely talk about inflammation as a consequence, not as a root cause, of a disease,” she says. “But in the past couple of decades, there is increasing evidence that inflammation itself can cause or is associated with higher rates of chronic illness. Inflammation affects ageing, the germs in our gut and the function of our intestines.”

In the short term, inflammation is a normal healthy response to invaders. When your body encounters an offending agent – such as viruses, bacteria or toxic chemicals – it activates the immune system. Your immune system sends out its first responders: inflammatory cells and cytokines (substances that stimulate more inflammatory cells) to neutralise the intruders or to start healing injured tissue. In acute inflammation, the body jumps to immediate attention – for example, healing a cut. But with chronic inflammation, your body continues sending inflammatory cells even when there is no outside danger.

We are used to seeing “acute inflammation” on a daily basis, for example when we hit our knee against a table and it reddens and heats. “This is a manifestation of inflammatory changes occurring on a microscopic level, owing to increased blood flow and the dilation of blood vessels,” says Ravella. “Scientists have long known that, while being of benefit to a host organism, inflammation can also cause tissue damage.” But hidden inflammation is not always visible to the naked eye. It happens deep in the body – in our gut, our pancreas, our blood vessels.

As we age, our immune response becomes less well regulated and chronic inflammation can persist for months or years, with the immune system engaging in prolonged “friendly fire” damaging the body over time. Right now, patients walking into their GP’s office are unlikely to be routinely tested for hidden inflammation (although a cardiac clinic may test for an inflammatory marker called high-sensitivity C-reactive protein – or CRP – which is produced by the liver).

“But testing for inflammation ‘proxies’ can be telling,” says Ravella. “For example, fat around the belly – which is a marker for the highly inflammatory visceral fat that wraps around inner abdominal organs – or high blood sugars, are signs of hidden inflammation.”

Ravella is particularly concerned with what she terms the “skyrocketing” of conditions such as obesity, Type 2 diabetes, allergies and cancer – which she terms “inflammatory diseases”. Repeated studies over the past 20 years, including two in the influential New England Journal of Medicine, have shown a firm link between inflammation and cardiovascular disease, as chronic inflammation plays a role in atherosclerosis, or “hardening” of the arteries. Similarly, research suggests that chronic inflammation may play a part in DNA damage and gene alterations associated with several types of cancer.

“We now know that many of our chronic conditions are – at least in part – inflammatory disorders. By preventing or treating the inflammation, we may be able to decrease the risk of future disease,” says Ravella. “For example, half of people with heart disease do not have high blood cholesterol levels, which is a common risk factor for developing heart disease. But studies have shown that when we treat low-level inflammation, you can lower the risk of a future heart attack or stroke.”

Inflammatory diseases are the most common cause of sickness and death in the world today, says Ravella. “Genetics play a part in these conditions (in some more than others) but they can’t be the only cause. Research is increasingly showing that many inflammatory diseases are largely lifestyle disorders.”

Of course, we can’t change our genes, but we can change our lifestyle. Read on, for simple anti-inflammatory lifestyle tweaks that could add years to your life.

Unsurprisingly, diet is key

“So much of the anti-inflammatory approach involves your diet, which in turn affects the gut microbiome – the helpful germs inside our intestines,” says Ravella. “Fibre is anti-inflammatory and vital for the health of your gut germs,” she says. “Few of us get enough fibre.”

UK research backs up her assertion: according to a 2022 report from Action on Fibre, only 9 per cent of UK adults meet the recommended amount. In 2015, the government increased the dietary recommendation from 24g to 30g per day and since then there has been very little change in the UK population intake.

Much of Ravella’s book devotes itself to the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, which is based on high fibre and anti-inflammatory plant-based foods, where the main source of fat is olive oil, and red meat and sweets are treats, eaten only occasionally.

Perhaps the biggest advert for the Mediterranean diet is the man who “discovered” and promoted it: physiologist Ancel Keys died in 2004, just shy of his 101st birthday.

Variety matters

“One of the biggest misconceptions is that an anti-inflammatory diet excludes different food groups. It’s actually very inclusive,” says Ravella.

According to Action on Fibre: “Over the years government policy has focused on reducing the amount of calories, salt and sugar we consume, but there has been little focus on increasing foods and nutrients we need more of.” Maybe it’s time to take note.

