Green Group discussion
Climate Change
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Health Issues Related to Climate Change
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This item focuses on workers in America, including migratory workers, but a wide band around the globe will be affected.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17...
Relevant book:
I Am Not a Tractor!: How Florida Farmworkers Took on the Fast Food Giants and Won
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This article may tell you more than you wanted to know about deer ticks becoming more abundant and moving north, as well as carrying more diseases. Ticks are now spreading fast in Canada because warmer temperatures are allowing them to move and breed more of the year.
https://grist.org/article/an-army-of-...
"“Governor LePage said, ‘No one is doing climate change research,’” says Susan Elias, a vector ecologist at the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute who worked on the tick-climate research and is developing the broader model for her Ph.D. dissertation. “That message came down from on high through official state channels.”"
A personal note: ticks can enter your home hidden on a pet, so next time you are getting a dog or cat, go for a shorthair.
People with money who travel with their pets and stay awhile within their own country [no quarantines] are helping to spread any number of good or bad things from one part of a country to another. This year articles were saying Lyme was slowly advancing, now in 35 states. 18 months ago University of Maryland said it was in 50 states. That article flew under the radar. A big medical testing company said they had test results from all 50 states showing positive for Lyme. There is no national clearing center for tick diseases or any diseases unless it is required by law because it cost money to do it. For years, plenty of volunteer organizations were trying to pick up the slack, which yielded mix results. No news is good news, or in this case, not enough news is good news.
The insects are only messengers, bringing us news of what is in our environment. Over the past 30 years around 50 serious diseases are now freely circulating around the world which were previously only found in specific regions. Ticks are known for carrying a single disease around but can carry multiple diseases. The number of diseases found in a single insect is increasing, not decreasing. Very little of it is publicized. Just going by what you read may not be enough. Unfortunately the most effective advice at the moment is don't get bit.
Short hair won't protect you from bacteria or viruses and everything else swimming around in the micro world. If you have immune problems, advice is stay out of the water if you have any cuts.
I wrote a poem about the activity on microbial membranes.
About The Surfaces Of Microbes
Elemental gods everybody knows always ignored
Breaking down rot remaking imperial foundations
Living inside clear bubble shells forever durable
Each filled with a tiny bit of protoplasmic seas
Behind thin transparent walls endless worlds of life
Four billion years running circles round everything
Nothing has eyes in this tactile only existence
Everything is done by handshaking touching contacts
Flavored lights either on or off never a picture show
Constantly buffeted endless streams solid existence
Every surface covered by the latest signaling devices
Working miniature molecular cranes twenty four seven
Dotting the membranes countless fluid pumping wells
Folding unfolding practical life giving origami
Dancing atoms practicing molecular gymnastics
Driven by the mysterious mechanics of flowers
Transferring matters of messages and sights
Imported updates featuring the latest survivals
Lights blinking flashing patterns delivering
Rippling bands signaling acknowledgements
Entrances departures absorbed reflected rejected
Shuffling genes creating endless play lists
Sophisticated cameos hidden exquisite camouflages
Where the life of masks begins but never ends
From microns to light years totally scalable
Advertising no way in nothing to see go right on by
Eating worlds for life building one tiny bit at a time
Picking and choosing it’s never take it or leave it
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https://www.ecowatch.com/peoples-clim...
A Saturday so why not?
https://peoplesclimate.org/actions/pl...
Some great photos of previous marches worldwide https://secure.flickr.com/photos/peop...
Sadly I can't find any being organised in Dublin.
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https://www.theguardian.com/cities/20...
"Those places already struggling with extreme heat are doing what they can. In Ahmedabad, in Gujarat, hospitals have opened specialist heat wards. Australian cities have made swimming pools accessible to the homeless when the heat creeps above 40C, and instructed schools to cancel playground time. In Kuwait, outside work is forbidden between noon and 4pm when temperatures soar.
