Health – Happiness – Page 199

Evictions spiking as assistance, protections disappear

Associated Press

Evictions spiking as assistance, protections disappear

Michael Casey – August 10, 2022

Jada Riley sits in her car at night with her son Jayden Harris, 6, as she contemplates where she might spend the night, having had to move out of her apartment a few days before, Thursday, July 28, 2022, in New Orleans. “I've slept outside for a whole year before. It's very depressing, I'm not going to lie,” said Riley, who often doesn't have enough money to buy gas or afford food every day. “I don't want to have my son experience any struggles that I went through.” (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) — Jada Riley sits in her car at night with her son Jayden Harris, 6, as she contemplates where she might spend the night, having had to move out of her apartment a few days before, Thursday, July 28, 2022, in New Orleans. “I’ve slept outside for a whole year before. It’s very depressing, I’m not going to lie,” said Riley, who often doesn’t have enough money to buy gas or afford food every day. “I don’t want to have my son experience any struggles that I went through.” (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Jada Riley poses with her son Jayden Harris, 6, as they play on a basketball court near her former apartment, Thursday, July 28, 2022, in New Orleans. Two months behind on rent, Riley made the difficult decision last month to leave her apartment rather than risk an eviction judgment on her record. Now, she's living in her car with her 6-year-old son, sometimes spending nights at the apartments of friends or her son's father. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) — Jada Riley poses with her son Jayden Harris, 6, as they play on a basketball court near her former apartment, Thursday, July 28, 2022, in New Orleans. Two months behind on rent, Riley made the difficult decision last month to leave her apartment rather than risk an eviction judgment on her record. Now, she’s living in her car with her 6-year-old son, sometimes spending nights at the apartments of friends

Jada Riley blows bubbles on a basketball court to entertain her 6-year-old son Jayden Harris, Thursday, July 28, 2022, near her former apartment in New Orleans. “I've slept outside for a whole year before. It's very depressing, I'm not going to lie,” said Riley, who often doesn't have enough money to buy gas or afford food every day. “I don't want to have my son experience any struggles that I went through.” (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) — Jada Riley blows bubbles on a basketball court to entertain her 6-year-old son Jayden Harris, Thursday, July 28, 2022, near her former apartment in New Orleans. “I’ve slept outside for a whole year before. It’s very depressing, I’m not going to lie,” said Riley, who often doesn’t have enough money to buy gas or afford food every day. “I don’t want to have my son experience any struggles that I went through.” (AP

Jada Riley goes through her possessions in the trunk of her car near her former apartment, Thursday, July 28, 2022, in New Orleans. Two months behind on rent, Riley made the difficult decision last month to leave her apartment rather than risk an eviction judgment on her record. Now, she's living in her car with her 6-year-old son, sometimes spending nights at the apartments of friends or her son's father. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) — Jada Riley goes through her possessions in the trunk of her car near her former apartment, Thursday, July 28, 2022, in New Orleans. Two months behind on rent, Riley made the difficult decision last month to leave her apartment rather than risk an eviction judgment on her record. Now, she’s living in her car with her 6-year-old son, sometimes spending nights at the apartments of friends or her son’s father. (AP

Jayden Harris, 6, sits in the backseat of his mother Jada Riley's car, after having to move out of her apartment days before, Thursday, July 28, 2022, in New Orleans. Eviction filings nationwide have steadily risen in recent months and are approaching or exceeding pre-pandemic levels in many cities and states. That's in stark contrast to the pandemic, when state and federal moratoriums on evictions, combined with $46.5 billion in federal Emergency Rental Assistance, kept millions of families housed. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) — Jayden Harris, 6, sits in the backseat of his mother Jada Riley’s car, after having to move out of her apartment days before, Thursday, July 28, 2022, in New Orleans. Eviction filings nationwide have steadily risen in recent months and are approaching or exceeding pre-pandemic levels in many cities and states. That’s in stark contrast to the pandemic, when state and federal moratoriums on evictions, combined

Jada Riley leaves a basketball court as she walks to her car with her 6-year-old son Jayden Harris, Thursday, July 28, 2022, near her former apartment in New Orleans. Eviction filings nationwide have steadily risen in recent months and are approaching or exceeding pre-pandemic levels in many cities and states. That's in stark contrast to the pandemic, when state and federal moratoriums on evictions, combined with $46.5 billion in federal Emergency Rental Assistance, kept millions of families housed. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) — Jada Riley leaves a basketball court as she walks to her car with her 6-year-old son Jayden Harris, Thursday, July 28, 2022, near her former apartment in New Orleans. Eviction filings nationwide have steadily risen in recent months and are approaching or exceeding pre-pandemic levels in many cities and states. That’s in stark contrast to the pandemic, when state and federal moratoriums on evictions, combined with $46.5 billion in federal Emergency Rental Assistance, kept millions of families housed. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Jada Riley thought she had beaten homelessness.

The 26-year-old New Orleans resident was finally making a steady income cleaning houses during the pandemic to afford a $700-a-month, one-bedroom apartment. But she lost nearly all her clients after Hurricane Ida hit last year. Then she was fired from a grocery store job in February after taking time off to help a relative.

Two months behind on rent, she made the difficult decision last month to leave her apartment rather than risk an eviction judgment on her record. Now, she’s living in her car with her 6-year-old son, sometimes spending nights at the apartments of friends or her son’s father.

“I’ve slept outside for a whole year before. It’s very depressing, I’m not going to lie,” said Riley, who often doesn’t have enough money to buy gas or afford food every day.

“I don’t want to have my son experience any struggles that I went through.”

Eviction filings nationwide have steadily risen in recent months and are approaching or exceeding pre-pandemic levels in many cities and states. That’s in stark contrast to the pandemic, when state and federal moratoriums on evictions, combined with $46.5 billion in f ederal Emergency Rental Assistance, kept millions of families housed.

“I really think this is the tip of the iceberg,” Shannon MacKenzie, executive director of Colorado Poverty Law Project, said of June filings in Denver, which were about 24% higher than the same time three years ago. “Our numbers of evictions are increasing every month at an astonishing rate, and I just don’t see that abating any time soon.”

According to The Eviction Lab, several cities are running far above historic averages, with Minneapolis-St. Paul 91% higher in June, Las Vegas up 56%, Hartford, Connecticut, up 32%, and Jacksonville, Florida, up 17%. In Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, eviction filings in July were the highest in 13 years, officials said.

Some legal advocates said the sharp increase in housing prices due to inflation is partly to blame. Rental prices nationwide are up nearly 15% from a year ago and almost 25% from 2019, according to the real estate company Zillow. Rental vacancy rates, meanwhile, have declined to a 35-year low of 5.8%, according to the Census Bureau.

A report last month from the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that a tenant working full time needs to make nearly $26 per hour on average nationally to afford a modest two-bedroom rental and $21.25 for a one-bedroom. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

“Landlords are raising the rent and making it very unaffordable for tenants to stay,” said Marie Claire Tran-Leung, the eviction initiative project director for the National Housing Law Project.

“Inflation has really shrunk the supply of housing that is available for people with the lowest incomes,” she added. “Without more protections in place, which not all states have, a lot of those families will be rendered homeless.”

Patrick McCloud, chief executive officer of the Virginia Apartment Management Association, said the trend is a return to normal. “No one likes evictions, but they are in some ways a reset to the economy,” McCloud said, adding that evictions have been “artificially depressed.”

