Category: Environment

Mega-clouds of traveling smoke are harming people’s health thousands of miles away from wildfires

Mega-clouds of traveling smoke are harming people’s health thousands of miles away from wildfires

Morgan McFall-Johnsen                     
wildfire colorado smoke
A resident watches from his porch as the Cameron Peak Fire, the largest wildfire in Colorado’s history, burns outside Estes Park, Colorado, October 16, 2020. Jim Urquart/Reuters 

For the second year in a row, enormous wildfires are creating clouds of smoke big enough to generate their own weather, blanket entire continents, and turn faraway skies orange or grey.

Smoke is billowing from blazes in the western US, Canada, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Algeria, and Siberia – so much, in fact, that astronauts on the space station can see it. The wildfires in California and Oregon have darkened skies and led to air-quality warnings in New York City and Boston, as they did last summer. The Siberian fires, meanwhile, have sent clouds of smoke and ash to the North Pole, nearly 2,000 miles away, then down to Canada and Greenland.

smoke plumes dixie fire as seen from space
The Dixie fire’s thick smoke plume, as seen from the International Space Station on August 4, 2021. NASA/JSC

 

Each time a big fire burns, its smoke can rise high in the atmosphere, where winds can catch it and carry it for thousands of miles until it hits a weather system that pushes it back towards the ground. That’s when it poses a health risk. Many people see wildfires as a local problem – a danger to people in Greece or California, say, but not for them personally. That’s incorrect, according to environmental epidemiologist Jesse Berman.

“Every one of these wildfire events is an opportunity for that smoke to travel long distances and affect not only the people nearby, but also those very far away,” Berman told Insider. “People who live in areas that have relatively good air quality are going to be all of a sudden subjected to levels of pollution that are many times higher than what’s normally seen, and at levels that are very harmful to health.”

These mega-clouds of world-traveling smoke may become a regular, annual occurrence, according to Berman – “if not multiple times every single year,” he said.

Climate change is expected to lead to more frequent, larger, more intense wildfires in the coming decades. A new report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that “fire weather” will probably increase through 2050 in North America, Central America, parts of South America, the Mediterranean, southern Africa, north Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. That means more days where conditions are warm, dry, and windy enough to trigger and sustain wildfires.

man in baseball cap looks across harbor at statue of liberty through orange haze of wildfire smoke
Wildfire smoke shrouds the Statue of Liberty, as seen from Brooklyn, New York, July 21, 2021. Brendan McDermid/Reuters

 

The amount of fuel available to burn in those places – dry vegetation – is also likely to increase as rising temperatures cause the air to absorb more moisture and bring about more droughts.

“When these events cover hundreds or thousands of miles, everybody is at risk,” Berman said. “It doesn’t matter where you’re living. You can be affected by these events the same as anyone else.”

Particles in wildfire smoke can strain your lungs, heart, and immune system
bootleg fire oregon clouds
Smoke from the Bootleg Fire rises behind the town of Bonanza, Oregon, July 15, 2021. Bootleg Fire Incident Command via AP

 

Wherever it goes, wildfire smoke fills the air with microscopic particles from the material that has burned and the resulting chemical reactions.

Known as PM2.5, these particles measure no more than 2.5 micrometers across (that’s about 30 times smaller than a human hair), allowing them to penetrate deep into your lungs and enter your bloodstream. When you inhale these particles – as millions of people have in the last year – they can damage the lining of your lungs and cause inflammation.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that smoke can “make you more prone to lung infections” including COVID-19, since any breach in the lungs’ lining offers more opportunities for a virus to infiltrate.

satellite image shows smoke spreading from many points across green land
Satellite imagery shows smoke spreading over the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in eastern Russia on August 8, 2021. NASA Earth Observatory/Joshua Stevens 

 

Indeed, a recent study linked about 19,000 cases of COVID-19 on the West Coast to wildfire smoke last summer. The paper, published last week, found a correlation between high levels of PM2.5 pollution and spikes in coronavirus cases in counties across California, Oregon, and Washington.

Experts suspected as much. Previous research had already shown that wildfire smoke leaves people more vulnerable to disease. In the short term, smoke can irritate the eyes and lungs and cause wheezing, coughs, or difficulty breathing, even in healthy people. Longer-term studies have connected PM2.5 pollution to an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, heart failure, and premature death. PM2.5 particles can also impair the immune system, possibly by disabling immune cells in the lungs.

Wildfire smoke can have the most severe effects on people who are already highly vulnerable to COVID-19: the elderly, children (many of whom are unvaccinated against the coronavirus), and people with asthma or chronic lung disease.

It rained for the first time at the summit of Greenland’s ice sheet

It rained for the first time at the summit of Greenland’s ice sheet

Denise Chow                      

 

Rain fell for several hours at the highest point on the Greenland ice sheet last week — the first rainfall event in recorded history at a location that rarely creeps above freezing temperatures.

Scientists confirmed Wednesday that rain was observed Saturday at Summit Station, a research facility that sits atop the Greenland ice sheet and is operated year-round by the National Science Foundation. It was the first report of rain at the normally frigid summit, and it marks only the third time in less than a decade that above-freezing temperatures were recorded at the Arctic research station, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The rare rainfall caused significant melting at the summit and along the ice sheet’s southeastern coast over the weekend and occurred just weeks after the region experienced a separate extensive melting event in late July. The recent warm spell adds to concerns that climate change is rapidly melting ice in the Arctic, which accelerates sea-level rise around the world.