Ravella counsels patients to fill their plates with as diverse an array of plants as possible. “This includes foods we have been conditioned to avoid: whole grains – even beans and those containing gluten – are anti-inflammatory foods,” she says.
Cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower and kale, are especially healthy because they contain molecules called isothiocynates, which remove toxins, prevent DNA damage, and kill cancer cells.

“They offer powerful protection against chronic inflammatory diseases,” says Ravella. She also recommends the soluble fibre found in bananas, oatmeal and beans. “Gut bacteria love these foods. They ferment soluble fibre to make short-chain fatty acids which lower inflammation in the intestines and throughout the body,” she says.

Repeated research, including a 2019 study in Clinical Nutrition, has shown that foods which are high in polyphenols – colourful berries, citrus fruits, whole grains and nuts – combat cancer-inducing free radicals and regulate inflammatory markers including CRP. Mushrooms are a natural source of vitamin D, known for helping the body absorb calcium and support the immune system. Onions and garlic also stimulate immunity and support gut bacteria.

Foods to avoid

“The immune system responds to the Western diet, loaded with modern animal fare, sugar, salt, refined carbohydrates and processed foods, as it would a noxious germ,” says Dr Ravella. “Studies in both animals and humans show that this diet can directly activate the immune system, stressing cells in our body and prompting immune cells to produce an overload of inflammatory molecules, and fewer anti-inflammatory ones.”

So foods to swerve: high-sugar breakfast cereals, crisps and other salty foods, processed meats including bacon and sausages, fizzy drinks, anything including corn syrup and excess saturated fats.

Do I really have to give up meat altogether?

“Modern animal foods are not the same quality as those eaten by our ancestors,” says Ravella. “For example, antelope flesh, which anthropologists suggest is similar to Paleolithic meat, is leaner and higher in omega-3 fats than modern meat. Meanwhile, there is increasing evidence that animal protein is harmful for the body, leading to an excess of toxic substances such as hydrogen sulphide in the gut, which is tied to diseases like inflammatory bowel disease, and even cancer.

“People sometimes claim that a low-carb diet high in modern animal foods helps them to lose weight, but the inflammation created by these foods can be silent and insidious, so the cost of routinely consuming these foods is not always initially apparent.”

A poor diet can still lead to visceral fat and hidden inflammation, even in the absence of visible belly fat.

In the early 1970s, Ancel Keys – he of the Mediterranean diet fame – observed a group of super-fit Finnish loggers who lived on a diet of red meat, butter and eggs, and were dropping dead of heart attacks at the highest known rate in the world.

Ravella’s message here is clear: cut back on the animal foods in your diet. In particular, minimise or avoid red and processed meats.

“If you choose to include animal foods in your diet, maximise your fibre intake first, and then choose high-quality fermented dairy, eggs, seafood and lean poultry in small proportions that align with traditional dietary patterns – like the Mediterranean diet.”

A Silent Fire: The Story of Inflammation, Diet and Disease by Shilpa Ravella, is available at Penguin.

Why nurses say they are striking and quitting in droves

The Washington Post

Why nurses say they are striking and quitting in droves

Lauren Kaori Gurley, The Washington Post – January 15, 2023

This flu season, Benny Matthew – a nurse at the Montefiore Medical Center emergency room in the Bronx – has often been responsible for 15 to 20 patients at a time.

By 3 p.m. most days, the emergency room is often exploding with patients, Matthew said. Hospital gurneys stand inches apart. When beds run out, patients squeeze into tightly packed chairs. When the chairs run out, patients must stand. Wait times to see a doctor can be up to six hours. At the same time, the hospital is advertising more than 700 nursing positions.

“We go home feeling like failures,” Matthew said. “There are times when you can’t sleep because you’re thinking: ‘Did I do anything wrong today?'”

Matthew is one of more than 7,000 union nurses who went on strike in New York City last week, protesting staffing levels, which led to two of the city’s largest nonprofit hospital systems to agree to strengthen staffing ratios at some hospitals. On Thursday, hundreds of health-care workers from around the country protested understaffing at HCA Healthcare, the nation’s largest hospital system. That included one worker from El Paso who recently admitted herself into her own emergency room for dehydration and exhaustion after working four 12-hour days in a row, her union said.