“Housing is based on supply and demand. And when no one moves and you have no vacancies, you have a tight market and prices go up.”

Graham Bowman, a staff attorney with Legal Aid Society of Columbus, Ohio, said evictions there are rising — 15% above historic averages in June alone — at a time when there are fewer places for those forced out to go.

Sheryl Lynne Smith was evicted in May from her two-bedroom townhouse in Columbus after she used her rent money to repair a sewage leak in the basement. Smith, who is legally blind and has a federal housing voucher, fears she won’t be able to find anything by September when the voucher expires because of rising housing prices and the eviction on her record.

“It’s very scary,” said Smith, 53, whose temporary stay at a hotel funded through a state program ends this weekend.

In Boise, Idaho, Jeremy McKenney, 45, moved into his car last week after a judge sided with a property management company that nearly tripled the rent on his two-bedroom house. The Lyft and DoorDash driver will have to rent a hotel room whenever he has custody of his children, 9 and 12.

“It’s definitely mind blowing,” said McKenney, adding that everything on the market is beyond his reach even after a nonprofit offered to cover the security deposit. “I have never been homeless before. I have always had a roof over my head.”

The other challenge is the federal emergency rental assistance that helped keep millions housed during the pandemic has dried up in some jurisdictions or been increasingly rejected by some landlords.

“What really gets me is there is rental assistance and so many landlords just don’t want it. They would rather throw someone on the street than take money,” Eric Kwartler, managing attorney of Lone Star Legal Aid’s Eviction Right to Counsel Project, which covers Houston and Harris County in Texas. “If you take the money, you can’t evict them. They want them out.”

The U.S. Treasury said last week that more than $40 billion of the $46.5 billion in Emergency Rental Assistance had been spent or allocated.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Virginia have gone through at least 90% of their first disbursement. Twelve states and the District of Columbia had used 50% of the second allocation, known as ERA2, by the end of May. Three — Idaho, Ohio and Iowa — haven’t spent any ERA2 money and two — Nebraska and Arkansas — didn’t accept the funds.

“The public health emergency may still be here but the funds to deal with it are rapidly disappearing,” said Martin Wegbreit, director of litigation for the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society.

Treasury is encouraging states and cities to tap other federal stimulus funds to cover the gaps. So far, over 600 state and local governments had budgeted $12.9 billion in stimulus funds to meet housing needs, including affordable housing development.

Gene Sperling, who oversees President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package, highlighted the success of its rental assistance program, which has reached 7 million mostly low-income households.

But, more needs to be done to ensure the country doesn’t return to pre-pandemic times when 3.6 million tenants were evicted annually and “evictions were too often a first resort, not a last resort,” he told a forum on eviction reforms at the White House last week.

Some lawmakers said the answer is a permanent rental assistance program. A bill introduced in July would provide $3 billion annually for rental assistance and fund services to keep families housed. A study commissioned by the National Apartment Association and the National Multifamily Housing Council says the answer is building 4.3 million apartments by 2035.

Other advocates called for permanent legal protections like right to counsel for tenants or eviction diversion programs to resolve evictions before they reach the courts.

In Richmond, Virginia, eviction filings in June were 54% below historic averages, attributed to rental assistance and more legal representation for tenants in court, Wegbreit said. Similar programs were credited with New Mexico’s eviction filings being 29% below historic averages in June.

Philadelphia, which passed a law making eviction diversion mandatory through this year, saw filings down 33%. The City Council in Philadelphia also approved spending $30 million over two years for rental assistance.

“We are trying to change the way we look at this issue in Philadelphia, where the only thing you do is go to landlord tenant court or start an eviction,” said Catherine Anderson, supervising attorney with Philadelphia Legal Assistance, who oversees the paralegals on the Save Your Home Philly hotline.

Associated Press writers Jesse Bedayn in Denver, Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia, and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed to this report

This story has been corrected to show that McKenney is from Boise, Idaho, not Boise, Utah.

‘Getting harder and hotter’: Phoenix fire crews race to save lives in America’s hottest city

The Guardian

‘Getting harder and hotter’: Phoenix fire crews race to save lives in America’s hottest city

Nina Lakhani in Phoenix. Photography by Adriana Zehbrauskas. Data visuals by Elisabeth Gawthorp from APM Research Lab and Andrew Witherspoon – August 10, 2022

The 911 call came in about an elderly man who had fallen outside a storage facility in central Phoenix. The fire crew, who are also paramedics, found 80-year-old Noel laid on his back on the concrete ramp under direct sunlight; he was weak, thirsty and very hot.

Noel, an Englishman with diabetes and hypertension, had been moving furniture when his legs gave way. His core temperature was 104F – dangerously hot. (The typical range for a healthy older adult is 97 to 99F.) His blood pressure was also very high at 242/110, and his pulse was racing.

Noel had been lying on the piercing hot concrete ramp for about 45 minutes. A firefighter wrapped an ice cold towel around his neck and inserted IV lines into both arms. It was 3.30pm and the outside temperature hovered above 100F – below the average for the time of year in Phoenix, but several degrees hotter than the previous week when monsoon rains cooled the city.

This was not an isolated incident.

So far this year, 1,215 emergency calls have been designated by dispatch as heat-related – a 34% increase on the same period in 2020, and 18% more than last year. The 911 dispatch data showed 11 heat calls that day but did not include Noel, suggesting the actual numbers could be higher.

Hotspots include areas where the city’s growing unsheltered population are concentrated, but calls are spread across the metropolitan area.

Heat can kill, so once the call comes in it’s a race against time.

The ambulance arrived within five minutes, and the crew helped Noel on to a gurney and into the air conditioned vehicle, where they placed ice packs under his armpits and on his chest. He was hooked up to a cold saline IV drip to start cooling down his core temperature.

“I feel so stupid, I pushed myself too hard,” said Noel, who was lucid but could barely open his eyes as the paramedics turned on the sirens and sped off to the ER.

It’s getting hotter in America’s hottest city, and the fire service is on the frontline of dealing with heat-related emergencies.

So far this summer, almost half the US has been under a heat advisory at one point or another, with record daytime temperatures from the Pacific north-west to Kansas and Oklahoma in the midwest to Texas and Phoenix in the south and New England and Philadelphia in the east.

Scientists warn that dangerous heatwaves will become more frequent and unpredictable unless sweeping action is taken to stop burning fossil fuels and curtail global heating.

But the scale of the health burden – the impact of heat-associated deaths, injuries and illness on individuals and services – is not fully known due to variations in the way incidents are investigated and recorded at the local level.

The Guardian recently shadowed a crew at fire station 18 in central Phoenix on three separate days in order to better understand the impact of extreme heat on first responders.

Station 18 is the busiest in Arizona, with two trucks and two ambulances covering a densely populated section of the city with few trees but plenty of strip malls, low-income apartment blocks and a growing homeless population. Each vehicle has an ice chest with cooling towels, bottled water and saline packs for heat calls.

Three teams – the A, B and C shift – work 24 hours on, 48 hours off, although many do overtime as citywide, the service is short-staffed. The station mascot is a bedbug, an ode to the frequent encounters with the tiny blood suckers.