But many regulations are ignored, and companies and individuals underestimate the risks. In almost all countries, hospital admissions and death rates tend to rise when temperatures pass 35C – which is happening more often, in more places. Currently, 354 major cities experience average summer temperatures in excess of 35C; by 2050, climate change will push this to 970, according to the recent “Future We Don’t Want” study by the C40 alliance of the world’s biggest metropolises. In the same period, it predicts the number of urban dwellers exposed to this level of extreme heat will increase eightfold, to 1.6 billion."
Weather will continue to exert a greater influence over our lives. Another way to look at it, this is how it used to effect people. The period that has ended was relatively calm compared to what it could be. Even though it was just a simple mistake thinking that was how it would always be, the ramifications are enormous. As the seemingly small changes in the background continue they will have enormous impacts on anything we take for granted.A movement is under foot to bring respect to natural forces by giving them rights. It could be an offshoot of giving corporations rights or it could be reverting back to the times when the elemental forces were considered to be entities in their own rights, immune to the concept of human ownership. Another simple mistake with grave consequences.
"Inspired by indigenous views of nature, a movement to grant a form of legal “personhood” to rivers is gaining some ground — a key step, advocates say, in reversing centuries of damage inflicted upon the world’s waterways." --- Yale 360.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/should...
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https://www.independent.ie/news/envir...
Another factor is that barley is a staple livestock feed. The brewers' grounds are used as livestock feed, or can be composted.
Hard cider was popular in North America as a germ free beverage. Apple trees were planted everywhere and easy to grow.
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This is probably why Alaskan fish contain high mercury levels; the mining in the region helped it get released into the environment and more is continually seeping into the water.
https://www.care2.com/causes/a-mercur...
Everything that is locked up is going to come out, including good and bad microbes.
This article discusses how the loss of Arctic ice over the past 50 years has allowed the transmission of mammal diseases from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It took scientists several years to figure out what was happening.We have been doing this for over 5,000 years across lands that are separated by oceans with our mass transportation and trade routes that carry people and products. There are probably a lot more things in the natural world that will be affected by climate change that will follow the patterns our physical activities have put into motion over the years. To explain some of the changes in the future climate, we will only need to look at what we have done in the past.
https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-cris...
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In People of the Wolf
a prehistory fiction book, the first settlers to cross the Bering landbridge / ice tunnels to the Americas found buffalo just like the European bison, but these ones did not have lungworm. They guessed that as the paths opened for animals to graze their way across, the beasts carrying lungworm would spread it to the beasts in the new land.
This article was really, really frightening.'There are diseases hidden in ice, and they are waking up. Long-dormant bacteria and viruses, trapped in ice and permafrost for centuries, are reviving as Earth's climate warms.'
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/2017...)
They mention in the article that where a 12 year-old boy died and roughly 20 people hospitalized as a result of an anthrax outbreak in Siberia in 2016, which was believed to have been released from the thawing permafrost in that region.
The formerly frozen permafrost regions are turning into oceans of mud. Some of them are quite large. No water required for activation, just the time it takes for the ground to melt.
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"The harm that air pollution is doing on the African continent seems to be growing. Estimates of premature mortality attributed to air pollution have increased from about 570,000 in 1990 to over 700,000 in 2013. In the same period, premature deaths from unsafe water, unsafe sanitation and childhood malnutrition have decreased across Africa.
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"South African Air Quality Information System data is used by public officials, the research community, and some civil society organizations. But, there's a broader group of young engineers, scientists, journalists and activists who could use and apply the data. Some of these potential uses are local and personal. The data can answer questions like "why is my asthma worse in winter?" or "is this power station polluting our town's air?""
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-african...
Provided by The Conversation
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Africa would be the world's next newest big time consumer market but the average consumer hasn't reached the point where they have extra money to buy lots of things. Sales of air conditioners are only expected to increase by 5 percent over the next few years. This level of economic activity keeps the level of pollution down. That could allow the corporate interests to plan the road to advanced middle class consumerism in a way that keeps everyone healthy, including the environment. So far, that isn't happening. Harvesting everything on the land is rapidly progressing, from minerals, to timber, to agricultural products, mostly for export, is still being done by maximizing profits and maximizing negative social and environmental impacts. The future of Africa might very possibly reflect the future of the world in general.
