Global warming and health

As the earth warms up, we can expect more health problems.

Around my house it’s been rather tough to keep global warming in mind this last few weeks. Temperatures have been well below zero, and storm upon storm has blown through, dropping loads of white stuff as they pass. Winds have whipped up drifts, and the county is already losing its battle to keep the roads around here open. We had our white Christmas, and can now look forward to our white January, February, March, and April. Uggh!

In spite of our harsh winter, which is to be expected in the northern hemisphere at this time of year, the signs of global warming are everywhere. I’ve begun spotting a number of reports that highlight global warming’s implications for human health. One story that’s been in the press recently really illuminates this: This summer and fall, the Italian government confirmed hundreds of cases of chikungunya virus, an tropical virus conveyed by the tiger mosquito. Both virus and mosquito are moving north, and global warming is likely to blame.

The NYT ran a good article on this case just before Christmas, so I started doing a little more digging. The outbreak of chikungunya was first reported in Cervia and Ravenna, villages in the northeast of the country, near the Adriatic coast. The virus, much like a cold or flu bug, is characterized by fever, headache, weakness, rash, and severe aching in muscles and joints. Some patients have prolonged weakness and the aches and pains can last several months.

The International Panel on Climate Change included a chapter in its latest report on the potential health impacts from global warming and climate change. The report says, “At this early stage the effects are small but are projected to progressively increase in all countries and regions.

“Published evidence so far indicates that climate change is affecting the seasonality of some allergenic species as well as the seasonal activity and distribution of some disease vectors [and] climate plays an important role in the seasonal pattern or temporal distribution of malaria, dengue, tick-borne diseases, cholera and some other diarrhoeal diseases.”

The spread of disease causing organisms is just one issue. Add to it killing heat waves, and natural weather disasters (which have increased four fold in the last two decades according to a report from Oxfam International) and it appears that we should expect the negative health impacts to rise along with the temperature. For example, across the United States, we have seen increased flooding, worsening droughts, and explosive increases in wildfire—all associated with climate change. And each of these has health impacts, ranging from the obvious (contaminated drinking water supplies or lack of adequate water supply) to the less obvious (increases in asthma and other respiratory illnesses from smoke).

What can you do to reduce global warming and climate change

We are all part of the problem when it comes to global warming and climate change, but we can also all be part of the solution. One thing you can easily do: Place TVs, stereos, VCRs, DVD players, coffee pots, and other such appliances on a power strip with an on-off button, and turn the power completely off to them when not in use. These appliances use small amounts of electricity 24 hours per day, even when not in active use. According to government sources, that standby power corresponds to the annual output of eight large power plants.

When its time to replace appliances and electronics, look for ENERGY STAR certification. The ENERGY STAR program is a voluntary labeling program started in the early 1990s by the Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy. These agencies calculate that Americans saved $14 billion over a decade by selecting products that are designed to use less energy. Learn more about ENERGY STAR and tax credits at www.energystar.gov .

Indoor lighting accounts for about a quarter of the electricity used in the United States, and conventional lighting is terribly inefficient, with less than 25% of the actual energy being converted to visible light. Compounding the inefficiencies, the heat given off by artificial lighting increases the energy used for cooling buildings by about 10%. Although the commercial sector is the largest user of light energy, home lighting is still a big energy hog—estimated to use up to 25% of household electricity. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, if every U.S. household replaced the light bulbs in their five most frequently used lights with energy saving bulbs it would save $3 billion per year in electricity costs and prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to eight million cars.

Finding hope in the marketplace

Hazel Henderson's, Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy offers a hopeful look at how the marketplace can actually help solve some of our problems.

Hazel Henderson in an expert on sustainable development, the author a eight books, a syndicated columnist, and co-developer of the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators—an economic tool that looks at measures beyond gross national product and other traditional economic indicators to evaluate economic and social success. I just finished reading her book Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy, and have to applaud her for documenting, through hundreds of examples, that the marketplace can be part of the solution to our myriad problems, and not just part of the problem.

In the book's introduction, Henderson says, "More ethical markets are now necessary in the twenty-first century information age... Markets can only operate where there is trust, transparency, honesty, and fidelity in contracts..."

I couldn't agree more. We, as consumers, and as investors (no matter how small our savings and investments), have previously unimaginable power. Companies that watch out for the triple bottom line (or the economic, environmental, and social bottom line) are being rewarded. Those that only look at the economic bottom line are skating on thin ice. "Global communications and 24/7 financial markets birthed the new global superpower: world public opinion," Henderson says. "Billion dollar brand names can be devalued in real time... Governments and corporations are responding."