Above-freezing temperatures were recorded at Summit Station, which sits at an elevation of 10,551 feet above sea level, beginning Saturday at 5 a.m. local time. The National Snow and Ice Data Center estimated that over the course of three days 7 billion tons of rain fell over the ice sheet.

“Warm conditions and the late-season timing of the three-day melt event coupled with the rainfall led to both high melting and high runoff volumes to the ocean,” National Snow and Ice Data Center researchers said in a statement.

The rain and warmer-than-usual temperatures were caused by a region of low air pressure that settled over Baffin Island and a ridge of high pressure over southeast Greenland that pushed warm air and moisture up from the south.

The melting peaked Saturday, affecting 337,000 square miles of ice, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. By Monday, the area of melted ice had returned to “moderate levels,” the researchers said.

Greenland’s sprawling 656,000-square-mile ice sheet expands and contracts as part of natural yearly variations, but global warming is causing glacial ice to melt at a rapid pace. Some climate models suggest that without aggressive climate interventions, the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in the summers by 2050.

The consequences of that would be catastrophic. If Greenland’s ice sheet were to completely melt, scientists have said global sea levels could rise more than 20 feet, affecting coastal communities around the world and submerging low-lying cities such as Shanghai, Amsterdam and New York.

Last week, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a blistering report on the state of climate change, saying climate change is intensifying, occurring at an accelerated pace and is already affecting every region of the planet. The assessment also found that some changes that are already playing out, such as warming oceans and rising sea levels, are “irreversible for centuries to millennia.”

Biden EPA Bans Chemical Pesticide Linked to Psychological Health Disorders in Children

New American Journal

Biden EPA Bans Chemical Pesticide Linked to Psychological Health Disorders in Children

By Glynn Wilson                        August 19, 2021

 

Pesticide - Biden EPA Bans Chemical Pesticide Linked to Psychological Health Disorders in Children

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Millions of children just in the United States have been diagnosed with some form of attention deficit disorder and/or hyperactivity disorder by psychiatrists and psychologists, and are often treated with pharmaceutical medication or behavioral therapy.

But what if these problems are not genetic or cultural psychological issues, but caused by chemicals children are exposed too in industrial society?

Farmers have been spraying chlorpyrifos on food crops such as strawberries, apples, citrus fruits, broccoli and corn since 1965. But studies now show this pesticide is inked to neurological damage in children, including reduced IQ, loss of working memory, and attention deficit disorders.

While the Trump administration fought to keep it in use, the Biden administration just announced it would be banned in food from now on after a court ruling forced the Environmental Protection Agency to provide proof of the chemical’s safety or regulate it out of existence.

This week the EPA issued a final ruling saying chlorpyrifos can no longer be used on the food that makes its way onto American dinner plates, a regulatory action intended to protect children and farmworkers, according to a press release from the agency.

In a statement announcing the decision, EPA Administrator Michael Regan called it “an overdue step to protect public health from the potentially dangerous consequences of this pesticide.”

“After the delays and denials of the prior administration, EPA will follow the science and put health and safety first,” Regan said.

Health, environment and labor organizations have been waging a campaign to revoke the use of chlorpyrifos for years. The EPA was considering a ban under the Obama administration, but under Trump, the agency concluded there wasn’t enough evidence showing the harmful effects of the chemicals on humans and kept it on the market.

That decision set off a series of legal challenges. Back in April, a federal appeals court ruled the decision was up to the EPA to produce indisputable proof that the pesticide is safe for children. If the agency failed to comply by Aug. 20, the judge said, then the food growers would be barred from using it.

In addition to use on farms, chlorpyrifos is one of several common household chemicals employed to try keeping ants, roaches, termites and mosquitos out of homes.

“It took far too long, but children will no longer be eating food tainted with a pesticide that causes intellectual learning disabilities,” said Patti Goldman, an attorney for Earthjustice, which represents health, environment and labor organizations behind the lawsuit. “Chlorpyrifos will finally be out of our fruits and vegetables.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council similarly cheered the EPA’s move, but cautions that the pesticide can still be used on other things, including cattle ear tags. The group wants a ban on other organophosphate pesticides, which are in the same chemical family as chlorpyrifos.

The new rule will take effect in six months.

In studies cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, children exposed to high chlorpyrifos are significantly more likely to experience Psychomotor Development Index and Mental Development Index delays, attention problems, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder problems, and pervasive developmental disorder problems.

The estimated number of children diagnosed with ADHD, according to a national 2016 parent survey, is 6.1 million, or 9.4 percent of all children in the U.S. This number includes 388,000 children between the ages of 2–5 years, another 2.4 million between the ages of 6 and 11, and 3.3 million from 12–17. Boys are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than girls (12.9% compared to 5.6%).

Many children with ADHD are also often diagnosed with other mental, emotional, or behavioral disorders.

About 5 in 10 children with ADHD had a behavior or conduct problem, according to surveys. About 3 in 10 children with ADHD suffered from anxiety. These same children often suffer as well from depression, autism spectrum disorder, and Tourette syndrome.