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The Next Factory of the World: How Chinese Investment Is Reshaping Africa
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leptospirosis, or Weil's disease, transmitted via rat urine, often in water.
"In late September, the NYC Department of Health issued a public advisory after they had documented 14 cases of leptospirosis; since then, a 15th case has been found. The cases are scattered across all boroughs, save Staten Island, and, of the first 14, only one is thought to have been caught during travel elsewhere. In its advisory, health officials said that 13 people had been hospitalized with acute kidney and liver failure, with two developing serious lung problems as well. One person died from their infection, though others hospitalized have since been discharged.
Leptospirosis can be transmitted through a wide range of animals, including our pets. But historically, cases in NYC are associated with rat infestations. All of the local cases were found in people exposed to environments with severe rat problems, including three people without housing. Health officials say they’ve conducted inspections of suspected hot spots and have tried to remedy the rat infestations when needed. Rat sightings in the city this year have gone up in 2021 compared to last year, though this may represent greater social activity on our part rather than any rat resurgence.
It’s known that the risk of leptospirosis in an area can climb after flooding from hurricanes and other extreme weather. That’s because infected urine trapped in the soil or elsewhere can easily contaminate floodwater, which can be hard for people to avoid touching.
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"“The bacteria may persist in warm moist environments. Changes in climatic conditions that allow the bacteria to persist (warmer and moist climate conditions), could contribute to an increase in human cases,” a health department spokesperson told Gizmodo in an email."
https://gizmodo.com/new-york-city-hit...
I've mentioned rats, Weil's and other diseases such as bubonic plague in my SF writing of a warmer city in the future.
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https://www.rte.ie/news/us/2021/1022/...
"The mysterious deaths of a family and their dog on a California hiking trail that baffled investigators for weeks was down to excessive heat, the local sheriff said.
The bodies of Briton John Gerrish, 45, his wife Ellen Chung, 31, and their one-year-old daughter, Miju, were discovered a short way from a trailhead in the Sierra National Forest. Their pet dog was nearby, also dead.
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"Mariposa Sheriff Jeremy Briese told a press conference the family had been affected by temperatures over 38C (100F), giving the cause of death as "hyperthermia and probable dehydration due to environmental exposure".
Hyperthermia is an abnormally high body temperature caused by a failure of heat-regulating mechanisms to deal with environmental heat, the National Institutes of Health says.
Heat exhaustion and heat stroke are well-known examples.
Sheriff Briese said the family, who were relatively new to the area, were found on 17 August - two days after they were last seen -- without any supplies of water.
"The initial hike started off at 75 degrees (F)," he said.
"By the time they got down... before they hit the trail, it's already jumped to 103.""
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Merilee Whren
"We recently planned a trip to Colorado, one of our least planned trips. We knew about the wildfires in Colorado, and we didn’t want to make plans ahead that would get us stranded in an area filled with smoke because we wanted to do a lot of hiking. We planned the places we wanted to visit, but we only made reservations for our nightly accommodations a day in advance.
We know how wildfires can make breathing difficult because last summer here in southern Arizona we had a huge wildfire that burned over 100,000 acres. Thankfully, no buildings were lost because much of the fire was contained to wilderness areas. But day after day while the fires burned, smoke filled the air and made breathing difficult. Since I play tennis on a regular basis, we sometimes had to cancel our games due to the smoke.
So our experience led us to make a trip with very few things planned ahead. We wanted to wake up each morning and plan our day according to what was happening around us. We did actually have to cancel our plan to go to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park because of a road closure resulting from mudslides and fire. After we visited Telluride, we had to backtrack five hours, but we did find a different route back to Durango, so we didn’t have to retrace the route we came on.
Even though we made plans on the spur of the moment, we had a wonderful trip."