These tensions have continued to play out over the past month, as nurses have also protested, gone on strike or threatened strikes in California, Oregon, Michigan and Minnesota.

Understaffing concerns have been at the heart of labor disputes in myriad industries in recent months, including an averted national rail strike threat, but perhaps nowhere have these tensions been more pronounced than in health care and nursing. Nurses led a quarter of the top 20 major work stoppages tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2022.

While understaffing has plagued some hospitals and medical centers nationwide for years, the pandemic added new layers of stress, as nurses worked through consecutive coronavirus outbreaks that killed and disabled thousands of health-care workers. The upswing of flu and respiratory diseases in the past several months has only worsened the situation.

With no end in sight, legions of nurses have left the field, retired early or switched jobs. Some 100,000 nurses left the industry between 2020 and 2021, according to an industry trade-journal estimate. Although there were 4.4 million registered nurses with active licenses as of 2021, according to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, only 3 million people were employed as nurses, according to the Department of Labor.

Those who have remained have faced increasingly heavy workloads. They also gained more leverage in the tight labor market, leading nurses to organize new unions and even walk away from jobs to join the ranks of traveling nurses who parachute in from out of town to fill staffing gaps and tend to be paid more.

“The issue is that we are understaffed, not only in my facility, but really across the nation,” said Cathy Kennedy, president of the California Nurses Association, which represents 100,000 nurses in the state. “We are seeing an upsurge of nurses that are saying, ‘We’ve had enough. We want to organize. We really want our hospital to hear what we have to say.'”

The New York-based hospital company Montefiore did not respond to a request for comment about staffing levels. But the company touted the agreement reached by negotiators and the hospital late Wednesday that ended the strike, with some big concessions for nurses. The agreement includes a 19.1 percent raise over three years, 170 new nursing positions and emergency-room staffing ratios based on the severity of patient needs.

Harlow Sumerford, a spokesperson for HCA Healthcare, said Thursday’s protest was “an expected tactic as we are set to begin our regular cycle of bargaining with the labor union in the next few weeks.” He noted that the hospital system staffs its “teams appropriately and in compliance with state regulations.”

In the years leading into the pandemic, there were roughly enough new nurses entering the pipeline to replace the ones that retired, according to a 2022 McKinsey & Co report titled “Assessing the lingering impact of COVID-19 on the nursing workforce.” But covid changed everything. “Over the past two years, McKinsey found that nurses consistently, and increasingly, report planning to leave the workforce at higher rates compared with the past decade,” the report found, a trend that continued even as covid cases fell.

From coast to coast, mounting nursing shortages have triggered a widespread set of issues for nurses and patients, according to conversations with nine nurses. Nurses say there have been significant declines in patient care, including delayed cancer treatments and critical checkups for expecting mothers. Medications are administered late or missed altogether. The shortage has also taken a toll on nurses’ mental and physical health, as they are forced to skip meal and rest breaks and get little recovery time between shifts.

Organized strikes, and even the threat of strikes, have succeeded in pushing some hospitals to agree to address some staffing concerns. This winter nurses have won guarantees of investment in new hires, a bigger role in shaping nurse-to-patient ratios, and strong wage gains that could help with retention.

In Kalamazoo, Mich., 300 nurses – as part of the Michigan Nurses Association – won a 20 percent raise in the first year of their contract, after threatening to strike at Ascension Borgess hospital over staffing levels in December. Night nurse Lori Batzloff said the pay increase should help retain nurses. But she is concerned about her hospital’s ability to weather another covid outbreak.

Last September, in Minnesota, 15,000 nurses went on strike for three days over understaffing concerns, in the largest-ever private nurses’ strike. When hospitals still refused to concede to their demands, the nurses threatened to walk out a second time, for three weeks in December. With days to go before the strike deadline, more than a dozen hospitals, for the first time, agreed to give nurses a say in staffing levels, averting the strike.

“I think the hospitals looked around and understood that they couldn’t withstand, frankly, a 15,000-member three-week strike in Minnesota,” said Chris Rubesch, vice president of the Minnesota nurses union. “That would be crippling.”