By the end of July the B shift, which the Guardian followed, had at least five patients – two women, three men – with core temperatures over 108F – which is when their thermometer maxes out and simply reads “high”. All were unconscious and needed intubation (help breathing).

In one case a passerby called 911 after spotting a man face down, unconscious behind a wall. His core temperature at the hospital was 112F – the hottest so far this year.

The crew ripped off his clothes, placed cold towels and ice packs under his armpits, groin, and neck, and administered cold IV fluids through a hole drilled into his shin. He had no gag reflex when the crew tested it, and burn blisters on his arms and neck.

In the ER, he was put inside a body bag filled with ice, what’s known as a hot pocket, in a last-ditch attempt to cool him down. A catheter was inserted to remove any hot urine before transferring him to the ICU.

“You could feel the heat coming off his body … we do everything we can but it’s very hard to come back from that temperature,” said Brennan Johnsson, 27, who is assigned to an ambulance.

Last year’s record for Johnsson was a young homeless woman in her 20s, whose core temperature was 114F. He is relatively new to the service and remembers all the heat calls.

Excessive heat can exacerbate chronic medical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and asthma, while some drugs – prescription and illicit – can elevate the risk of heat illness. Public health experts agree that heat-associated morbidity and mortality is preventable, but socioeconomic risk factors such as homelessness, addiction and fuel poverty are rising.

Since records began in 2014, there have been just three days during the months of June and July with no 911 calls for heat illness in Phoenix, according to an analysis by APM Research Lab shared with the Guardian.

“Heat affects so much of what the fire service does,” said Rob McDade, the fire department’s public affairs chief. “This environment can be very inhospitable and it’s getting hotter.”

It was around 1pm and 106F when the fire alarm sounded, triggering a Pavlovian-type response from the guys (the crews are all male) who were cleaning up after lunch. The alarm for a fire is distinct to a medical call, and within seconds all four crews were en route with sirens and lights blazing, pulling on heavy protective gear as they rode towards the smoke.

Lofty flames emanated from an air conditioner on the roof of a gift store, the corner unit of a strip mall. Old AC units can overwork, overheat and catch on fire.

It was the third week of June, and by 2pm it was 110F outside. The captain pulled out the crew battling the blaze after about half an hour: when it’s this hot outside, they fatigue faster and it’s harder to cool down. As another team took over inside, the station 18 crew stripped down, poured cold water over their heads and chugged water and Gatorade. Half an hour later, they went back inside.

As temperatures rise every summer, more fire crews are needed to make sure they can be rotated every 30 minutes. At one point, there were seven fire trucks and three ambulances at the scene.

“If you get too hot or dehydrated, it’s game over,” said Brian Peter, a ladder specialist from a neighboring station.

Training is key. As a desert city, Phoenix gets relatively cool in the winter, so when temperatures start edging back up, the firefighters must re-acclimate to extreme heat.

Outside at the station building, a whiteboard details the skills training regimen which includes dragging tires, ladders and sledge across the car park in full gear – twice when the temperature is below 105F, once when it’s above. Station 18 is a teaching hub, and rookies train for hours listening to thrash metal, while the crews make time between calls, cooking, gym workouts and occasional power naps.

“The summer months take a physical toll. Maybe it’s my age, but it’s definitely getting hotter and harder,” said Tim West, 39, a captain with 16 years in the service who said he loses five to 10lb every year.

It’s not just his age. On 13 July 2022, dispatch recorded 52 heat calls – the highest number since records began in 2014. Five of the 10 highest heat call days have been this year, APM Research Lab found.

…

Overheated hikers are among the most costly and challenging calls, and last summer four firefighters were hospitalized after conducting mountain rescues in triple digit temperatures. It’s not just badly prepared out-of-towners, a sprained ankle or snake bite can also turn into a heat emergency as hikers can be hard to reach.

As a result, some popular trailheads now close when the National Weather Service (NWS) issues a heat advisory.

“Hiking calls put a lot of stress on some teams, 100%,” said McDade. “But heat trickles down into everything we do.”

On a hot day, any call can turn into a heat emergency.

A person injured in a traffic accident or a homeless person without shade or adequate clothing can end up with severe burns if their skin is in contact with a hot surface like a road or bench. “If the body is sandwiched between the ground at 150F and direct sunlight, it won’t end well,” said Johnsson.

In Phoenix, the trifecta of extreme heat, homelessness and substance misuse have contributed to hundreds of preventable deaths in recent years.

In one call the Guardian attended, a security guard at a Circle K convenience store found an unresponsive man who had been smoking fentanyl. In another, a recently evicted man with sores over his arms and legs was responsive but confused . Intoxicated individuals can easily overheat, burn and become dehydrated without realizing, but neither wanted to go to hospital, which is pretty much all the fire crew can offer.

But some of the worst heat emergencies this year have come after sundown.

In June and July 2022, the night-time low in Phoenix didn’t fall below 80F on 45 occasions, including 11 nights over 90F. Night-time temperatures in Phoenix are rising twice as fast as daytime temps, according to the NWS. The impact of heat is cumulative, and the body only starts to recover when it drops below 80F.

Last month, the crew responded to what dispatch said was a traffic accident involving a cyclist. It was around 8.30pm but still very hot, and the man had collapsed with heatstroke. He was confused and combative, his core temperature 107F. “At that time, it should be the home straight, people think they’ll be OK,” said firefighter Geoff Pakis, 40. “Heat deaths are 100% preventable.”

State refuses request for more water in communities with high wildfire risk

Los Angeles Times

State refuses request for more water in communities with high wildfire risk

Alex Wigglesworth – August 9, 2022

Kent Nishimura Los Angeles Times THE WOOLSEY FIRE destroyed 27 homes in Bell Canyon and damaged 17 more. The home that Mayor Eric Garcetti asked to be checked came out unscathed. — The Woolsey fire destroyed multiple homes in 2018. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

State officials have denied a request by Southern California municipal water districts for more water to mitigate wildfire risk.

The agencies had worked with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to ask the California Department of Water Resources to allocate 26,300 more acre-feet of water under the health-and-safety exception to drought rules, using the rationale that the exception should include supplies to reduce wildfire hazards by irrigating vegetation in high-risk areas.

“Irrigation of landscaping within defensible space, as described in your request, can play a role in reducing wildfire risk,” read the July 29 response from DWR and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. “However, alternative approaches for fire prevention are available that will be equally effective as supplemental deliveries, and therefore DWR is denying your request.”

Residents and officials should reduce risk by hardening structures with fire-resistant materials, creating defensible space and putting in place fuel management programs, the letter recommended. If vegetation within a defensible space can’t be watered sufficiently to keep it from dying, it should be cut back, the letter said.

“We’re frustrated by the decision but understand the state’s challenge to balance the needs of more than 27 million people receiving water from the State Water Project, along with the real possibility of another dry year,” David Pedersen, general manager of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, said in a statement.

The state is already providing the agencies with additional water under the health-and-safety exception to prevent tree die-off that would contribute to fire risk and to maintain reservoirs and other water sources for firefighting, the letter noted.

“At this time, providing supplemental water beyond these narrow demands increases the likelihood that the State will have to make even more difficult tradeoffs over water supplies in 2023,” it read.

The Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which spearheaded the request for more water, said it would pursue alternate strategies. Those include trying to purchase water from other agencies, as well as working with the Los Angeles County Fire Department to hold community workshops and other outreach efforts to educate customers about reducing fire risk around their homes, said district spokesman Mike McNutt.