About 3 out of 4 children in the U.S. diagnosed with ADHD receive some form of treatment, 62 percent taking ADHD medication. Another 47 percent receive behavioral treatment

This has a major impact on the health care field. In studies from 2008–2011, children between the ages of 2 and 5 covered by Medicaid were twice as likely to receive clinical care for ADHD compared with similar-aged children covered by commercial employer-sponsored insurance. About 3 in 4 of these who had clinical care for ADHD recorded they received ADHD medication in their healthcare claims from 2008–2014. Fewer than half received any form of psychological services.

According to breaking news coverage of EPA’s announcement by The New York Times, chlorpyrifos is one of the most widely used pesticides commonly applied to corn, soybeans, apples, broccoli, asparagus and other produce.

The EPA decision follows an order in April by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that directed the agency to halt the agricultural use of the chemical unless it could demonstrate its safety. Labor and environmental advocacy groups estimate that the decision will eliminate more than 90 percent of chlorpyrifos use in the country.

In an unusual move, the new chlorpyrifos policy will not be put in place via the standard regulatory process, under which the EPA first publishes a draft rule, then takes public comment before publishing a final rule. Rather, in compliance with the court order, which noted that the science linking chlorpyrifos to brain damage is over a decade old, the rule will be published in final form, without a draft or public comment period.

“The announcement is the latest in a series of moves by the Biden administration to re-create, strengthen or reinstate more than 100 environmental regulations,” gutted by the Trump administration, according to the Times.

The pesticide has been linked in studies to lower birth weights, reduced IQs and other developmental problems in children. Studies traced some of those health effects to prenatal exposure to the pesticide.

“Pesticides like chlorpyrifos haunt farm workers, especially parents and pregnant women,” said Elizabeth Strater, director of strategic campaigns for United Farm Workers of America, one of the groups on the petition. “They don’t hug their kids until they change clothes, they wash their laundry separately. When they miscarry, or when their children have birth defects or learning disabilities, they wonder if their work exposures harmed their children.”

Several states — including California, Hawaii, New York and Maryland — have banned or restricted the use of chlorpyrifos, and the attorneys general of those states, as well as those of Washington, Vermont and Massachusetts, joined the petition.

The Obama administration began the process of revoking all uses of the pesticide in 2015 but, in 2020, the Trump administration ignored the recommendations of EPA scientists and kept chlorpyrifos on the market.

“It is very unusual,” Michal Freedhoff, the EPA assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention, said of the court’s directive. “It speaks to the impatience and the frustration that the courts and environmental groups and farmworkers have with the agency.”

“The court basically said, ‘Enough is enough,’” Ms. Freedhoff said. “Either tell us that it’s safe, and show your work, and if you can’t, then revoke all tolerances.”

The decision is expected to lead to criticism by the chemical industry and farm lobby, which worked closely with the Trump administration ahead of its decision to keep chlorpyrifos in use.

“The availability of pesticides, like chlorpyrifos, is relied upon by farmers to control a variety of insect pests and by public health officials who work to control deadly and debilitating pests like mosquitoes,” said Chris Novak, the chief executive of CropLife America, an agricultural chemical company, at the time of Trump’s decision.

Pesticide products that include chlorpyrifos include the brands Hatchet, manufactured by Dow AgroSciences; Eraser, manufactured by Integrated Agribusiness Professionals; and Govern, manufactured by Tenkoz.

Chlorpyrifos will still be permitted for nonfood uses such as treating golf courses, turf, utility poles and fence posts as well as in cockroach bait and ant treatments.

In a withering attack on the Trump EPA, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Ninth Circuit wrote on behalf of the court that, rather than ban the pesticide or impose restrictions, the agency “sought to evade, through one delaying tactic after another, its plain statutory duties.”

According to additional coverage in The Washington Post, the regulation to curtail use of the potent insect-killing chemical on food overturns a 2017 decision by then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to keep the pesticide on the market despite a recommendation by the agency’s scientists to restrict it, given its potential risks.

“For a half-century, chlorpyrifos has proved effective in keeping all sorts of pests off soybeans, almond trees, cauliflower and other crops. Farmers often deploy it when no other pesticide can do the job,” the newspaper reports. “But for the past decade, environmental, labor and public-health groups have clamored for phasing out the pesticide, which can lead to headaches or blurred vision when inhaled or ingested. Some studies of families in apartment buildings found that exposure during pregnancy led to memory loss and other cognitive issues in children.”

Claudia Angulo, a farmworker who came from Mexico to work the citrus and broccoli fields in California’s San Joaquin Valley, was pregnant when she was exposed to chlorpyrifos. She blames the pesticide for her son Isaac’s developmental delays, after the chemical showed up in tests on his hair.

“It’s affecting a lot of families. We’re all being affected, either with allergies or some with disabilities,” said Angulo, who is now part of a class-action lawsuit. “As a mother, I’m still struggling and won’t stop until this pesticide is not harming kids.”

In one study, Impact of prenatal chlorpyrifos exposure on neurodevelopment in the first 3 years of life among inner-city children, scientists concluded:

“Results: Highly exposed children (chlorpyrifos levels of >6.17 pg/g plasma) scored, on average, 6.5 points lower on the Bayley Psychomotor Development Index and 3.3 points lower on the Bayley Mental Development Index at 3 years of age compared with those with lower levels of exposure. Children exposed to higher, compared with lower, chlorpyrifos levels were also significantly more likely to experience Psychomotor Development Index and Mental Development Index delays, attention problems, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder problems, and pervasive developmental disorder problems at 3 years of age.”

