Global Pulse Blog

USAID has released its new Climate Change and Development Strategy for 2012-2016, a strategic framework for approaching the barriers and opportunities presented by global climate change. The strategy strives to “enable countries to accelerate their transition to climate resilient, low emissions development to promote sustainable economic growth.”

3 strategic objectives are incorporated in USAID’s strategy:

1. Enhance the transition to low emission development via investments in clean energy and sustainable landscapes for climate change mitigation;
2. Grow resilience of people, places, and livelihoods through investments in climate change adaptation; and
3. Strengthen development outcomes through the integration of climate change in USAID programming, learning, policy dialogues, and operations.

“…the threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing. Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it—boldly, swiftly, and together—we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe.”

President Obama, United Nations Summit on Climate Change, September 22, 2009

This infographic from the USAID highlights the escalating need to feed the world’s growing population. It is estimated that the world will need 70% more food by 2050. USAID’s Feed the Future initiative attempts to support innovative farming practices, provide modern agricultural technology to farmers and encourage sustainable agriculture.

Supporting similar goals, the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins also encourages means to support a growing population’s needs while protecting the environment, biodiversity and the earth’s finite resources.

Check out TEDxManhattan’s “Changing the Way We Eat” held today to explore the current food system and the ongoing efforts to create a more sustainable way of farming and eating, including a talk from the Center for Livable Future’s director Dr. Robert Lawrence, MD.

If you missed the live stream of this event, check out last year’s recorded videos of the talks and look out for the recordings from this year’s event as well.

If the latest issue of Global Pulse has made you think more critically about the connections between the environment and human health, National Geographic’s special series entitled 7 Billion may provide some interesting food for thought. This year-long series explores some of the possibilities and implications of our planet’s population nearing seven billion humans in 2011. With the dawning of the Anthropecene, or the Age of Man, we must reflect on the long-lasting geologic impact our massive human population will make on the earth and the ways in which this will be reflected in human health.

Coinciding with the United Nations Climate Change Convention held in Cancun last month, the non-profit organization, Development Assistance Research Associates (DARA) released the first definitive study measuring the impact of climate change on global health and human development. The Climate Vulnerability Monitor (CVM) predicts that climate change could contribute to as many as 5 million deaths by the year 2020. The CVM also suggests that if global warming isn’t slowed an additional million will die every year by 2030.

DARA’s study accumulates leading research on climate change in order to give a global assessment of its effects. The CVM demonstrated that global climate change impacts human development in 4 different ways health, habitat loss, weather disasters, and economic stress. In terms of human health, climate change has strongly affected the spread of life-threatening, climate-sensitive diseases like diarrhea and malaria. The rise in sea level and the effects of desertification have contributed to habitat loss, while weather disasters like hurricanes and flooding have directly caused the loss of many human lives. Economic stresses, like the loss of agricultural productivity resulting from droughts, were another climate impact that the CVM measured and accounted for. The study showed that almost every single country is vulnerable to the effects of at least one identified impact.

Asian and Sub-Saharan African countries are by far the worst affected, and women and children are the groups most vulnerable.  The study reported that 80% of climate-related deaths are exclusively children living in either of these areas, and 99% of mortalities occur in developing countries. The CVM estimated that at the current rate, climate change contributes to some 350,000 deaths each year. In addition to estimates of human loss, the CVM estimates that climate change costs the global economy about 150 billion dollars. What’s more, half of this economic loss has occurred in industrialized countries.

Based in Madrid, Spain, DARA is an organization that works to improve the quality and effectiveness of aid given to the world’s most vulnerable populations that are effected by climate change, armed conflict, and other disasters. In preparing and funding the study, DARA worked in tandem with the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a global partnership founded by the president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, which brings together the countries most adversely affected by climate change. The countries included in the partnership are Bangladesh, Barbados, Bhutan, Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania, Vietnam, the Maldives, Kenya, Kiribati, and Nepal.

The purpose of the DARA/Climate Vulnerable Forum study was to demonstrate the alarming effects of human-induced climate change such that policy-makers around the world will be more committed to urgent change. The study also included a set of 50 suggested changes that can be implemented cost-effectively in order to stem the rising tide of climate-related human loss. The entire study, including findings, country profiles, methodology, and recommendations, can be viewed in PDF format here.

This guest post is contributed by Alisa Gilbert.  She welcomes your comments at: alisagilbert599@gmail.com.

80,000 – the number of manufactured chemicals in use in the US.

62,000 – chemicals that were “grandfathered” in by the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and therefore unstudied as to their health and environmental safety.

200 – chemicals tested for their safety under TSCA.

1,000,000+ tons – amount of Bisphenol A (BPA) consumed in the US in 2004, before widespread recognition of its multiple adverse health impacts.

The US public, and now the outsourced manufacturing hubs in China, India and other places worldwide, are essentially participating in a giant experimental trial with the chemicals in our foods, our clothes, our cleaners, plastics, and virtually everything we use.  H.R. 5820 the Toxic Chemical Safety Act, currently under consideration in Congress would begin the process of re-assessing the safety of these chemicals on the loose and replace the ineffective Toxic Substances Control Act.