“It seems like what the state is doing is pivoting out of necessity to trying to educate and push homeowners to take more responsibility for creating defensible space for themselves in the event of an advancement of a wildfire,” he said. “It’s really just this new realization that each person who lives in California has to take the responsibility on themselves to minimize their water usage and to protect their own home from the possibility of wildfires and other natural disasters.”

The Las Virgenes water district serves communities in and around the Santa Monica Mountains, most of which are rated by Cal Fire as being at the highest risk of severe wildfire. Customers in the service area, which includes Agoura Hills, Hidden Hills, Westlake Village and Calabasas, reduced water use by 20% in May and 37% in June from the same months in 2020, but the district’s allocation is 73% less, officials said.

Las Virgenes is wholly dependent on imported water, most of it from the State Water Project, and is not able to pull from groundwater supplies or alternate sources like the Colorado River, McNutt said.

For that reason, the district said, it has been forced to draw about 17 acre-feet a day from the Las Virgenes Reservoir, which is intended to meet emergency needs. The reservoir provides a roughly six-month supply of water when it’s full and is now at about 79% capacity, McNutt said.

In a letter supporting the request for more water, L.A. County Fire Chief Daryl Osby (who has since retired) wrote that should the situation continue, it could jeopardize the district’s ability to provide the department with the minimum supply needed to support flow requirements to fight fires.

Residents at a May town hall meeting of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District voiced fears over how drought restrictions would affect wildfire activity. Several speakers had survived the Woolsey fire, which destroyed more than 1,600 structures from Thousand Oaks to Malibu and killed three people. No drought restrictions were in place at the time.

“This is a public safety issue that has created concern amongst the LVMWD staff, board, residents and the communities that we serve,” Jay Lewitt, president of the water district’s board, said in a statement. “We are well aware of our region’s potential for fire danger and that is yet another reason why we relentlessly pursue more water.”

McNutt said the district will continue to have enough water to support firefighting operations, but residents can no longer count on sufficient supplies to maintain flourishing vegetation around their homes.

“In terms of having enough water to continue to irrigate your outdoor living space, where the vegetation is still alive and will help combat the flames, I don’t think that from now moving forward, that’s really going to be something people can rely upon,” he said. “It’s the new reality of what is happening in the state of California, with climate change rearing its head and with unusual and erratic weather patterns that we can’t rely on now.”

The water district understands the state’s reasoning, he added. “There’s just not enough water to satisfy the needs of everybody,” he said. “And what happened to us is just indicative of how truly historic and dire the water-scarcity situation is right now.”

Times staff writer Brittny Mejia contributed to this report.

France, in the grip of fourth heat wave this year, faces a historic drought

Los Angeles Times

France, in the grip of fourth heat wave this year, faces a historic drought

August 9, 2022

Sunflowers suffer from lack of water, as Europe is under an unusually extreme heat wave, in Beaumont du Gatinais, 60 miles south of Paris, France, Monday, Aug. 8, 2022. France is this week going through its fourth heatwave of the year as the government warned last week that the country is faced with the most severe drought ever recorded. Some farmers have started to see a decrease in production especially in fields of soy, sunflowers and corn. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard) — Sunflowers suffer from lack of water as parts of France endure its fourth heat wave of the year. (Aurelien Morissard / Associated Press)

France is in the midst of its fourth heat wave as the country faces what the government warns is its worst drought on record.

National weather agency Meteo France said the heat wave began Monday in the south and is expected to spread across the country and last until the weekend.

Overall, the southern half of France expects daytime temperatures of up to 104 degrees that won’t drop below 68 at night.

The high temperatures aren’t helping firefighters battling a wildfire in the Chartreuse Mountains near the Alps in eastern France, where authorities have evacuated around 140 people.

Meteo France said this week’s heat wave will not be as intense as the one last month, when several regions experienced record-breaking temperatures. But the high temperatures come during the most severe drought ever recorded, according to the government. Last month was the driest July since measurements began in 1959.

Some French farmers have started to see drops in production, especially in soy, sunflower and corn yields.

Water restrictions in place include daytime irrigation bans and the limiting of water usage to people and livestock and to keeping aquatic species alive.

The government said last week that more than 100 municipalities can’t provide drinking water through taps and need water to be trucked in.

The heat also forced energy giant EDF to temporarily cut power generation at some of its nuclear plants, which use river water to cool reactors.

Here’s what the Inflation Reduction Act will do to combat climate change

Yahoo! News

Here’s what the Inflation Reduction Act will do to combat climate change

Ben Adler, Senior Editor – August 9, 2022

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed by the Senate over the weekend will pursue an extremely wide and varied array of strategies intended to combat climate change. The $369 billion in climate-related spending over 10 years targets five areas: consumer clean energy costs, decarbonizing various sectors of the economy, domestic clean energy manufacturing, environmental justice, and agriculture and land use. Taken together, these programs would help the U.S. reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% from 2005 levels by 2030, and would save an estimated 3,700 to 3,900 lives per year thanks to cleaner air from a reduction in burning fossil fuels.

Steam rises from the cooling towers of the coal-fired power plant at Duke Energy's Crystal River Energy Complex in Crystal River, Fla. — Steam rises from the cooling towers of the coal-fired power plant at Duke Energy’s Crystal River Energy Complex in Crystal River, Fla. (Dane Rhys/Reuters)

This approach represents a break from many past congressional proposals designed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, most of which proposed using a singular, overarching policy, such as taxing emissions or requiring tradable permits for emissions. Those measures all died in Congress, but this one made it through the Senate and is expected to pass the House later this week.

“The whole package in terms of dealing with climate change is a long-overdue improvement,” former Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman told Yahoo News on Tuesday. Waxman was chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee for many years, and he co-wrote a bill that passed the House but died in the Senate that would have capped carbon emissions and gradually reduced the number of tradable credits for them, a system known as cap-and-trade.

“Unlike other efforts in the past, such as cap-and-trade or a carbon tax, this approach gives a lot of incentives, financial especially, through the tax code and appropriations for industry to accomplish a reduction in emissions,” Waxman said. “This climate proposal has very little, if any, regulation. It’s a lot of incentives to develop, in effect, a partnership with industry and the government … to sharpen up the technology to accomplish our goals.”

Here’s a guide to the biggest programs in each bucket of climate policies, and what they will mean for American families.

Consumer clean energy costs

Solar panels create electricity on the roof of a house in Rockport, Mass. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)

The IRA would pour money into helping homeowners, especially those with low and moderate incomes, and lower their carbon footprint and their energy bills by helping them transition to more efficient heating and cooling systems. There will be a $9 billion program to help low-income households switch to electric appliances (such as stoves) and to retrofit their homes for energy efficiency (by insulating windows, for example).

There will also be tax credits for replacing oil and gas burners with electric heat pumps and water heaters and installing rooftop solar, allowing customers to get 30% off the cost of these purchases.

To reduce dependence on oil, the bill would provide a $4,000 consumer tax credit for lower- and middle-income individuals to buy used electric vehicles, and a $7,500 tax credit to those who make less than $150,000 per year or couples who make less than $300,000 per year who buy new electric vehicles. (Qualifying EVs must cost less than $55,000 for cars and less than $80,000 for trucks.) There is also a $1 billion grant program to help local authorities make affordable housing more energy-efficient.