A Twin Cities Hospital group spokesman said in a press statement when the deal was struck that the new agreement shows that hospitals and labor can work together to “develop staffing language the meets the unique needs” of hospitals, nurses and patients.

For other health-care workers who typically earn less than nurses – such as health-care technicians, dietitians and nursing assistants – the impacts of understaffing are just as bad.

“There is no morale left,” said Gregorio Oropeza, an admitting representative who registers patients at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Marina del Rey, Calif. Oropeza has colleagues who have had to drop out of the workforce after suffering severe symptoms from covid. “Everyone is there because they need a paycheck. They’re terrified of getting sick, but it is a job and they have to uphold a household.”

Oropeza and 400 of his colleagues went on a five-day strike with SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West in December over understaffing and pay concerns, but union contract negotiations have continue to stall.

Marni Usheroff, a spokesperson for Cedars-Sinai Marina del Rey, said the hospital recognizes that its employees are its “most important asset” and that during contract negotiations, the hospital has shown its “commitment to maintain staffing levels that provide important support for our health care workers.”

During the coronavirus pandemic, nurses have been organizing and winning union elections, even as unionization rates in the United States have declined.

“I remember in the middle of the pandemic, predicting that once the dust settles, there could be an explosion of new organizing and strikes to accomplish safe staffing levels,” said Sal Rosselli, president of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents 15,000 health-care employees in California. “And that’s what’s happening now.”

While some nurses are organizing, many have dropped out of the field entirely or plan to leave the industry. A 2022 survey by the staffing agency ShiftMed found that two-thirds of nurses say they are inclined to leave the profession within the next two years.

Some nurses have quit their full-time jobs to take on highly lucrative contract work, traveling to other parts of the country and temporarily filling in at short-staffed hospitals. The option has become popular among younger nurses, in particular many who are looking to pay off student loans. Demand for travel nurses is roughly double what it was at the start of the pandemic, although it has tempered since the height of outbreak, according to April Hansen, an executive at Aya Healthcare, the country’s largest travel-nurse agency.

Nurses unions say hospitals are to blame for nursing shortage problems, noting that health-care companies made a deliberate choice not to devote resources to hiring more nurses. Many hospitals profited during the pandemic, receiving millions in covid-related aid, rewarding investors with generous stock buybacks and paying executives seven-figure salaries. In the Bronx, the CEO of Montefiore, Philip Ozuah, took home $7.4 million in 2020.

“I feel that hospital administrators are hypocrites,” said Zulma Gutierrez, 42, an intensive care unit nurse at Montefiore who went on strike this week. “They’re going home making millions and we’re going home with guilt.”

But a growing and aging population, combined with the continued waves of covid, mean demand for nurses will continue to soar in the coming years. By 2025, the United States is projected to be between 200,000 and 450,000 nurses short, according to the McKinsey report.

What are the causes of climate change? Why scientists say humans are to blame.

USA Today

What are the causes of climate change? Why scientists say humans are to blame.

Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAYS – January 14, 2023

Scientists around the world are striving to learn more about how rising average temperatures worldwide influence the weather. They say it’s increasingly likely that climate change is making weather events more intense, more frequent or of longer duration.

It’s punching up temperatures in heat waves and adding some percentage of rainfall to intense storms. It also may cause weather events to occur outside times or locations where they typically happened in the past.

But what is causing climate change? Why are global temperatures rising? And is the warming climate to blame for wild weather events? Here’s some key information:

What does climate change mean?

Weather is what you see outside the window. Climate is what occurs in an area over years or decades. Climate change is the difference seen in long-term trends in air, water and ocean temperatures and longer-term weather patterns.

Monitoring stations around the world add to a growing trove of information that reveals how temperature and rainfall are changing. Some have decades of measurements, while others have more than a century of data. In Japan, they’ve recorded the start of the cherry tree bloom for more than 1,200 years.

Scientists use these historical records to study the rise in global average temperatures. For example, records show how sap rises earlier in maple trees or when wildfire seasons start earlier. They know warmer temperatures delay ice formation on the Great Lakes, when the warmer water temperatures fuel more lake effect snow.

DEFINITIONS: Is climate change the same thing as global warming?

EFFECTS: How climate change disrupts our daily life and fuels disasters.