The new legislation marks a shift in the regulatory philosophy towards new chemicals. Historically, the US favored self-regulation of the industry and allowed the industry to innovate without much concern for long-term effects. This new legislation follows the lead of the Precautionary Principle by beginning to assess the safety of products before they are released into the market.

Perhaps most troubling from a health perspective, aside from the fact that many of these molecules have not been tested for their long term chronic exposure safety, but that even with those that have been tested, few, if any, have had their safety assessed in the context of the myriad of other chemicals that we use on a daily basis. While it has shortcomings, HR 5820 is a step in the right direction.

For more info and perspectives see:

House Panel Tackles Chemical Legislation | EHS Today.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-fletcher-harper/choose-life-the-religious_b_662234.html

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h5820/show

http://blogs.edf.org/nanotechnology/2010/07/30/not-playing-nice-the-american-chemistry-council-solidifies-its-claim-to-being-the-industry-of-no/

http://mollyannaapproach.blogspot.com/2010/07/house-members-witnesses-clash-over.html

Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute announced in Science that they created an experimental one-cell organism, Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0, that has the ability to reproduce.

An article written in the Wall Street Journal discusses the process used to create the cell:

To begin, they wrote out the creature’s entire genetic code as a digital computer file, documenting more than one million base pairs of DNA in a biochemical alphabet of adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine. They edited that file, adding new code, and then sent that electronic data to a DNA sequencing company called Blue Heron Bio in Bothell, Wash., where it was transformed into hundreds of small pieces of chemical DNA, they reported.

To assemble the strips of DNA, the researchers said they took advantage of the natural capacities of yeast and other bacteria to meld genes and chromosomes in order to stitch those short sequences into ever-longer fragments until they had assembled the complete genome, as the entire set of an organism’s genetic instructions is called.

They transplanted that master set of genes into an emptied cell, where it converted the cell into a different species”

It may be possible for this new field, called synthetic biology, to one day provide alternatives to standard practices in many different industries. For example, the industrial life forms can be used to produce renewable fuels as well as vaccines.

This development also raises questions about concerning the ethics, law and public safety of artificial life. So I ask you all, what are some specific issues do you see needing to be addressed concerning synthetic life?

Though a few days late, let us ponder again the far reaching implications of our actions on the health of the earth body and human body… After all, Earth day is every day! Our current era of post-industrial-post-modern living (in many “developed” nations) is defined by a certain standard of living that is accompanied by serious costs and consequences that wander far beyond geographic and political borders. For a list of health conditions please see John’s excellent Earth Day post).

Two great studies sponsored by NASA explore the relationship between atmospheric conditions and human health. NASA has teamed up with researchers from Emory to measure particulate matter concentrations (PM 2.5) in smoke and haze via satellite in order to better document the link between environmental hazards and disease. The second study combines the technological resources of NASA with health researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to analyze the effect of the environment on cardiovascular disease in African Americans living in the “Stroke Belt.” Results from this six year NIH-funded investigation, called Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS), have been integrated into the CDC WONDER database.

A few days ago, Senator John Kerry urged the public and congress to move forward with legislation to tackle climate change. Today’s proposed unveiling of the new senate bill was delayed largely in part due to a shift in priorities from energy reform to immigration reform. Though this announcement sent Senator Graham packing, let us hope that the reality of the situation remains impetus enough for swift action.

Oren Lyons, a member of the Seneca Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy and indigenous rights activist, imparts the Haudenosaunee thought that decision-making should be guided by the welfare of the seventh generation to come. The below quotation from Lyons eloquently captures wisdom of indigenous inhabitants of North America:

We say that the faces of coming generations are looking up from the earth. So when you put your feet down, you put them down very carefully – because there are generations coming one after the other. If you think in these terms, then you’ll walk a lot more carefully, be more respectful of this earth (Lyons 1995).

Corporate machines, government and individuals should take this advice, and think long term. If respect for our home doesn’t change policy or opinion, the gathering scientific evidence linking environmental conditions and health should: it is in everyone’s best interest to preserve our home for our health.

Gaia by Alex Grey

Only 40 years ago, the image of our planet as a fragile blue ball in space inspired the first Earth Day.  Though people today are more aware than ever of the need to take care of the environment, challenges remain. Here at Global Pulse, we wanted to bring together stories of innovation and help increase awareness of the health aspects of environmentalism. On that note, Framing Science put together an excellent post on the inter-agency NIH report on the human health impacts of climate change, which range across a variety of health disciplines including:

• Asthma, respiratory allergies, and airway diseases
• Cancer
• Cardiovascular disease and stroke
• Foodborne diseases and nutrition
• Heat-related morbidity and mortality
• Human developmental effects
• Mental health and stress-related disorders
• Neurological diseases and disorders
• Waterborne diseases
• Weather-related morbidity and mortality
• Vectorborne and zoonotic diseases (like malaria, which can be transmitted from animals to humans)

One key aspect to addressing these challenges will be to re-invent farming to feed the future population, projected to hit 9 billion people by 2050, while at the same time preserving ecosystems. In the past decade, humanity past the point where over 50% of our population lives in urban areas, making cities vital to ensuring the future health of the planet and her people. The second great epidemiological revolution succeeded in part by controlling the health of our water,. Innovative architect Manit Rastogi plans to do the same for Delhi by transforming the polluted network of Nullahs (sewage laden stream) into a pedestrian and cycling network by using bio-remediation embankments. In San Francisco, newly launched Urban Forest Map is helping citizens take care of their city trees via the web.