A family that uses all these rebates and tax credits could receive an additional grand total of $28,500 in incentives, according to the Center for American Progress. Rewiring America, an advocacy group that promotes electrification, estimates that a family that takes advantage of these incentives will save an average of $1,800 per year on home heating fuel and lower energy bills.

However, in order to win the crucial support of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., the IRA requires that an EV eligible for the tax credit must have a battery built in North America with minerals mined or recycled there as well. Currently, most EVs on the market would not qualify. The purpose is to develop EV building capacity domestically, instead of relying on China, which is the main producer of lithium-ion batteries. But automakers have expressed doubts that they will be able to meet the bill’s requirements on its timeline.

Decarbonizing the economy

Piles of coal at the PacifiCorp Hunter coal-fired electrical generation plant in Castle Dale, Utah. (George Frey/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

About $30 billion will be doled out in grants and loan programs to states and electric utilities to switch utilities from burning gas and coal to using clean energy sources such as wind and solar power. There are also grants and tax credits for clean commercial vehicles — think electric delivery trucks, buses and taxis — and money for efforts to reduce emissions from industrial processes, such as chemical, steel and cement plants.

In order to use the federal government’s buying power to catalyze private sector investment as well, the IRA contains $9 billion for the U.S. to buy clean technologies. For example, it includes $3 billion for the U.S. Postal Service to purchase zero-emission vehicles.

As part of this bill’s emphasis on equity, there is a $27 billion “clean energy technology accelerator” that will distribute funds to deploy clean energy technologies, especially in lower-income communities. An example of a recipient of these funds would be, say, a nonprofit that helps low-income renters, who can’t buy a solar panel for their own home, enjoy the cost savings of buying solar panels by pooling their money and buying solar panels to go in a public space and sharing in the savings

In a major win for environmentalists, there is also going to be a program to reduce the leakage of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas wells and pipelines. This is the rare portion of the IRA that includes sticks as well as carrots: grants to help the industry comply and the imposition of fees for operators that continue to leak methane at a high rate.

Domestic clean energy manufacturing

An electric vehicle charging station in New Rochelle, N.Y. (Star Max/IPx via AP)

Whatever the costs and benefits of Manchin’s buy-American requirements for the EV tax credits, every Democrat agrees that developing the ability to produce the key ingredients of a clean energy economy within the United States would be beneficial. So the IRA includes $30 billion worth of tax credits for manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, batteries capable of storing wind and solar energy, and the processing of key minerals needed for all those technologies (and for electric vehicles).

Separate from those tax credits for making the actual products, there are $10 billion in tax credits for building the infrastructure needed for that production, such as wind turbine and solar panel factories, and $2 billion for renovating auto factories to make EVs. The federal government will also offer up to $20 billion in loans to build new EV manufacturing facilities across the country and will provide $2 billion for additional clean energy research.

Environmental justice

Predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods and poorer communities suffer an outsize share of the effects of climate change, such as extreme heat, flooding and the pollution from burning fossil fuels on highways and in factories and power plants. The IRA will give out $3 billion in block grants for community-led projects to deal with those kinds of problems, another $3 billion for neighborhood improvements like reconnecting areas separated by highways, $3 billion to reduce pollution at ports and $1 billion for electric heavy-duty vehicles, like garbage trucks.

Agriculture and land use

Drought-conditioned saplings from resilient seeds used to reforest burn scars are grown at John T. Harrington Forestry Research Center in Mora, N.M. (Adria Malcolm/Reuters)

Plants absorb carbon dioxide, so how they are managed can affect how much carbon is in the atmosphere. The IRA will spend $20 billion on climate-smart agriculture practices (rotating crops instead of planting the same ones in the same place every year, for example) and $5 billion for forest conservation and urban tree planting.

The bill also incorporates tax credits and grants to support the domestic production of lower-carbon biofuels and $2.6 billion in grants to conserve and restore coastal areas that are needed both to absorb carbon and to manage storm surges that are becoming severe because of climate change, via rising sea levels and more intense storms.

The bill also includes some measures that were needed to win Manchin’s support that will actually make climate change worse, such as requirements that the federal government lease swaths of federal land and coastal areas for oil and gas drilling. As with the electric vehicles, Manchin is focused on producing as much energy domestically as possible. Still, the overwhelming majority of environmentalists are exultant at the IRA’s overall potential to reduce the severity of climate change.

Britain Braces for Another Round of Scorching Temperatures

The New York Times

Britain Braces for Another Round of Scorching Temperatures

Derrick Bryson Taylor – August 9, 2022

LONDON — Weeks after recording its highest-ever temperature, Britain was preparing for another unsettling stretch of hot weather, as officials said an extreme heat warning would be in place for much of the southern half of England and parts of Wales from Thursday through the weekend.

Although meteorologists predicted that temperatures would be unpleasantly hot this week, they were not expected to be as extreme as those in July, when they reached above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in Britain for the first time. Because of the expected heat this week, the U.K. Health Security Agency issued a Level 3 heat-health alert for southern and central England until Sunday, and it advised more vulnerable populations to stay hydrated and to take the necessary steps to prevent their homes from overheating. Most homes in Britain lack air-conditioning.

The heat was forecast to build throughout the week, peaking Friday and Saturday, according to the Met Office, Britain’s national weather service. Areas across central and southern England could reach up to 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit). Other parts of England, Wales and Scotland could see the mercury rise to 29 degrees Celsius (84 Fahrenheit). Similar conditions were expected in Northern Ireland.

“What the July heat wave had was this kind of southern spike toward record-breaking temperatures, really with days of really extreme heat temperatures, where this week is more of a prolonged spell of temperatures, but not quite as hot,” Stephen Dixon, a spokesman for the Met Office, said Tuesday by phone.

“There are potential impacts from prolonged heat of this nature,” he said. “I think it’s important to note that nighttime temperatures for some areas in the south won’t drop below” 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit).

Scattered thunderstorms could bring a bit of rain across the southwest and into some central areas Sunday, Dixon said, adding that there was a chance for more rain next week.

There were also concerns that the hot weather could affect transportation, with at least one official from Britain’s National Highways advising motorists to thoroughly check their vehicles before setting out.

Pets may also struggle with the heat, another official said, adding that pet owners should look after their animals with fresh drinking water, good ventilation and shade from direct sunlight.

Last month was the driest July in England since 1935, as the country received only 35% of its average monthly rainfall, according to the Met Office. On Tuesday, the BBC reported that Thames Water, which serves 15 million customers in southern England, including London, was planning to temporarily ban the use of hoses to water yards and gardens and to wash vehicles. It would be the third such ban in England this year.

Also because of intensely dry conditions, fire officials in Cornwall, in southwestern England, said Monday that there was a very high to exceptional risk of wildfire in the region and they urged residents to avoid starting bonfires and burning garden waste, as these actions could get out of control.

The heat wave across Britain in July was worsened by climate change, according to a scientific report. While tying a single heat wave to climate change requires analysis, scientists have no doubt that heat waves around the world are becoming hotter, more frequent and longer lasting. As the burning of fossil fuels causes average global temperatures to increase, the range of possible temperatures moves upward, too, making sizzling highs more likely. This means every heat wave is now made worse, to some extent, by changes in planetary chemistry caused by greenhouse-gas emissions.