In addition to being banned in California, Hawaii, New York, Maryland, and Oregon, Canada and the European Union are already phasing out the insecticide on farms.

But federal regulators previously struck deals with chemical manufacturing companies to limit the use of chlorpyrifos for killing termites and several pests in homes, treating golf courses, and for growing cotton. The EPA will make a decision on whether to continue to allow for those and other nonfood uses by the end of next year.

According to the agency, the U.S. has a safe and abundant food supply, and children and others should continue to eat a variety of foods, as recommended by the federal government and nutritional experts. Washing and scrubbing fresh fruits and vegetables will help remove traces of bacteria, chemicals and dirt from the surface. Very small amounts of pesticides that may remain in or on fruits, vegetables, grains, and other foods decrease considerably as crops are harvested, transported, exposed to light, washed, prepared and cooked.

California’s Caldor Fire has grown 20 times bigger: ‘It’s devastation’

California’s Caldor Fire has grown 20 times bigger: ‘It’s devastation’

Doyle Rice, USA TODAY                       

 

California’s Caldor Fire was more than 20 times bigger on Thursday than it was on Tuesday and has forced over 10,000 people to flee their homes, according to fire officials.

On Wednesday, dozens of fire engines and crews were called in from other fires to fight the Caldor fire, which exploded through heavy timber in steep terrain since erupting over the weekend southwest of Lake Tahoe in El Dorado County.

The fire, the cause of which is unknown, was 0% contained as of Thursday, Cal Fire said. It’s now at over 65,000 acres in size.

Increased humidity on Wednesday night into Thursday morning helped slow the fire’s progress, but fire officials expect fire behavior to increase Thursday afternoon when the inversion layer lifts, sparking new spot fires to the north and northeast of the fire area. A red flag warning is scheduled to continue through 11 a.m. Thursday.

More than 6,900 structures are threatened by the fire.

The number of those evacuated in El Dorado County jumped to 16,380 Wednesday, up from about 6,850 the day prior, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services told CNN.

The fire has blackened nearly 220 square miles and on Tuesday ravaged Grizzly Flats, California, a small community of about 1,200 people.

Dozens of homes burned there. Grizzly Flats resident Chris Sheean said the dream home he bought six weeks ago went up in smoke. “It’s devastation. You know, there’s really no way to explain the feeling, the loss,” Sheean said. “Everything that we owned, everything that we’ve built is gone.”

A home burns on Jeters Road as the Dixie fire jumps Highway 395 south of Janesville, Calif., on Monday, Aug. 16, 2021. Critical fire weather throughout the region threatens to spread multiple wildfires burning in Northern California.
A home burns on Jeters Road as the Dixie fire jumps Highway 395 south of Janesville, Calif., on Monday, Aug. 16, 2021. Critical fire weather throughout the region threatens to spread multiple wildfires burning in Northern California.

 

Cal Fire reported Wednesday that the blaze had “experienced unprecedented fire behavior and growth due to extremely dry fuels pushed by southwest winds.”

Fire agencies battling the blaze say that the extent of the damage is not yet entirely known as unsafe conditions continue to prevent structure assessment teams from entering the area.

At least 16,000 other homes remain threatened by California wildfires, which are among some 104 burning throughout mostly Western states, officials from the National Interagency Fire Center said Thursday.

California’s wildfires are on pace to exceed the amount of land burned last year – the most in modern history.

The massive Dixie Fire – the nation’s largest at more than 1,000 square miles, which is about two-thirds the size of Rhode Island – also continued to burn Thursday.

The fire has destroyed 1,217 structures, including 649 homes, according to Cal Fire.

The Dixie Fire is the first to have burned from east to west across the spine of California, where the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountains meet.

No deaths have been reported despite the speed and damage of the blazes in California.

Contributing: The Associated Press; The Record, Stockton, Calif.; The Reno Gazette-Journal

Southern California officials declare water supply alert

Southern California officials declare water supply alert

 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A major Southern California water agency has declared a water supply alert for the first time in seven years and is asking residents to voluntarily conserve.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California took the step Tuesday, hoping to lessen the need for more severe actions such as reducing water supplies to member agencies.

The move comes a day after U.S. officials declared the first-ever water shortage on the Colorado River, a key water source for Southern California.

“This is a wake-up call for what lies ahead,” said Deven Upadhyay, chief operating officer for the district that supplies water to 19 million Californians.

“We cannot overstate the seriousness of this drought,” he said. “Conditions are getting worse, and more importantly, we don’t know how long it will last.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom last month asked Californians to scale back water use and many of the state’s counties, mostly in Central and Northern California, are already under a state of drought emergency.

Concern about water supplies spread to the state’s heavily-populated southern region following a winter of low precipitation and shrinking reservoirs throughout the West.

Newsom on Tuesday said he may put mandatory water restrictions in place in the coming months, the East Bay Times reported.

“At the moment, we’re doing voluntary,” he said. “But if we enter into another year of drought — and as you know our water season starts Oct. 1 — we will have likely more to say by the end of September as we enter potentially the third year of this current drought.”

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California receives about half its water from the Colorado River and State Water Project.

Water levels in Lake Mead, the largest reservoir on the Colorado River, were at about 35% of capacity on Tuesday. The State Water Project, which collects water from rivers and tributaries, has already reduced the Southern California district’s allocation to 5% and next year the amount could be zero, officials said.

Scientists say climate change has made the American West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will keep making weather more extreme.