What is the most important cause of climate change?

The biggest influence on the planet’s changing climate is the release of emissions into the atmosphere from burning oil, gas and coal to move people and goods from place to place and to create energy, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Here’s how that works:

Carbon dioxide and other naturally occurring gases have always existed in the atmosphere, keeping the world warm just as a greenhouse keeps tropical plants alive in the winter. Scientists see that “greenhouse effect” in ice cores, sediments and tree rings.
Modern day measurements show CO2 emissions are rising. Since 1958, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii has grown from 316 parts per million to 417 parts per million.
Measured in such small amounts, the change might seem minuscule. However, because CO2 has risen by more than 30% percent, NASA and other say the changes are having an out-sized impact on global average temperatures.
National and international studies document how excess carbon dioxide traps excess energy and causes the planet to get hotter faster.

If CO2 doubles above the pre-industrial levels benchmark, the draft of the latest National Climate Assessment said global temperatures could rise by 4.5 – 7.2 degrees, spawning deadly heat waves, crop damage and other cascading impacts around the world.

What are other causes of climate change?

Manufacturing, mining and cutting down forests.
Release of methane and nitrous oxide also contribute to the greenhouse effect.
The El Niño Southern Oscillation, a pattern of changing water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, can change weather patterns.
Volcanic eruptions can produce carbon dioxide emissions that warm the Earth, but also aerosol particles that have a cooling effect.

How to stop climate change

So what can be done to prevent the dire consequences forecast if emissions and temperatures continue to rise?

Scientists with the United Nations and governments around the world say fossil fuel emissions must be slashed and soon to avoid “catastrophic consequences.” To keep the increase in global average temperatures at 2.7 degrees compared to temperatures in the late 1800s, the world must reach “net zero” CO2 emissions by 2050, according to the latest climate assessment.

The world can’t slash all emissions, so reaching the result of net zero emissions requires removing carbon dioxide from the air through both natural and mechanical means, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reported. That includes measures such as preserving and protecting forests and wetlands that store carbon and developing technologies that can effectively suck carbon from the air.

Other methods urged by the U.N. and others include living a less carbon-intensive lifestyle and increasing the use of renewable energy resources.

Even if the world does reach net zero emissions, the national climate assessment states it will be impossible to prevent some of the warming already in motion.

Swedish miner finds Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth metals

Reuters

Swedish miner finds Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth metals

January 13, 2023

Location: Kiruna, Sweden

LKAB says it has identified more than 1 million tons of rare earth oxides

in the Kiruna area in the far north of Sweden

[Ebba Busch, Swedish Minister for Energy, Business and Industry]

“This is really an important day for Sweden and for the whole of the European Union. It is a significant happening which can play a key role in securing a green transition within the EU.”

Rare earth minerals are essential to many high-tech manufacturing processes

and are used in electric vehicles, wind turbines and portable electronics

Rare earth elements are currently not mined in Europe

leaving the region depending on imports from elsewhere, such as China

“We can reduce carbon footprints and strengthen our competitiveness at the same time. Obviously this is the million dollar question: is it possible to combine economic growth while at the same time reaching high set climate goals? And I say, the answer is yes. ‘’

Your Gas Stove Is Bad For Your Health. Here’s What To Know.

HuffPost

Your Gas Stove Is Bad For Your Health. Here’s What To Know.

Jillian Wilson – January 13, 2023

If you’re using a gas stove at home, it’s important to open a window while you cook.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that it is exploring potential regulations on gas stoves, which, unbeknownst to many, have harmful impacts on our health and the environment.

While rumors of a potential ban were circulating a few days ago, CPSC Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric put those to rest in a Jan. 11 statement saying he is “not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.”

Instead, the agency will prioritize research about the health risks of gas stoves and aim to create solutions that address these risks. So, no one is coming for your gas stove — but it’s worth knowing that there are serious health risks that come with natural gas cooking.

The main pollutant of concern when it comes to gas stoves is nitrogen dioxide, said Shelly Miller, a professor of medical engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder.

This is “a pollutant that we also regulate for outdoor air quality. It’s an EPA-regulated pollutant,” she told HuffPost. For reference, the EPA — or U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — regulates air pollutants based on health standards that are reviewed every few years, Miller added.