‘I can’t do it again’: Can Appalachia blunt the devastating impacts of more flooding, climate change?

USA Today

‘I can’t do it again’: Can Appalachia blunt the devastating impacts of more flooding, climate change?

Chris Kenning, Connor Giffin, James Bruggers – August 8, 2022

JACKSON, Ky. – Teresa Watkins worked to salvage a few mud-caked belongings from her home on a Breathitt County branch of the Kentucky River after floods slammed her neighborhood July 28 for the second time in 17 months.

The 54-year-old, who has lived off Quicksand Road since she was a teenager, said the flooding in recent years – “more and more, worse and worse” – has left difficult dilemmas in a county where median household incomes of $29,538 are less than half the national average.

She pointed to a mobile home one family abandoned last year. More say they’re leaving for safer areas, she said, but it’s not that easy.

“I don’t know how they can afford it or where they’re going to go. Any property is basically along the river line or creek banks,” she said. “And if they go up on the mountains, the mountains slide.”

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Devastating floods that killed at least 37 people in Kentucky and damage in other parts of Appalachia, including Virginia and West Virginia, raise urgent questions about how to mitigate the impact of hazardous flooding that is likely to increase as climate change leads to more extreme weather.

In one of America’s most economically depressed regions, there are few easy answers.

The region’s mountainous landscape, high poverty rates, dispersed housing in remote valleys, coal-mining scars that accelerate floods and under-resourced local governments all make solutions extremely difficult.

Teresa Watkins, 54, salvages belongings from her flood-damaged home outside Jackson, Ky.

Measures such as flood wells, drainage systems or raising homes are expensive for cash-strapped counties. Buyouts or building restrictions are difficult in areas where safer options and home construction are limited. Many are unable or unwilling to uproot.

Tamping down extreme weather by reducing climate-changing emissions nationwide is a goal that is politically fraught, including in a region with coal in its veins, and promises no quick relief.

“If we had all the money in the world, and we had the political will and cooperation, we could go a long way towards solving these problems,” said Bill Haneberg, director of the Kentucky Geological Survey and a professor of Earth and environmental sciences at the University of Kentucky.

Even as Kentucky’s devastation renews attention to long-standing challenges, some residents said they have little hope that effective protections will arrive anytime soon.

The emphasis is on trying to rebuild what was lost. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said he may call a special legislative session for more aid to the region, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency provides housing and other help.

In Pilgrim’s Knob, Va., Sherry Honaker, 55, oversees the removal of debris from her niece's home on Dismal Creek. It was gutted in a major flood, the county’s second this year. — In Pilgrim’s Knob, Va., Sherry Honaker, 55, oversees the removal of debris from her niece’s home on Dismal Creek. It was gutted in a major flood, the county’s second this year.

Repeat floods have prompted some officials to search for longer-term answers. Buchanan County, Virginia, for example, is drawing up a plan to identify projects to blunt flooding’s impact. Those projects would still have to be paid for.

Some residents are fatalistic or doubt the government can do much. Others push for more protections in areas where many have few options to move and can’t afford flood insurance.

In the Buchanan County community of Pilgrim’s Knob, Sherry Honaker, 55, watched crews remove debris from her niece’s home on Dismal Creek. It was gutted in a major flood about two weeks before the Kentucky floods – the county’s second this year.

“Something needs to be done,” she said.

How susceptible is Appalachia?

Central Appalachia is no stranger to flooding. The latest high water in eastern Kentucky broke records, and experts expect more to follow.

Amid the larger pattern of extreme weather in the USA, from wildfires to heat waves, meteorologists and climate scientists say human-driven climate change comes with a warmer atmosphere capable of holding more moisture.

That can mean more bouts of intense rainfall, and more rain in a short period fuels flash flooding, said Antonia Sebastian, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill specializing in flood resilience and mitigation.

The region’s topography contributes to how “flashy” a flood can be, Sebastian said.

The steep slopes of the Appalachians allow water to rush quickly into the narrow valleys, sometimes swamping hollows before residents have a chance to escape.

Flooding damaged a church in Breathitt County, Ky.

In 2019, an Inside Climate News analysis of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stream flow data and satellite images of disturbed land from strip mining found areas such as the Big Sandy watershed, which straddles the Kentucky and West Virginia state line, to be among the most threatened by climate-change-driven extreme weather within the Ohio River Basin.

The region’s history of coal mining, as well as logging, can exacerbate flooding, experts said, by altering the landscape.

In surface mining, trees are the first to go, then sometimes hundreds of feet of rock are blasted away from the tops and sides of mountains to get at underground seams of coal.

“Normally, on a forested hillside, the trees and their roots will absorb 40% to 50% of the rain that falls, then slowly release it,” said Jack Spadaro, a former top federal mine safety engineer. After mining, surfaces robbed of vegetation facilitate flash flooding, he said.

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An area strip mined from 1985 through 2015 is superimposed on the Army Corps of Engineers' forecast for stream flows. The area with the most land disturbance from mining could see the biggest increase in stream flows from climate change. — An area strip mined from 1985 through 2015 is superimposed on the Army Corps of Engineers’ forecast for stream flows. The area with the most land disturbance from mining could see the biggest increase in stream flows from climate change.

Housing patterns contribute to the area’s vulnerability. Many residences are scattered in smaller communities along a road that often winds along a creek lined with steep hillsides.

In Kentucky’s Breathitt County, half of all homes are at a high risk of flooding, according to data provided to USA TODAY by the First Street Foundation, a research and technology nonprofit that tracks flood risks.

The same is true of 46% of homes in the state’s Perry County and 58% in Letcher County.

“You hear people say, ‘Oh, you know, they shouldn’t live in a flood plain. They should move someplace else.’ But if you look at a lot of these towns, there are really not a lot of good options,” Haneberg said.

Added to that is the area’s economic vulnerability. Many residents cannot afford flood insurance.

ATV drivers ferry generator fuel and water around Jessica Willett's home in Bowling Creek, Ky. Flooding tore it from its foundations and left it in the middle of the road. — ATV drivers ferry generator fuel and water around Jessica Willett’s home in Bowling Creek, Ky. Flooding tore it from its foundations and left it in the middle of the road.

Amid coal’s decline, good jobs are hard to find. Breathitt County’s poverty rate is 28%, more than twice the national rate of 11%. The median home value of $53,000 is less than a quarter of the national average, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The region has higher rates of chronic disease, and populations have fallen in recent decades.

Jessica Willett, 34, whose remote Jackson home was pushed downstream by flooding while she and her two children were inside, said she was nervous about rebuilding on Bowling Creek.

But she doesn’t want to leave her home.

“My aunt down the road, she is going to move. She lost everything,” she said. “It’s just hard because down here, there’s a lot of family land. We want our kids and grandkids to grow up on it.”

The ‘pain points’ of climate change

Standing near Dismal Creek in Virginia, Honaker looked over a giant pile of rubble. She said she wants officials to ramp up unclogging draining culverts or increasing the creek’s depth.

She looked at her niece’s home: “Maybe stilts would have helped,” she said.

Though it’s impossible to halt heavy rains and flooding, counties and towns can consider measures to limit their impact, said Tee Clarkson, a principal at First Earth 2030, a company helping Buchanan County develop its flood resiliency plan.

