MVCAC November 2009

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3 discussions

Health Effects of Global Warming Report
by Duane330＠aol.com 26 Nov '09

26 Nov '09

Saving the planet does a body good By Jim Snyder - 11/25/09 02:39 PM ET THE HILL'S Energy and Environment Blog Efforts to reduce greenhouse gases may not just head off catastrophic climate change. They could improve your health too. The medical journal The Lancet has published a _series of articles_ (http://www.thelancet.com/series/health-and-climate-change) on the health benefits associated with activities designed to address global warming. Global warming itself is seen as a threat to human health. It could reduce water supplies and lead to more severe weather patterns like hurricanes, drought and heat waves. But “appropriate mitigation strategies” will themselves have “additional and independent effects on health,” a summary of the series states. For example, replacing inefficient cook stoves in India would reduce indoor air pollution and decrease the incidence of respiratory infections in children younger than 5 years old and chronic respiratory and heart disease in adults 30 years and older. Walking more and driving less, meanwhile, could cut the rates of heart disease, stroke, cancer, dementia and depression. Daniel Carucci, vice president for Global Health of the United Nations Foundation, said the studies, “highlight the importance of the co-benefits of climate change mitigation on health and importantly suggest that the health outcomes of these strategies could be immediate and long lasting.”

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the pace and scale of climate change
by Duane330＠aol.com 12 Nov '09

12 Nov '09

Climate Change: Amid Worrisome Signs of Warming, 'Climate Fatigue' Sets In <NOBR>Richard A This September, the United Nations Environment Programme issued a report that, according to a UNEP press release, showed that "the pace and scale of climate change may now be outstripping even the most sobering predictions of the last report of the ... IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]." In the foreword of the UNEP report, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon delivered the intended take-home message: The report "is a wake-up call. The time for hesitation is over." In the run-up to next month's climate summit in Copenhagen, some researchers have argued that the worsening prospects for Earth's climate system make the negotiations all the more urgent. Others, however, say the picture since the IPCC report is more complicated than that—though no brighter. And some anticipated climate changes are actually behind schedule, at least for the time being, notes the U.K. Meteorological Office. Full story at _http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5955/926?sa_campaign=Email/… (http://www.info-aaas.org/l.jsp?d=3028.349080.654.0r2V29Nui) ____________________________________

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Complexity compounded
by duane330＠aol.com 05 Nov '09

05 Nov '09

Science 30 October 2009: Vol. 326. no. 5953, pp. 672 - 673 DOI: 10.1126/science.1181568 Perspectives Atmospheric Science: Clean the Air, Heat the Planet? Almut Arneth,1,2,* Nadine Unger,3 Markku Kulmala,2 Meinrat O. Andreae4 The push toward cleaner air in Beijing before the 2008 Olympic Games was a vivid reminder of the need to control air pollution, not only in Asia but in many regions of the world (1). There is mounting evidence for particle- and ozone-related health effects (2, 3). Furthermore, ozone and aerosol particles affect Earth's radiation balance (4, 5): Many aerosols cool the atmosphere (a negative forcing), whereas ozone and black carbon aerosol have a warming effect (a positive forcing). There is thus a strong motivation for treating air pollution control and climate change in common policy frameworks (5, 6). However, recent model studies (7–9) have shown that changes in pollutant and precursor emissions, atmospheric burden, and radiative forcing are not necessarily proportional. Furthermore, as Shindell et al. report on page 716 of this issue, current models do not capture many of the complex atmospheric processes involving aerosols and reactive trace gases (10). 1 Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Analysis, Lund University, 22362 Lund, Sweden. 2 Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland. 3 NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University, New York, NY 10025, USA. 4 Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Biogeochemistry Department, 55020 Mainz, Germany. * To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: almut.arneth(a)nateko.lu.se

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MVCAC November 2009