“We know nitrogen dioxide is bad, we know that the EPA regulates it but only outdoors,” Miller said, “but here we have this major source indoors, which we have not paid any attention to for decades.”

And it’s something worth paying attention to. Below, experts share the health risks of gas stoves and what to do if you have one:

Gas stoves can have negative effects on the health of both children and adults.

“Nitrogen dioxide is a respiratory irritant,” Miller said, adding that it can increase the risk of asthma attacks, incidence of respiratory infections and respiratory disease.

Miller said increased incidence of respiratory diseases is most often seen in sensitive populations like older adults and children.

Bryan Cummings, a research scientist at Drexel University’s College of Engineering, pointed out a recent study that found that 12.7% of childhood asthma in the U.S. can be attributed to the use of gas stoves indoors.

But pollutants from gas stoves don’t only impact kids. Nitrogen dioxide can exacerbate chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, commonly known as COPD, in adults, and some evidence says that it can negatively impact cognitive performance in folks of all ages, Cummings added.

As an oxidant, it may impact your lungs and your cardiovascular system, Miller explained. In fact, according to the American Heart Association, nitrogen dioxide exposure puts you at increased risk of heart attack.

It is worth noting that nitrogen dioxide exposure does not only come from your gas stove, but also comes from factors like car pollution too. But, according to Cummings, the release of nitrogen dioxide in your home is particularly harmful because it’s emitted into a confined space that often does not have great circulation with outdoor air. And, as Miller noted above, nitrogen dioxide emissions outdoors are regulated.

Studies show that gas stoves cause increased rates of childhood asthma.

If you have a gas stove, there are things you can do to reduce your exposure to nitrogen dioxide.

First, figure out if the vent on your gas stove expels the air outdoors or just circulates it around your kitchen.

Cummings said if your gas stove is below a microwave and does not have a cooking hood, it likely just pushes the pollutants around your home. If you have a hood above your stove, it’s likely that the pollutants are disposed of outdoors.

But this is just a general rule of thumb and isn’t necessarily true across the board; it’s worth checking with your landlord or the company that installed your appliances to determine where the air goes. If you find that your cooking hood moves the air outdoors, just make sure you turn on your air vent every time you cook (and not just when it gets smoky in your home).

If your vent does not expel the air outdoors, both Cummings and Miller said you should open a window — even just a few inches — while you use your gas stove. And if you don’t have a window in your kitchen, open a window elsewhere in your home to reduce the amount of pollution mixing in with your home’s air.

Additionally, if you have a HEPA air filter, you should turn that on when you cook, Miller suggested. “The air cleaner will remove all the particulate matter [but] you have to have a filter with activated carbon to remove the nitrogen dioxide,” she said.

Air cleaners with activated carbon are easy to find — you can try an Insignia air purifier from Best Buy, a Levoit air cleaner from Amazon and more.

When it comes time for a new stove, it’s worth purchasing a non-gas stove.

Getting a new stove is costly for those who own homes and largely impossible for those who rent. But, if you are in a position now or in a few years to get a new stove, consider an electric or induction stove instead of a gas stove, both experts said.

“They produce absolutely zero emissions from the heating process itself,” Cummings said. “Cooking your food might produce some emissions but that’s a totally different classification of pollution than what you get from a gas stove.”

In other words, you won’t be breathing in those harmful pollutants that come from natural gas.

On top of the health concerns, these electrically powered stoves are also better for the environment (though induction stoves, which are more energy-efficient, are also more costly).

When it comes to adding regulations around gas stoves, Miler said a decision to implement some restrictions would be great for the sake of climate change. “We need to start moving away from fossil fuel use in our homes — it would just be a huge leap forward from this issue,” she noted. Gas stoves use fossil fuels, which are bad for the planet.

Cummings added that some parts of the U.S. still get electricity (which powers both electric and induction stoves) from fossil fuels, but these stoves “will become increasingly cleaner to use as our electricity grid transitions to renewable.”

All in all, moving to a non-gas-powered stove is ideal, though impossible for many people (and that does not make you a bad person, Cummings stressed).

If you are stuck with a gas stove for the time being, follow the advice above to lower the health risks as you cook.