That could include flood walls, strengthening creek banks, dredging creeks to greater depths and expanding piping and drainage systems, he said. Houses could be raised on stilts.

A flood lifted a home in Pilgrim's Knob, Va., from its foundation. — A flood lifted a home in Pilgrim’s Knob, Va., from its foundation.

“It’s hard to keep areas from flooding, but you want to lower the pain points” for residents and infrastructure, he said.

U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, a Republican who represents eastern Kentucky, said that in an area with a “long and daunting history of flooding,” he helped secure more than $800 million over 40 years to help build flood walls, levees, tunnels and other public safety projects.

“However, this flash flood was a natural disaster that turned small creeks and mountain runoff into raging rivers that charted a new destructive course through our valleys and hollows,” he said. “These types of floods have always been one of the greatest challenges to mitigate in the mountains, and I will continue to advocate for every possible resource that we can afford to protect our mountain communities.”

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What could help, experts said, is tackling the hundreds of thousands of acres of former mine land in Appalachia still to be reclaimed, according to a report in 2021 by the environmental group Appalachian Voice.

Counties can restrict building or add stricter building requirements, but that is easiest for new construction – in Perry County, Kentucky, few new building permits were issued in recent years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Perry County Judge-Executive Scott Alexander said he looks for ways to make his county more flood-resilient, such as raising bridges or expanding reservoirs. He said a discussion might include raising homes in flood-prone areas.

“We’ve got to start looking at preventive flooding measures,” he said. He cautioned that “when you get to 12 inches of rain, especially in Appalachia, there’s not a whole lot of anything that can handle that.”

Flooding left a refrigerator covered in river mud in Teresa Watkins' home outside Jackson, Ky. — Flooding left a refrigerator covered in river mud in Teresa Watkins’ home outside Jackson, Ky.

FEMA buyouts have been an option, but they take time and can be fraught with potential harm, Sebastian said. The central Appalachian population is one of the poorest in the country and moving that population out of a region with a generally low cost of living could bring further economic hardship.

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The properties in the most flood-prone areas tend to be the most affordable, further endangering the very poorest Appalachians, said Colette Easter, president of Kentucky’s section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

“That involves gut-wrenching questions about moving away from a place that you’ve lived for a very long time, maybe generations, and you’re very connected to,” Eric Dixon, a researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, said with a deep sigh. “But maybe you don’t have another choice. Maybe that’s literally what you have to do. That’s the real heartbreaking part of this, I think.”

Flooded residents, to choices

For 15 years, Angie Rosser has lived along the Elk River in Clay County, West Virginia.

In 2016, a powerful flood hit the state, killing 23 people and causing more than $1 billion in damage.

Six years later, Rosser said her community still doesn’t have a grocery store. She hasn’t replaced much of the furniture she lost. In Rosser’s house, you’ll find a bed but no couch and no dining table.

“My house is pretty empty, because I am expecting another flood to happen – which is not a great way to live,” said Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.

Rosser understands the commitment to stay and rebuild shared by many of her neighbors, but “I’m not one of those people,” she said. “If it floods again, I’m out. I can’t do it again. It was just too exhausting.”

That same weary uncertainty has spread across hard-hit counties in Kentucky this week, where the next disaster lurks behind each heavy rainfall to come.

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Dee Davis was a Hazard, Kentucky, kindergartner when a flood devastated the area in 1957. It is seared into his memory. He recalls his grandmother and great-uncle taking a canoe to buy groceries.

“We lost everything,” he said.

That flood 65 years ago set a record water level for the North Fork Kentucky River, at 14.7 feet in Whitesburg. Locals never forgot the damage it wrought.

The most recent flooding put that same river at about 21 feet. The water rushed in with enough force to destroy the U.S. Geological Survey sensor designed to monitor the water level.

On Whitesburg’s Main Street this week, the stuffy odor of mud lingered everywhere. The sidewalks were littered with growing piles of discarded furniture, rubble and children’s toys.

The path ahead starts by reckoning with what was lost.

“You mourn the dead,” Davis said, “and you find a way to go forward.”

James Bruggers reports for Inside Climate News.

Study connects climate hazards to 58% of infectious diseases

Associated Press

Study connects climate hazards to 58% of infectious diseases

Seth Borenstein – August 8, 2022

Climate hazards such as flooding, heat waves and drought have worsened more than half of the hundreds of known infectious diseases in people, including malaria, hantavirus, cholera and anthrax, a study says.

Researchers looked through the medical literature of established cases of illnesses and found that 218 out of the known 375 human infectious diseases, or 58%, seemed to be made worse by one of 10 types of extreme weather connected to climate change, according to a study in Monday’s journal Nature Climate Change.

The study mapped out 1,006 pathways from the climate hazards to sick people. In some cases, downpours and flooding sicken people through disease-carrying mosquitos, rats and deer. There are warming oceans and heat waves that taint seafood and other things we eat and droughts that bring bats carrying viral infections to people.

Doctors, going back to Hippocrates, have long connected disease to weather, but this study shows how widespread the influence of climate is on human health.

“If climate is changing, the risk of these diseases are changing,” said study co-author Dr. Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Doctors, such as Patz, said they need to think of the diseases as symptoms of a sick Earth.

“The findings of this study are terrifying and illustrate well the enormous consequences of climate change on human pathogens,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, an Emory University infectious disease specialist, who was not part of the study. “Those of us in infectious diseases and microbiology need to make climate change one of our priorities, and we need to all work together to prevent what will be without doubt a catastrophe as a result of climate change.”

In addition to looking at infectious diseases, the researchers expanded their search to look at all type of human illnesses, including non-infectious sicknesses such as asthma, allergies and even animal bites to see how many maladies they could connect to climate hazards in some way, including infectious diseases. They found a total of 286 unique sicknesses and of those 223 of them seemed to be worsened by climate hazards, nine were diminished by climate hazards and 54 had cases of both aggravated and minimized, the study found.

The new study doesn’t do the calculations to attribute specific disease changes, odds or magnitude to climate change, but finds cases where extreme weather was a likely factor among many.

Study lead author Camilo Mora, a climate data analyst at the University of Hawaii, said what is important to note is that the study isn’t about predicting future cases.

“There is no speculation here whatsoever,” Mora said. “These are things that have already happened.”

One example Mora knows firsthand. About five years ago, Mora’s home in rural Colombia was flooded — for the first time in his memory water was in his living room, creating an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes — and Mora contracted Chikungunya, a nasty virus spread by mosquito bites. And even though he survived, he still feels joint pain years later.

Sometimes climate change acts in odd ways. Mora includes the 2016 case in Siberia when a decades-old reindeer carcass, dead from anthrax, was unearthed when the permafrost thawed from warming. A child touched it, got anthrax and started an outbreak.

Mora originally wanted to search medical cases to see how COVID-19 intersected with climate hazards, if at all. He found cases where extreme weather both exacerbated and diminished chances of COVID-19. In some cases, extreme heat in poor areas had people congregate together to cool off and get exposed to the disease, but in other situations, heavy downpours reduced COVID spread because people stayed home and indoors, away from others.

Longtime climate and public health expert Kristie Ebi at the University of Washington cautioned that she had concerns with how the conclusions were drawn and some of the methods in the study. It is an established fact that the burning of coal, oil and natural gas has led to more frequent and intense extreme weather, and research has shown that weather patterns are associated with many health issues, she said.