Merilee visited, among other places, the Four Corners monument where four states touch.
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https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2021/11...
"With the climate crisis and the urgency of action at the forefront of the individual and political agenda, our research in UCC, in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London and University of Chieti shows that highly sensitive people could play a crucial role in moving towards a more sustainable living. Given their tendency to be overwhelmed by busy urban environments, highly sensitive people are particularly connected with nature, where they can find restoration and stress relief This is not unique to highly sensitive people, as the benefits of nature for our wellbeing are well known."
Check out the article and YT video link to see if you fit the description.
Being blind to climate change could also be a genetic trait. It would be a protective factor that reduces stress. It is not a trait that contributes to the well being of the environment, only to an individuals sense of well being. Another factor is that for people living in the same general area for a couple of decades is going to remember how things have changed while people new to areas or having moved around a lot could be less exposed to the changing situation in a way that would cause them not to notice the change over time, only the immediate situation.
There are also groups of people who don't put two and two together, for them, coincidence could be a simple explanation of what they see happening.
For others, knowing or not knowing, the long term price, is worth the short term gain. Most people probably don't like to question, or even think of questioning their good fortune.
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https://phys.org/news/2021-11-thought...
"But now it regularly ranks among the worst cities in the world for air pollution—a mixture of low-grade diesel fumes, smoke from seasonal crop burn off, and colder winter temperatures coalescing into stagnant clouds.
Syed Hasnain is visibly exhausted as he waits on his four-year-old son who has been admitted at the city's Mayo Hospital.
"He was coughing and not able to breathe properly and had a high temperature. We thought maybe it is coronavirus so we brought him to the hospital. But the doctors told us he has developed pneumonia because of the smog," Hasnain tells AFP.
"It's very worrisome," he admits. "I knew that the smog can be bad for health—but I didn't know it would be so bad that my son would be hospitalised.""
I suspect that the atmosphere of the changed climate (already changed) is probably able to hold more pollutants in it for a longer period of time than it used to. The same way the atmosphere is holding more water in it than it used to.
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"Deaths from heat, Shandas said, have been treated with carelessness by climate change research to date.
It measures temperatures in so-called heat islands in the city, neighborhoods where mostly low-income people died in their homes last summer.
People died on the top floor from the heat.
These buildings are designed so that you can not open the windows.
On top of that, people don't have air conditioning.
Temperatures of no less than 50 degrees Celsius were measured in these rooms during last year's heat wave.
Shandas and his collaborators, like Joey Williams of Campus Strategies, have developed, among other things, a series of sensors for mobile and fixed warning systems designed to protect vulnerable people from heat death.
For example, this alarm system informs people when a certain level of heat is reached and tells them to go to a cooler place.
In addition, we and the municipal civil defense are also informed at the moment when people are exposed to dangerous temperatures at home."
https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/110359-...
Story and video on ARTE, translated by RTE.
I hope they install heat alarms in these buildings that someone will respond to. Probably the only thing stopping it is deciding who will pay for it.
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Clare, hoping you have a chance to stay cool in Ireland!!!
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Thanks for your concern.
Health Issues Related To Climate Change might be too broad a category.Global Change literally means that everything is changing.
We are always thinking of ourselves as the center of everything. It's almost as if there were no people, life wouldn't be worth talking about.
The definition of global change has its origins in the computer world In the 70s, not in reference to the changes of the Earth system. It meant that a change was made to everything in a group at the same time. It could be a change to everything that includes all groups at the same time.
We are looking at Global Change right now. Everything is changing. What was true yesterday doesn't have to be true today. What was false yesterday doesn't have to be false today. The insulation of time and space is gone. If we can see something by any means possible, we can feel it.
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"For people with coronary heart disease, beta blockers can improve survival and quality of life, while aspirin and other anti-platelet medications can reduce the risk of a heart attack.
But those protections could backfire during hot-weather events, a time when heart attacks are more likely. A new study has found that among people suffering non-fatal heart attacks associated with hot weather, an outsize portion are taking these heart drugs.