As future medical professionals, many of us often cringe at the amount of waste generated by laboratories in the service of medicine and research. Oscillator gives a personal touch to this and shows a few simple ways to reduce waste in the lab while the EPA and DOE are busy designing the green lab of tomorrow.

Source: Wikipedia

This is the first in a series of posts for the American Public Health Association’s National Public Health Week.

Most of us associate biodiversity with images of tropical rain forests and coral reefs. While these ecological hot-spots are an important source of medications and global ecosystem services, biodiversity also plays a key role in neighborhoods across the US through regulating the spread of diseases such as Lyme disease. But how is that possible, you might ask, and what can you do about it?

Lyme disease  affects hundreds of thousands of people across the US, with a greater concentration in the northeast. Recent decades have seen an explosion of urban sprawl across the northeast leading to decreased species diversity along with people living in close proximity to fragmented habitats.  But how are these related?

The connection is explained succinctly in Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity:

“The Blacklegged Tick (Ixodes scapularis) is the vector of Lyme disease, as well as of several other pathogens in the eastern U.S., and the primary reservoir for Lyme disease in this region is a common rodent, the White-Footed Mouse (Peromyscus leucopus)…Mice live in many different habitats, from pristine old-growth forest to degraded woodlots, garden sheds, and even kitchens. Several studies have demonstrated that populations of White-Footed Mice become very concentrated in small forest fragments, probably due to the absence of other vertebrate species that prey upon, or compete with them (forest fragmentation…affects predators over prey disproportionately). As a consequence, tick populations in small forest fragments have many White-Footed Mice, but few other mammalian hosts on which to feed, resulting in a high proportion of the ticks being infected and able to infect people. In contrast, in more extensively forested areas, the combination of fewer White-Footed Mice and more abundant, alternative, reservoir-incompetent hosts (an incompetent reservoir for Lyme does not pass on the Lyme bacteria to ticks that bite them, or does so poorly) results in a lower proportion of the tick population being infected.”

This phenomenon is known as the Dilution Effect: As species richness declines there is a subsequent decrease in the “dilution” of host-species making Lyme disease easier to spread. As the authors note, the dilution effect is not unique to Lyme, the same mechanism also operates in Hantavirus and West Nile Virus and possibly many others. As sprawl-based development patterns spread to more areas of the planet, we can only expect to see an increase in the number of dilution effect diseases unleashed upon populations worldwide.

So how can you increase biodiversity in your community and thereby help protect the health of your family and neighbors?

Get involved with your local conservation commission and bring these dangers to their attention. Find ways to support local parks and nature preserves. Also, if you have a yard or garden, try to plant local species that help support wildlife.  Most importantly: Education! If you are in college or school, talk to your professors about integrating awareness of biodiversity into curriculum.  Thanks to the UN and various donors, Sustaining Life is available at a very affordable price and can serve as a great textbook without placing a great financial burden on students. In addition, local schools can serve as great sources of biodiversity through gardens and planting of local species on grounds. Often these locals are less expensive to maintain, requiring less water and fertilizer.

These are just some ideas…we’d love to hear from GP readers with their experiences and success stories.

Home to over 400 million people, the Ganges river winds through India’s history, culture and countryside. Unfortunately, rapid industrialization and urbanization has left an unholy mark on the Ganges as dangerous amounts of untreated industrial pollution and human excrement enter the river every day.  These conditions are all too common in rivers worldwide  and create an environment ripe for diseases ranging from schistosomiasis to Cryptosporidium.

But long time advocacy is finally paying off as the WSJ reports that World Bank and the Indian government are set to spend $4 billion to “to ensure that by 2020 no untreated municipal sewage or industrial runoff enters the 1,560-mile river.”.  The methods proposed also have the benefit of being less carbon and electricity intensive than traditional wastewater treatment plants – key aspects for a country with chronic brownouts in a warming world.  In order to reach their goal, the government and partners will need to engage the most neglected slums which, if done right,  has the potential to create environmental justice at the same time as cleaning the river.

Of course, governments have a tendency of announcing lofty environmental goals which are then forgotten in the next election cycle. The Ganges also had a previous cleanup effort that failed to reach its goals, partly because of lacking public participation. Hopefully things will be different this time, but GP would love to hear from anyone with on the ground insight.