“However, correlation is not causation,” Ebi said in an email. “The authors did not discuss the extent to which the climate hazards reviewed changed over the time period of the study and the extent to which any changes have been attributed to climate change.”

But Dr. Aaron Bernstein, interim director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard School of Public Health, Emory’s del Rio and three other outside experts said the study is a good warning about climate and health for now and the future. Especially as global warming and habitat loss push animals and their diseases closer to humans, Bernstein said.

“This study underscores how climate change may load the dice to favor unwelcome infectious surprises,” Bernstein said in an email. “But of course it only reports on what we already know and what’s yet unknown about pathogens may be yet more compelling about how preventing further climate change may prevent future disasters like COVID-19.”

Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Consumers Will Benefit From Lower Utility Bills and Cheaper Home Upgrades

The New York Times

Consumers Will Benefit From Lower Utility Bills and Cheaper Home Upgrades, Energy Experts Say

Lisa Friedman – August 8, 2022

The bill passed by the Senate on Sunday, Aug. 7, 2022, would allow households that are installing solar to deduct 30 percent of the cost from their taxes. (Tamir Kalifa/The New York Times)

The Inflation Reduction Act that was passed by the Senate on Sunday could lower electricity bills for consumers and the prices of things such as rooftop solar panels, energy-efficient appliances and electric vehicles, Democrats and some energy experts said.

Under the legislation, a home improvement credit for energy efficiency would allow households to deduct from their taxes up to 30% of the cost of upgrades like heat pumps and insulation. Another provision extends a program that allows households that are installing solar or battery storage systems to deduct 30% of the cost of those projects from their taxes.

Rewiring America, a nonprofit group that promotes energy efficiency, said it estimated that those and other measures in the legislation could save households $1,800 a year.

The package also continues an incentive for families to replace their gas-powered vehicles with electric. It extends a current $7,500 tax credit for new electric vehicles and $4,000 for a used one. Couples who earn less than $300,000 a year or individuals who earn less than $150,000 a year would be eligible for the credits, and consumers would get the discount at the dealership.

“This bill will help create jobs and lower costs for many American families,” in addition to slowing climate change, said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del.

Republicans said they expected the measure to drive up inflation and said the credits would not help Americans.

“They’re not into buying an electric car any time in the near future,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said of his constituents. “They’d like gas prices to come down because we’re producing more oil.”

Putin’s Pals Furious younger Russians Don’t Want to Die in Ukraine

Daily Beast

Putin’s Pals Furious Younger Russians Don’t Want to Die in Ukraine

Julia Davis – August 5, 2022

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Getty

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marches on, there is a dark undercurrent of waning public support—and it’s coming through even on tightly controlled state television. In the first days of the bloody war, the public was promised a quick victory due to the superiority of Russia’s military. Instead, the Kremlin’s offensive has been plagued by heavy losses and equipment deficiencies, to the point that state TV pundits publicly contemplate seeking aid and assistance from other pariah states—including Iran and North Korea.

Russia has reportedly been involved in discussions with Iran to purchase military drones, due to a severe shortage of its own unmanned aerial vehicles. During Thursday’s broadcast of the state TV show 60 Minutes, military expert Igor Korotchenko suggested that North Koreans could help rebuild destroyed Ukrainian regions and join Russia’s military ranks. Conversations about legalizing the participation of foreign fighters alongside Russian forces have been a recurring topic in state media, and for good reason: everyday citizens are less than enthusiastic about the prospect of going to war or dying for Putin. That doesn’t sit well with top pro-Kremlin propagandists, such as state TV host Vladimir Solovyov—twice formally recognized by Russian President Vladimir Putin for his services in the benefit of the Fatherland.

During Thursday’s broadcast of his show, The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, the host complained: “It irritates me that our society doesn’t understand that a watershed moment is currently taking place. We either stand up, build up and end up on another level, or simply cease to exist.” His guest, political scientist Alexander Kamkin, concurred and suggested that a “cultural special operation” be conducted in Russia.

The Kremlin’s tight control over the information disseminated to the public has failed to curtail access to outside sources, with tensions rising to such a point that on Monday during Solovyov’s show, convicted Russian agent Maria Butina suggested jailing parents whose children use a VPN to access foreign media. The host was likewise disappointed with the younger generation’s lackluster involvement in Putin’s war, complaining: “People who are planning to join [the military] are mainly of the same age as me, some are a bit younger… That is the generation that was raised on Soviet movies, Soviet literature and values. But the very young people I talk to, they faint if they cut their finger—and they see that as their democratic values… The special military operation is our Rubicon. I get the feeling that many here still can’t grasp it.”

Writer Zakhar Prilepin, who is wanted by Ukraine’s SBU security service on charges of “taking part in the activity of a terrorist organization” for his involvement in Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, added: “We really need volunteers, we aren’t hiding that. We need to replenish dislodged personnel. Meanwhile, the topic of death is silenced. The topic of perishing is curtailed. In a society motivated by comfort, you can’t talk about death. Everyone is expected to go to war, win and come back alive. Better yet, not to go in the first place. Let me remind you that the Charter of the Imperial Army included in plain language: if you have three adversaries, go to war and advance, kill all three. If you have 10, then defend yourself. If your death has come, then die. It’s written very plainly: ‘Soldier, death is part of your job. It is part of your duty and your contract with the government.’ The same principles were adopted by [Joseph] Stalin, who had an Orthodox Christian education.”

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Prilepin recited the lyrics of an old Soviet song, entitled “In the woods at the frontline”: “If you have to lie in the ground, at least you have to do it only once.” He asserted: “The soldier was openly told: go and fight. If you have to die, you only have to do it once… This is a part of your duty as a citizen, as a soldier, as a warrior, as a Russian man. Today, we’re protecting everybody: the government, mothers, conscripts, everyone. We barely forced our governors to put up murals [of the fallen soldiers]… Everyone is afraid to upset society.”

Prilepin openly worried that in the event of total mobilization, the younger generation would opt to escape to neighboring countries instead of joining the fight: “The government assumes that in Russia, there is always 1 million men ready to fight. As for the rest of the country, we try not to worry them… We’ve been discussing difficult topics, which might lead to World War III and the same mobilization we’re trying to avoid right now… It’s difficult to talk about total mobilization, because I suspect that an excessive flood of people will suddenly pour into Armenia and Georgia. Borders will have to be closed. I’m talking about our younger generation.”

Solovyov suggested the rules protecting conscripts from taking part in combat should be changed: “You know what amazes me most of all? That the conscripts in our Army are not supposed to fight… So what are they supposed to do in the Army?” He complained that not many enough volunteers have joined the battle: “We have 150 million people. How many are fighting in Donbas?” The state TV host proposed a massive government-funded propaganda campaign, glorifying the participants of Russia’s so-called “special operation” in film and on television, with songs and poetry.

Gone are the days when state TV propagandists were predicting that other countries would flock to Russia’s side to join the battle against Ukraine and the West. During Thursday’s broadcast of The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, political scientist Sergey Mikheyev summarized the current mood in Russia: “About these constant discussions as to what we can offer the world, the world can go screw itself… We don’t need to offer anything to anybody. We’re special, we need to build ourselves up.” Solovyov agreed: “We are the Noah’s Ark. First and foremost, we need to save ourselves. Ourselves!”