People interested in the status quo often say we can't raise food sustainably and feed the world, we can't produce products that are truly safe and meet the needs of the world. They are wrong, and Henderson's book helps to show that. Green chemistry, green building, organic food production, and safe manufacturing are possible. They are the only hope for our future, and ultimately for the companies that produce the goods we consume. As Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface Carpet, the world's largest manufacturer of industrial carpet and fabrics, says in the book, "We might not be here today, but for the sustainability initiative we undertook." His company has been well-rewarded by pursuing the triple bottom line.

Henderson includes web addresses for organizations and businesses in the text as she refers to them. They provide a great way for readers to learn more, but my one complaint about this book is that 100 percent of these should have been cross-referenced in an appendix, to make it easier for readers to follow up on interesting topics. But this is a minor flaw; the book is well worth reading.

Creating Better Habits

Small Changes Do Make a Difference

My friend and fellow writer Daylle Deanna Schwartz blogs over at Lessons from a Recovering Doormat. Daylle started The Creating Better Habits Challenge, which is open to any blogger who wants to tackle the challenge's topic: how to break a habit and replace it with one—big or small—that can lead to improvement in some aspect of life.

In developing the challenge, Daylle tagged ten other bloggers, including me, to write on the topic. We get to tag other people. And, hopefully, all these bloggers send a little ripple of conversation through cyberdom.

About Those Better Habits

I often hear from people that all the environmental health news is so bad that they feel overwhelmed. Why bother trying to change; something’s going to kill me. But one thing we know about exposures is that they are cumulative. Reducing your exposure now doesn’t reduce the burden of your past exposures, but does reduce those cumulative impacts, which in turn reduces your chance of getting sick from environmental exposures. It all adds up!

Habits. We all have them, and they contribute to our exposures. We put on potions and lotions and fragrances after we bathe. Or swing into the coffee shop in the morning and grab a to-go cup of joe in a disposable cup. We grab a bottle of water from the convenience store cooler. And on, and on, and on.

How do we change habits: By becoming conscious. By actually stopping to think about what we are doing. Once you start thinking about your habits, you can begin to change.

When I first started researching environmental health issues four or five years ago, I still had a plastic to-go coffee cup that I’d take with me when on the road. I switched it for a stainless steel one. I’m a klutz, so I have never kept a glass of water on my desk, but used a polycarbonate water bottle. That bottle got retired to store rubber bands, paper clips, and the miscellaneous detritus that most of us accumulate around our desks, and I use a glass bottle with a lid. The pleasant surprise: water actually tastes better out of a glass bottle, and it stays colder longer.

Next, I looked around my kitchen at the collection of plastic storage stuff—the Tupperware, and the recycled yogurt containers, and the baggies. I had ball jars in the cabinets. I had nice ceramic bowls. I started using these for food storage, and sent 99% of that plastic stuff to recycle.

Even before I’d started my research, my personal grooming regime had begun to shift. I was already using some organic or natural products, but I was also using a lot of mainstream cosmetics and grooming products. I began reevaluating the products I used. Some got tossed. Some got used up, but once gone, I purchased healthier alternatives. Now my grooming choices mirror my food choices: they are as clean and green as possible.

Again, my cleaning product choices were already shifting when I started looking into the connections between the stuff around us and our health, but my research made me finalize the shift. I went old-fashioned (see “tips”) taking a cue from my grandmother’s generation. They depended on things such as baking soda and borax, or plain old soap and vinegar, aided by a little elbow grease. Another pleasant surprise: it takes damn little elbow grease with these old standards.

I always tended to use a wired headset when using my cell phone if the call was going to go long. I did it not because I was trying to protect myself from radio-frequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs), but because the cell phone’s heat was uncomfortable on my ear. Now I’m glad about that accidental decision. Most of my phone time is when I’m sitting at my desk working. I used to have a cordless phone here. When I began reading about EMFs, I went out and bought a regular old corded phone for my desk. I still have the cordless in the living room, and will use it once in a while, but most of my phone time is now on the corded phone again.

None of these were painful, hard, or expensive changes. They just took becoming conscious, and breaking what I now see as bad habits. You too can become conscious, you can break those habits. It is worth the change, worth becoming clean and green, for you and your family.

And tag to:

Sharon at Out in the World. Sharon is blogging of her travels in a national park in India. Her trip and her blog are truly inspirational. I think she has seen things that will have a lasting impact on her habits.

Judy at Living Green, Living Well. Judy always has some really great and practical ideas on green living.

The BioInitiative Report

A recent report highlights concerns with electromagnetic fields and our burgeoning wireless world.

Today I listened to a fascinating conference call sponsored by the Collaborative on Health and Environment on electromagnetic fields and their potential health impacts. Electromagnetic fields, or EMFs, are created by the vast array of wired and wireless technologies that have provided us with light and heat historically, and have recently created the wireless revolution that brings us everything from cell phones to Wifi-wireless computer technology. No one denies the remarkable benefits of these technologies, but The BioInitiative Study shows the dark side of EMFs also.