Glen MacDonald, a University of California, Los Angeles distinguished professor of California and the American West, said even if precipitation returned it would not likely be enough to keep pace with the loss of water through evaporation due to rising temperatures.

That has the potential to not only turn California lawns brown but could also affect the nation’s food supply, which relies heavily on the state’s farmlands, MacDonald said.

“We are living in the perfect drought, right now,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, but we kind of have seen this coming.”

Raging wildfires linked to thousands of COVID-19 cases and hundreds of deaths in 2020, study says

Raging wildfires linked to thousands of COVID-19 cases and hundreds of deaths in 2020, study says

Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY                 

 

The record-setting 2020 wildfire season scorched millions of acres, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people and costing billions of dollars in insured losses.

But the damage didn’t stop there.

A study, published Friday in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, says thousands of COVID-19 cases and hundreds of deaths in California, Oregon and Washington state from March to December 2020 may be linked to wildfire smoke.

Researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health used a statistical model to measure the connection between high levels of fine particulate air pollution, or PM2.5, produced by the wildfires and the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in 92 counties.

They found a daily increase of 10 micrograms in PM2.5 per cubic meter of air for 28 days was associated with an 11.7% increase in COVID-19 cases and an 8.4% increase in death. Across the three states studied, researchers determined nearly 19,700 COVID-19 cases and 750 deaths were attributable to daily increases in PM2.5 from wildfires.

“The year 2020 brought unimaginable challenges in public health, with the convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and wildfires across the western United States,” said senior author Francesca Dominici, professor of biostatistics, population and data science at Harvard Chan School. “Climate change – which increases the frequency and the intensity of wildfires – and the pandemic are a disastrous combination.”

COVID-19 cases had the biggest increase in Sonoma County, California, and Whitman County, Washington – 65.3% and 71.6%, respectively – sites of the Glass Fire and Babb-Malden Fire.

The Glass Fire burned more than 67,000 acres in Napa and Sonoma counties in 2020, according to Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency. The Babb-Malden Fire burned more than 15,000 acres in Whitman County, KING-TV reported.

High levels of PM2.5 have been associated with a host of negative health outcomes, including premature death, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and other respiratory illnesses. Other studies have found a link between short- and long-term exposure to PM2.5 and COVID-19 cases and deaths.

“That small particle is small enough to burrow into the lung in a way that sets it up for any respiratory disease,” said Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “It can burrow past the epithelium and create inflammation. It’s a setting for any respiratory disease, including COVID, to exacerbate.”

Wildfire smoke affecting your area? Here’s how to improve your home’s air quality

Dry, hot, windy: Explosive wildfires in Northern California could burn until winter

Wildfire smoke can temporarily compromise the immune system, said Dr. Kari Nadeau, director of the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma at Stanford University.

“When you breathe in smoke, those particulates get into the lungs … they can get into your bloodstream, and they damage your immune system,” she said. “COVID affects your immune system, your lungs and your blood vessels. So you’re getting doubled up targeting of these organs in a very pathological way. It’s like a double hit.”

Although the damage is typically reversible, Nadeau said, it can become permanent in residents who have lived for decades where wildfires are common and have been repeatedly exposed to high levels of PM2.5.

It isn’t just western Americans affected by wildfire smoke. A satellite video published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in July shows how smoke produced in the West blankets much of the USA and Canada.

This year’s fire season is on pace to race past 2020. As of Aug. 12, 6,272 fires in California have burned about 1,432 square miles, according to Cal Fire.

Health experts worry the wildfires may lead to another rise in coronavirus cases this year. Unvaccinated Americans make up more than 90% of COVID-19 hospitalizations, and if the body’s defenses are further weakened by smoke, they stand little chance against the highly contagious delta variant.

They urge Americans to not only protect themselves from COVID-19 but also from wildfire smoke by staying indoors and wearing N95 masks that help block PM2.5.

“We need to try to prevent the wildfires, and we need to prevent COVID, and luckily, we have that knowledge in our hands,” Nadeau said. “We just have to do something actionable about it.”

Contributing: David Benda and Mike Chapman, Redding Record Searchlight

Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.

Minn. Residents Warned They Might Need to Evacuate amid ‘Rapidly Growing’ Wildfire

Minn. Residents Warned They Might Need to Evacuate amid ‘Rapidly Growing’ Wildfire

Superior National Forest Fire
Superior National Forest Fire. US Forest Service – Superior National Forest Greenwood Fire.

As fire crews in Minnesota work to put out a “rapidly growing and spreading” wildfire in northeastern Minnesota, authorities are warning some local residents to prepare to evacuate.

According to Superior National Forest officials, the Greenwood Fire was first detected around 3 p.m. on Sunday near Greenwood Lake, which is about 15 miles southwest of Isabella township. At the time, officials estimated it was “a couple hundred acres” in size, noting that it was “moving quickly.”

“It is rapidly growing and spreading due to high winds and dry vegetation and has the potential to impact structures and recreation assets,” the Forest Service reported in an update hours later, according to MPR News.

Lake County Emergency Management Director Matt Pollmann said the fire was about 1,000 acres in size as of Monday morning, KARE reported.

A possible cause of the fire has yet to be announced.

RELATED: Largest Single Wildfire in Calif. History Destroys Nearly 550 Homes, Threatens More

As crews continue to try and suppress the fire from the ground and air, weather conditions threaten efforts to contain the blaze.