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"It turned out that users of beta blockers or anti-platelet medications were likelier to have heart attacks during the hottest days compared to control days. Anti-platelet medication use was associated with a 63% increase in risk and beta blockers with a 65% increase. People taking both drugs had a 75% higher risk. Non-users of those medications were not more likely to have a heart attack on hot days.
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""We hypothesize that some of the medications may make it hard to regulate body temperature," Chen said. He plans to try to untangle these relationships in future studies.
The results suggest that as climate change progresses, heart attacks might become a greater hazard to some people with cardiovascular disease."
More information: Kai Chen et al, Triggering of myocardial infarction by heat exposure is modified by medication intake, Nature Cardiovascular Research (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s44161-022-00102-z
Provided by Yale School of Public Health
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https://open.substack.com/pub/climate...
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"Humans have made the planet warmer, more polluted and ever less hospitable to many species, and these changes are driving the spread of infectious disease.
Warmer, wetter climates can expand the range of vector species like mosquitos, while habitat loss can push disease-carrying animals into closer contact with humans.
New research reveals how complex the effects are, with our impact on the climate and planet turbocharging some diseases and changing transmission patterns for others.
Biodiversity loss appears to play an outsize role in increasing infectious disease, according to work published in the journal Nature this week.
It analysed nearly 3,000 datasets from existing studies to see how biodiversity loss, climate change, chemical pollution, habitat loss or change, and species introduction affect infectious disease in humans, animals and plants.
It found biodiversity loss was by far the biggest driver, followed by climate change and the introduction of novel species."
The article notes that after 2025 shifting weather patterns that promote dryer conditions has the possibility of reducing the time and location that some diseases will be active. However these dryer conditions will not be beneficial to humans, simply changing the type of threats people will face. So far there has not been any progress in making use of the extra rainfall. Solar power could increase but wind power might be reduced.
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People on holiday - vacation - in Greece have been suffering from intense heat, and so far, three people aged from 50s to 70s have died, presumed from heatstroke, and a few more are missing.
43C = 109.4F.
https://www.rte.ie/news/weather/2024/...
"Most of them were attempting hikes under the scorching sun as much of Greece saw record temperatures for the first week of June, reaching 43 degrees Celsius in many areas of the country.
Meteorologists have noted it was the earliest heatwave - which for Greece means temperatures exceeding 38C for at least three days - on record.
The UNESCO-listed Athens Acropolis archaeological site, Greece's most visited attraction, was closed to the public during the hottest hours on Thursday for the second day running."
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51.8C = 125.24 F.
https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2024/06...
"Diplomats yesterday said that at least 550 pilgrims died during the hajj, underscoring the gruelling nature of the pilgrimage which again unfolded in scorching temperatures this year.
The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam and all Muslims with the means must complete it at least once.
The pilgrimage is increasingly affected by climate change, according to a Saudi study published last month that said temperatures in the area where rituals are performed were rising 0.4C each decade.
Temperatures hit 51.8C at the Grand Mosque in Mecca on Monday the Saudi national meteorology centre said.
Saudi officials had advised pilgrims to use umbrellas, drink plenty of water and avoid exposure to the sun during the hottest hours of the day.
But many of the hajj rituals, including the prayers on Mount Arafat which took place on Saturday, involve being outdoors for hours in the daytime.
Each year tens of thousands of pilgrims attempt to perform the hajj without securing official hajj visas in order to save money, a more dangerous undertaking because these off-the-books pilgrims cannot access air-conditioned facilities provided by Saudi authorities along the hajj route."
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https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0628/145...
"the hajj pilgrimage this month was made worse by climate change, a team of European scientists has said.
Temperatures along the route from 16-18 June reached 47C at times and exceeded 51.8C at Mecca's Great Mosque.
The heat would have been approximately 2.5C cooler without the influence of human-caused climate change, according to a weather attribution analysis by ClimaMeter.
ClimaMeter conducts rapid assessments of the role of climate change in particular weather events.
