Tag Archives: hamblin

Apparently, all it takes to fix strained relations in Washington is beer.

by Cindy Holman Posted on August 4, 2017

That’s the conclusion of a study led by Helen Harwatt, an environmental nutrition researcher at Loma Linda University.

You may feel paralyzed and powerless to save the human race from climate doom in the face of Trump’s exit from the Paris Agreement. As our favorite doctor-turned-journalist James Hamblin writes in The Atlantic: “The remedy … is knowing what can be done to mitigate environmental degradation, from within in a country singularly committed to it.”

This switch is a relatively easy suggestion!

Okay, one caveat before you start feeling too good. Making the transition from beef to beans could reduce carbon-equivalent emissions by 334 million metric tons — but the United States releases over 6 billion metric tons each year. It gets us closer to the goal Obama set at the 2009 Copenhagen talks, but it doesn’t solve the problem.

Still, it’s worth noting that the trend line on that big ugly graph is moving in the right direction and getting closer to the Copenhagen goal. Much of that can be attributed to (potentially threatened) EPA regulations and a switch from coal to natural gas, but small lifestyle changes on a large scale can nudge it further.

Excerpt from – 

Apparently, all it takes to fix strained relations in Washington is beer.

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Flint’s lead-poisoned water cost the city nearly 100 times as much as it was supposed to save

by LupeWhitelegge Posted on August 9, 2016

I’ve Made A Huge Mistake

Flint’s lead-poisoned water cost the city nearly 100 times as much as it was supposed to save

By on Aug 9, 2016Share

The Flint water crisis wasn’t just terrible for the thousands of its residents who were exposed to lead. It’s also been bad for the city’s coffers — really bad.

According to Peter Muennig from Columbia University’s School of Public Health, switching the water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint river — a move that was intended to save the city $5 million — will actually cost the city nearly $460 million.

That figure doesn’t just cover emergency water and medical care — it includes social costs, including “lower economic productivity, greater dependence on welfare programs, and greater costs to the criminal justice system,” as James Hamblin points out in The Atlantic.

Young people are particularly vulnerable to lead poisoning, which has serious consequences on developing brains and can result in intellectual disabilities and anti-social behavior. And state officials have advised that all children under six in Flint – an estimated 8,000 to 9,000 kids – should be treated as though they’ve been exposed.

Two years after the lead crisis started, the water in Flint is still unsafe to drink without a filter.

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Flint’s lead-poisoned water cost the city nearly 100 times as much as it was supposed to save

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Forget the climate — cap-and-trade could fix your allergies

by LandonOlmstead Posted on August 26, 2014

young wheezy

Forget the climate — cap-and-trade could fix your allergies

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26 Aug 2014 6:07 PM

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Forget the climate — cap-and-trade could fix your allergies

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How can we finally get people to care about carbon emissions even a little bit? Focus on how they are directly threatening the amount of time on Earth that we can spend snacking and sexting (clinically proven to be the preferred activities of humans in the 21st century.) Or, as The Atlantic’s James Hamblin puts it:

Researchers are learning that the most effective way around climate-policy ambivalence is to invoke imminent dangers to human health. “What’s killing me today?” with emphasis on killing and me and today.

The answer to that question is — you guessed it! — carbon emissions. As Hamblin reports, for allergy and asthma sufferers, increased carbon dioxide levels boost pollen count. One allergist expects pollen levels to double by 2040. Also fun: Fossil fuel combustion creates minuscule particles that hang around in our lungs and bloodstreams and then kill us. Air pollution caused one in eight deaths in 2012, according to the World Health Organization.

OK – so carbon emissions are threatening lives. But what kind of effect would limiting those emissions have on the economy? Those cap-and-trade programs sure seem costly!

Well, a recent study by a team of MIT researchers, published in Nature Climate Change, found that a cap on carbon emissions would end up saving $125 billion in human health costs – which would cover the projected costs of widespread emissions capping tenfold. Furthermore:

[The study’s authors] write that any cost-benefit analysis of climate policy that omits the health effects of regional air pollution “greatly underestimate[s] benefits.”

“What’s killing me today?” is obviously a far more alarming question than “What’s going to create significant economic costs in the future?” When the answer to both is the same, that could – just a thought! – be cause for action. Something to ponder between snacks and Snapchats.

Source:
If You Have Allergies or Asthma, Talk to Your Doctor About Cap and Trade

, The Atlantic.

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Forget the climate — cap-and-trade could fix your allergies

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