According to the National Weather Service, Monday’s forecast for northern Minnesota calls for low humidity and gusty winds — “near-critical fire weather conditions.”

Residents living in the McDougal Lake area have been told to prepare themselves for a potential evacuation, officials said in a release.

On Sunday night, Gov. Tim Walz announced he had authorized the Minnesota National Guard to provide wildfire support in Northern Minnesota.

“This summer, Minnesota has experienced abnormally high temperatures and a historic drought resulting in dry conditions conducive to wildfires. I am grateful to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for their tireless efforts to combat wildfires in our state,” he said in a statement. “The Minnesota National Guard’s additional support will be critical to responding to these wildfires and protecting the safety of Minnesotans and their property. I am proud that our Service Members have again answered the call to serve their fellow Minnesotans.”

Florida’s outdoor workers could lose billions as climate change makes it too hot to work

Florida’s outdoor workers could lose billions as climate change makes it too hot to work

Alex Harris                      

 

Climate change, if left unchecked, could make outdoor work in notoriously hot Florida even more unbearable and unhealthy, and a new report shows it could also make that work less profitable.

Under scenarios where the world doesn’t quickly cut fossil fuel emissions, there could be a full month of the year where it’s too hot to safely work a normal day outside in Florida. Right now, Florida experiences an average of five days like that a year.

“Between now and mid-century, outdoor workers’ exposure to extreme heat would quadruple,” said Kristina Dahl, senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists and co-author of the report. “That could put them in the position to increasingly choose between their health and their paychecks.”

Florida, the third-most populous state, has the third-largest population of outdoor workers. Those 2 million workers account for nearly a quarter of the state’s workforce and earn $56 billion a year.

Those earnings could be at risk in a future with more days where it’s too hot to work outside.

By the Union of Concerned Scientists’ calculations, Florida outdoor workers could lose up to $8.4 billion of those earnings by mid-century if no action is done to slow climate change. If the world acts slowly to lower fossil fuel emissions by that time, workers could lose less, around $6 billion.

The numbers grow more dire by century’s end. With continued slow action, workers could lose around $7.5 billion a year, versus double that amount with no action.

The only state with more potential earnings at risk is Texas.

As heat and humidity rise, the CDC recommends that employers provide more work breaks to avoid heat-related illness. However, reductions in work time would translate into losses in workdays (top map) and put workers’ earnings at risk (bottom). Florida, especially South Florida, ranks highly on both maps.

 

Per Florida worker, that breaks down to losing $3,743 a year in wages by mid-century if nothing is done to switch away from fossil fuels and $2,648 a year if slow action is taken.

Miami-Dade, Florida’s most populous county, has the most outdoor workers in the state — over 300,000.

Miami-Dade’s first Chief Heat Officer, Jane Gilbert, said she’s planning to host focus groups with outdoor workers and their employers to hear more about what conditions are like and how the county could possibly protect outdoor workers. So far, no one is talking about regulations for heat exposure for outdoor workers.

“Having something on the books that you cannot enforce doesn’t make sense,” she said. “I’d rather focus our resources on raising awareness, making employers aware of what their costs are and broader responsibilities to their workforce.”

She’s also talked with the National Weather Service about sending out more alerts for dealing with heat. This summer, cities from Seattle to Boston have issued heat advisories, but there have been none in Florida, despite record-breaking temperatures.

That’s because heat, like time, is relative.

The threshold for a heat advisory in Florida is a heat index (meaning temperature plus humidity, or “feels like”) of 108 degrees Fahrenheit for at least two hours. An “excessive” heat warning requires temperatures of 113 degrees.

“You can have pretty dangerous conditions over 100 heat index and they’re not even getting into advisories until 108,” she said.

Florida heat is already hard on outdoor workers. Climate change will raise health risks.

Dr. Ankush Bansal, co-chair of the Florida Clinicians for Climate Action and a doctor of internal medicine in a Palm Beach County hospital, said extreme heat can take a toll on the body. It affects the lungs, the heart and especially the kidneys.

In extreme cases, heat illness can lead to red or brown urine, the result of muscles in the body breaking down into pieces and clogging up the kidneys.

“What happens is, and I’ve seen this, people that work outside … even athletes … are coming into the hospital with heat exhaustion or even heat stroke, which if untreated can lead to death,” he said. “If you have heart disease or a history of heart failure, it can throw you over the edge. It can cause a heart attack.”

The military treats extreme heat as a matter of national security. It has strict rules and a flag-based system for warning soldiers how much strenuous activity they can safely do outside in order to keep military personnel safe and healthy.

Florida’s soldiers face more heat risk from climate change than any other state’s

The Union of Concerned Scientists report calculated the potential lost wages by using similar standards, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations for worker safety on days when the heat index is at or over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The center suggests workers take a break for 15 minutes every hour in shade and drink water.

As the heat index rises, the recommended amount of outdoor work drops. At 104 degrees Fahrenheit, the CDC says workers should work 30 minutes and rest 30 minutes. When the heat index crosses 108 degrees Fahrenheit (the standard for a heat advisory in Florida), the CDC recommends no one work outside at all.

The report assumed those breaks were unpaid.

“It’s an assumption but it also reflects to some extent that some outdoor workers are paid annually, some are paid hourly and others are paid piece rate,” Dahl said.