The scientists used satellite observations from the last four decades to compare weather patterns from 1979 to 2001 and 2001 to 2023.
Although dangerous temperatures have long been recorded in the desert region, scientists said natural variability did not explain the extent of this month's heatwave and that climate change had made it more intense.
The assessment also found that similar past events in Saudi Arabia occurred in May and July, but now June experiences more severe heatwaves.
"The deadly heat during this year's hajj is directly linked to fossil fuel burning and has affected the most vulnerable pilgrims," said Davide Faranda, a scientist at France's National Centre for Scientific Research who worked on the ClimaMeter analysis.
Climate change has made heatwaves hotter, more frequent and longer lasting. Previous findings by scientists with the World Weather Attribution group suggest that, on average globally, a heatwave is 1.2C hotter than in preindustrial times.
Medical authorities generally do not attribute deaths to heat, but rather to the heat-related coronary or cardiac illnesses exacerbated by high temperatures."
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"The ESRI combined temperature data from Met Éireann with emergency inpatient hospitalisation data, showing that temperature rises significantly increase hospitalisations in Ireland for temperature-related health conditions.
Hot days were defined as 22C to 25C compared to moderate temperature days of 10C to 13C.
The largest increases in hospitalisations on hot days were seen for circulatory, respiratory and infectious diseases and amongst younger people aged between 0 to 14.
The hottest days, where temperatures exceeded 25C, showed potential evidence of people adapting especially among older people.
It suggests that advance notice of very warm days can help people change their behaviour.
The ESRI said that hospital admissions for health conditions linked with temperature are projected to increase by 12.2% during hotter weather between 2041 and 2060.
It pointed out that evidence in the literature estimates that under the most pessimistic climate scenario, climate change could lead to 1,400 additional deaths a year in Ireland by the end of the 21st century."
Another growing factor is getting places back on track that have experienced severe weather which damaged the infrastructure.To handle emergency situations, local governments really only have police and fire departments, and a growing number are developing rescue squads that usually help people during floods.
Diseases can spread when the power goes off for prolonged periods of time. Lacking proper shelter, food, and medical care and needed medications can also spread diseases or make situations worse.
Major power restoration efforts are already drawing workers from neighboring regions to get the work done in a timely matter. Large fires are also handled the same way.
Even alternative power systems and distribution to the local users is impacted by severe weather and needs restoration work to get it running again.
This is happening more often and two of the many important issues are getting good water and the power back on. The power problem has evolved into a 3 level situation. The first is getting the individual users hooked back up again. The next is getting power back to the community levels. The third is getting area wide power running again. The last step is being aggravated by the destruction of the main transmission towers. This happens during fires and severe storms.
Being able to get an area hit by severe weather running again is getting increasingly harder as the size and frequency of the storms steadily increases.
Providing shelter is another problem. There always was a contingent of the global population that lived in tents or tent like structures. They are being joined by refugees who are now living in tent structures. The refugee populations are generated by poverty, political, climate change, and earthquakes. Some are temporary, while others are permanently living in what amounts to temporary shelters that are not intended for extended use.
Building structures that can last through the world's changing environment will have to be examined as one way of avoiding the situation of people becoming homeless after every time the weather becomes severe.
All of this has to be done without excessive profits being taken out of the efforts to achieve these goals for the basic population requirements. Either the excessive profits are plowed back into the restructuring effort or they aren't charged in the first place. People can still use their own money to buy whatever they want, but for basic housing intended to shelter large numbers of the population, the buildings have to be durable regardless of the weather, and affordable.
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To handle emergency situations, local governments really only have pol..."
3-D printed homes are spreading, they are even coming to Ireland. The homes are constructed of solid material and can be ready in a third of the time. Fewer skilled labourers are required.
https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2024...
""It reduces labour by roughly a third, increases the comparative speed if one was doing it manually, by roughly three times and the overall construction programme helps housing be delivered 25-30% faster than it's current iteration. We see that getting far shorter as time goes on and as we optimise it further," said Mr Kinsella."
Could well be that they will print up basic shelters instead of supplying temporary tents in areas that are short on funds. Throw in solar power generating roofs and it could really cut down the downtime after severe weather or earthquakes.
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The 1987 hurricane which hit Britain during summer felled many trees and caused structural damage, but this survey looks at the experiences of people. These experiences are repeated by others enduring major hurricanes.
https://phys.org/news/2024-07-histori...
"In studying these responses, the authors Dr. Cooper and Matthew Turner found that many people turned to either lived or imagined experiences to explain how they felt. The loss of electricity and the blackout that followed elicited from some a 'sensory nostalgia,' harking back to 'the Dunkirk Spirit' and to reading by 'cosy candlelight.' But there was also a very prevalent sense of terror at the kinetic energy of the wind which "sounded droning like the thousand bomber raids which set out over Southern England to Dortmund" to one writer, and "worse than the war" to another.
For those people not old enough to remember the Blitz, apocalyptic fears of a future war provided the theme of several responses. One woman wrote, "In my half-awake state I thought it was a nuclear attack," while another, describing the morning after, penned, "It was really eerie, like the aftermath of a nuclear explosion."
The storm also exposed anxieties around the dark and windows, with several people reporting that they had to physically relocate to a different room in the house to reduce their levels of stress and unease.
"Britain's 1987 storm was undoubtedly a profoundly disruptive embodied experience for those who encountered it," says Matthew Turner. "We can see clearly how it disturbed and discomforted many people, bringing into question the perceptual technologies and networks of power that sustained the distinction between internal domestic comfort and the exterior world of 'nature' in the twentieth century.
"The efforts that some people went to physically re-establishing the corporeal boundary between inside and outside worlds, trying to regain their associated comforts in the face of the storm, reveals how terrifying a threat 'nature at its most vicious' could be."
The article is part of Dr. Cooper's wider research into the storm, looking at its politics and environmental history, and more broadly how weather sits in Britain's social and environmental histories."
More information: Timothy Cooper et al, 'That Awful Night in October': Sensory Experiences of Britain's 1987 Hurricane, Cultural and Social History (2024).
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/...
Provided by University of Exeter
The cost of repairing mental health after weather disasters is highly underestimated. People who are far from the heavily impacted areas can also suffer mentally, and those costs are not counted at all.
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https://phys.org/news/2025-01-toxic-m...
"Toxic Male Technique (TMT).
It works by genetically engineering male insects to produce insect-specific venom proteins in their semen. When these males mate with females, the proteins are transferred, significantly reducing female lifespan and their ability to spread disease.
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"In mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti and Anopheles gambiae, only the females bite and transmit diseases such as malaria, dengue, Zika, chikungunya disease and yellow fever.
Pesticides face declining effectiveness due to resistance and have caused harm to non-target species and ecosystems. Genetic biocontrol has emerged as a promising alternative.
Current techniques like the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) or insects carrying lethal genes (RIDL) work by releasing massive numbers of sterilized or genetically modified males to mate with the wild females.
While these mated females produce no offspring or only male offspring, they continue to blood-feed and spread disease until they die naturally—meaning populations of biting females only decrease when the next generation emerges.
By immediately reducing the biting female population, TMT offers significant advantages over competing genetic biocontrol methods."
The researchers have submitted a patent application (AU2023903662A0) to the Australian patent office pertaining to the enablement of the Toxic Male Technique.
More information: Recombinant venom proteins in insect seminal fluid reduce female lifespan, Nature Communications (2025).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s4146...
Journal information: Nature Communications
Provided by Macquarie University
Green Group
Books mentioned in this topic
The Ministry for the Future (other topics)Hometown Dad (other topics)
Montana Match (other topics)
Second Chance Reunion (other topics)
Mommy's Hometown Hero (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Kim Stanley Robinson (other topics)Carol Garden (other topics)
Merilee Whren (other topics)
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/cli...