Tree trimmers work along Southwest 13th Street in Fort Lauderdale to remove limbs damaged during Hurricane Irma, Sept. 18, 2017.
Tree trimmers work along Southwest 13th Street in Fort Lauderdale to remove limbs damaged during Hurricane Irma, Sept. 18, 2017.

 

Piece rate workers can be paid per pound of fruit or vegetable they pick, per lawn they mow or other per task goal, and would potentially have the most to lose economically in a future where it’s physically unsafe to work outside sometimes.

That’s a present reality in Saudi Arabia, where outdoor work is banned from noon to 3 p.m. from June to September to protect workers from dangerous heat.

In hot places like Arizona or Florida, outdoor workers already adjust their schedules to survive the summer. Construction workers get going at dawn and take breaks when the noonday sun is hottest. Some contractors, like AC repair workers, avoid sending employees into sweltering attics for jobs that can be put off til the cooler months.

Those adjustments may become more common in the U.S. as the world warms, but for now, they’re solely at the discretion of the employer.

There is no nationwide protective standard for outdoor workers, although the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health developed standards in 2016 for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to take up, which it never did. OSHA’s general duty clause requires employers to provide a safe working environment, and it has some recommendations for working in extreme heat, but it’s tough to enforce a recommendation.

Veronica Custodio, 37, picks through spinach at her father’s farm in Homestead on May 27, 2020. The farm belongs to Juventino Custodio, 53, who was forced to let his spinach rot after the coronavirus pandemic caused a disruption in his supply chain process.
Veronica Custodio, 37, picks through spinach at her father’s farm in Homestead on May 27, 2020. The farm belongs to Juventino Custodio, 53, who was forced to let his spinach rot after the coronavirus pandemic caused a disruption in his supply chain process.

 

A survey of hundreds of nursery workers in Homestead by the organization WeCount! found that more than half said they weren’t allowed to rest in the shade, 15% said they weren’t provided water and 69% had experienced symptoms of heat illness.

Farmworkers told the WeCount! organizers they try not to drink water so they can avoid bathroom breaks and possibly missing production quotas.

Another study of farmworkers in Central and South Florida measured core body temperatures, heat rate and hydration levels. Half started the day dehydrated, and three-quarters finished that way. One in three of the workers had acute kidney injury at some point in the study.

So far, California and Washington have passed state-level heat protection laws for outdoor workers, but they have different standards, leading to unequal protections during this summer’s heat wave.

“If we leave it up to states to do individually, we’re going to end up with a real patchwork of protections for outdoor workers,” Dahl said.

Reducing workload and shifting outdoor work to cooler parts of the day can help, she said. “But since there are limits to those, we found our first line of defense has to be reducing emissions.”

If Florida and the rest of the world stop burning fossil fuels, the worst effects of climate change and extreme heat can be avoided.

Bansal said there’s a common analogy in the medical world when discussing treating symptoms versus cause that applies to climate change too. If a bathtub is overflowing and you’re only putting towels on the floor but never turning off the water, the problem will never be fixed.

“And that’s what we need to do, shut off the faucet,” he said.

Miami Herald intern Ariana Aspuru contributed to this story.

Parts of the US are getting dangerously hot. Yet Americans are moving the wrong way

Parts of the US are getting dangerously hot. Yet Americans are moving the wrong way

David Sirota and Julia Rock                 
<span>Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA</span>
Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

 

Science has provided America with a decent idea of which areas of our country will be most devastated by climate change, and which areas will be most insulated from the worst effects. Unfortunately, it seems that US population flows are going in the wrong direction – new census data shows a nation moving out of the safer areas and into some of the most dangerous places of all.

To quote Planes, Trains and Automobiles: we’re going the wrong way.

The Census Bureau’s new map of the last decade’s population trends shows big growth in the west and on the coasts – and declines in the inland east coast and Great Lakes region.

Now compare that map to ProPublica maps documenting the areas most at risk of extreme heat, wildfires and flooding, and you see the problem. While there has been some recent anecdotal evidence of pragmatic climate migration, overall the census data shows America’s population growth is shifting out of areas that may be the best refuges from the most extreme effects of climate change, and into many areas that are most at risk.

Put another way: if climate change were an enemy in a war, America is not fortifying our population in the safest places – the country’s population is moving into the areas most at risk of attack.

Some of the examples are genuinely mind-boggling. For instance, upstate New York is considered one of the country’s most insulated regions in the climate crisis – and yet almost all of upstate New York saw population either nearly flat or declining. At the same time, there were big population increases in and around the Texas Gulf coast, which is threatened by extreme heat and coastal flooding.

Similarly, Philadelphia is comparatively well situated in the climate crisis – but it saw only modest population growth of 5%. It was surpassed on the list of biggest cities by Phoenix, which saw an 11% population growth, despite that city facing some of the worst forms of extreme heat and drought in the entire country.

And then there is south Florida, which saw Miami clock in a 10% population increase despite the possibility that large swaths of the city could soon be underwater. Compare that to a place like Vermont, where the population growth was flat.

This isn’t to blame Americans for moving to climate-threatened regions – after all, population growth and decline is often driven by the quest for necessities such as affordable housing and jobs. But the census data illustrate a trend that has been exacerbated by public policy.

For instance, weak zoning and land-use laws have encouraged a population explosion in the fire-prone wildland-urban interface, areas near forests and other vegetation. Likewise, federal flood-insurance subsidies have encouraged continued construction in coastal areas threatened by flooding. And corporations have not yet been forced to disclose their climate risks to investors, which potentially allows them to make investment and location decisions without factoring in such vulnerabilities.

There are ways to change the policies – for instance there has been a push to change zoning laws in ways that discourage or prohibit construction in areas most prone to wildfires. In May, Joe Biden issued an executive order requiring federally funded infrastructure to take into account current and future flood risks during construction, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing a rule to require climate risk disclosures from all public companies.

But, as the census data suggest, the Biden administration has a long way to go.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which runs the national flood insurance program, has long been underfunded and mostly helps wealthy and white homeowners. Moreover, a recent Government Accountability Office report found that while Fema has good information about flood risk to homeowners, it has not acted on that information to encourage homeowners to buy flood insurance. The report called on Congress to update the mandatory purchase requirement for flood insurance.

Meanwhile, homeowners have struggled to access buyout funds for flood-prone properties, which crucially encourage people to move out of high-risk areas and reduce the costs of future cleanup after disasters. Some parts of California have considered using that Fema aid for buyouts in wildfire-prone areas.

This spring, Fema updated its methodology for pricing flood insurance to make it more equitable and adapt to climate change.

But, of course, many of the efforts to fix those policies – or at least force them to factor in climate risks – now face vociferous opposition from powerful Republicans in Washington.

They want to pretend that nothing must fundamentally change – even though we’re already seeing that everything is changing faster than ever.

  • David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an investigative journalist. He is an editor at large at Jacobin and the founder of the Daily Poster. He served as Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign speechwriter
  • Julia Rock is a staff writer at the Daily Poster
  • This article was originally published in the Daily Poster, a grassroots-funded investigative news outlet

The Taliban now controls one of the world’s biggest lithium deposits

Quartz – Blood Minerals

The Taliban now controls one of the world’s biggest lithium deposits

By Tim McDonnell, Climate reporter                    August 16, 2021

 

Illegal mining of lapis lazuli, a gem, is a major source of revenue for the Taliban.
REUTERS/MOHAMMAD ISMAIL.
Illegal mining of lapis lazuli, a gem, is a major source of revenue for the Taliban.
When Taliban fighters entered Kabul on Aug. 15, they didn’t just seize control of the Afghan government. They also gained the ability to control access to huge deposits of minerals that are crucial to the global clean energy economy.

 

In 2010, an internal US Department of Defense memo called Afghanistan “the Saudi Arabia of lithium,” after American geologists discovered the vast extent of the country’s mineral wealth, valued at at least $1 trillion. The silvery metal is essential for electric vehicles and renewable energy batteries.

Ten years later, thanks to conflict, corruption, and bureaucratic dysfunction, those resources remain almost entirely untapped. And as the US looks to disentangle its clean energy supply chains from China, the world’s top lithium producer, to have Afghanistan’s minerals under Taliban control is a severe blow to American economic interests.

“The Taliban is now sitting on some of the most important strategic minerals in the world,” said Rod Schoonover, head of the ecological security program at the Center for Strategic Risks, a Washington think tank. “Whether they can/will utilize them will be an important question going forward.”

Minerals are a double-edged sword for Afghanistan

Global demand for lithium is projected to skyrocket 40-fold above 2020 levels by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency, along with rare earth elements, copper, cobalt, and other minerals in which Afghanistan is naturally rich. These minerals are concentrated in a small number of pockets around the globe, so the clean energy transition has the potential to yield a substantial payday for Afghanistan.

In the past, Afghan government officials have dangled the prospect of lucrative mining contracts in front of their US counterparts as an enticement to prolong the American military presence in the country. With the Taliban in charge, that option is likely off the table.

But Ashraf Ghani, the World Bank economist-turned-Afghan president, who fled the country the day of the Taliban takeover, saw the minerals as a potential “curse.” For one, most economists agree that mineral riches breed corruption and violence, particularly in developing countries, and that they often fail to yield many benefits for average citizens. At the same time, the Taliban have long illegally tapped the country’s minerals (especially lapis lazuli, a gem) as a source of up to $300 million in annual revenue for their insurgency.

What happens now that the Taliban is in control

The Taliban can’t simply flick a switch and dive into the global lithium trade, Schoonover said. Years of conflict have left the country’s physical infrastructure—roads, power plants, railways—in tatters. And at the moment Taliban militants are reportedly struggling even to maintain the provision of basic public services and utilities in the cities they have captured, let alone carry out economic policies that can attract international investors.

Competing factions within the Taliban would make it very difficult for any company to negotiate mining deals, and China is unlikely to extend to the group the scale of infrastructure loans that would be required to bring any sizable mining operations online, said Nick Crawford, a development economics researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank. That’s especially true after Chinese investors got burned on a $3 billion copper mining project in Afghanistan, that started in 2007 and failed to produce anything, largely because of challenges related to the lack of infrastructure.

“As long as there are safer and more reliable sources elsewhere, full utilization of Afghan minerals is likely to remain slow,” Schoonover said. However, China and Russia are already retaining diplomatic ties with the Taliban, and will almost certainly do business with the new regime on its home turf.

One reason for China to do so, Crawford said, could be to offshore some of the localized environmental destruction that comes with rare earth and lithium mining. In that case, mining is likely to add to the range of other environmental hazards—including water scarcity, air pollution, and extreme weather disasters related to climate change—already faced by the Afghan people.