The conference call featured some of the BioInitiative Study report authors, including Dr. David Carpenter, of the University at Albany, SUNY, Dr. Lennart Hardell, of the Department of Oncology, University Hospital, Orebro, Sweden, and Cindy Sage, editor of the report and coordinator at the Working Group on Electromagnetic Fields, as well as Dr. Raymond Neutra, from the Division of Environmental & Occupational Disease Control, California Department of Health Services, Dr. Ted Schettler, Science Director, Science and Environmental Health Network, and Louis Slesin, PhD, Editor of Microwave News.

The bottom line? Dr. Carpenter summed it up well when he said, “The public health evidence points to the fact that by this unbridled expansion of our electromagnetic environment we are harming our health, harming our children, and harming the next generation.”

The report (a little light reading, at over 600 pages) looks at all the available science, and with dozens of participating scientists and public health experts from around the globe, comes to the conclusion that we should be increasing our regulation of EMFs. As the report points out, "human beings are bioelectrical systems. Our hearts and brains are regulated by internal bioelectrical signals. Environmental exposures to artificial EMFs can interact with fundamental biological processes in the human body.”

Anyone with even an iota of consciousness will recognize that our exposures to these fields have been on the increase. The report’s authors point out that “since World War II, the background level of EMF from electrical sources has risen exponentially, most recently by the soaring popularity of wireless technologies such as cell phones (two billion and counting in 2006), cordless phones, WI-FI and WI-MAX networks. Several decades of international scientific research confirm that EMFs are biologically active in animals and in humans.”

The authors generally conclude:

We cannot afford ‘business as usual” any longer. It is time that planning for new power lines and for new homes, schools and other habitable spaces around them is done with routine provision for [reduced EMFs]. The business-as-usual deployment of new wireless technologies is likely to be risky and harder to change if society does not make some educated decisions about limits soon. Research must continue to define what levels of RF [radio frequency] related to new wireless technologies are acceptable; but more research should not prevent or delay substantive changes today that might save money, lives and societal disruption tomorrow.

New regulatory limits for [EMFs] based on biologically relevant levels of [EMF] are warranted.

While it is not realistic to reconstruct all existing electrical distribution systems, in the short term, steps to reduce exposure from these existing systems need to be initiated, especially in places where children spend time.

For regulators and policy makers, the report recommends specific exposure limits.

What can you do to protect yourself? Go back to an old-fashioned corded phone for regular use, and use a corded earplug for your cell phone. Disconnect in-home wireless transmitters for routine use (hook your computer to the internet via a wire), and if you have kids in school, encourage your school board to use wired alternatives also. Next, encourage regulators and elected officials to review this report (why not forward this post to them) and to give serious consideration to the author's recommendations.

Links: The BioInitiative Report can be found here. The most valuable information for the public and policy makers is in Section 17, KEY SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE AND PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS, beginning on page 567.

More information on today's call, and within the next several days, a MP3 recording of the call, are available here.

The BioInitiative Report

A recent report highlights concerns with electromagnetic fields and our burgeoning wireless world.

Today I listened to a fascinating conference call sponsored by the Collaborative on Health and Environment on electromagnetic fields and their potential health impacts. Electromagnetic fields, or EMFs, are created by the vast array of wired and wireless technologies that have provided us with light and heat historically, and have recently created the wireless revolution that brings us everything from cell phones to Wifi-wireless computer technology. No one denies the remarkable benefits of these technologies, but The BioInitiative Study shows the dark side of EMFs also.

The conference call featured some of the BioInitiative Study report authors, including Dr. David Carpenter, of the University at Albany, SUNY, Dr. Lennart Hardell, of the Department of Oncology, University Hospital, Orebro, Sweden, and Cindy Sage, editor of the report and coordinator at the Working Group on Electromagnetic Fields, as well as Dr. Raymond Neutra, from the Division of Environmental & Occupational Disease Control, California Department of Health Services, Dr. Ted Schettler, Science Director, Science and Environmental Health Network, and Louis Slesin, PhD, Editor of Microwave News.

The bottom line? Dr. Carpenter summed it up well when he said, “The public health evidence points to the fact that by this unbridled expansion of our electromagnetic environment we are harming our health, harming our children, and harming the next generation.”

The report (a little light reading, at over 600 pages) looks at all the available science, and with dozens of participating scientists and public health experts from around the globe, comes to the conclusion that we should be increasing our regulation of EMFs. As the report points out, "human beings are bioelectrical systems. Our hearts and brains are regulated by internal bioelectrical signals. Environmental exposures to artificial EMFs can interact with fundamental biological processes in the human body.”

Anyone with even an iota of consciousness will recognize that our exposures to these fields have been on the increase. The report’s authors point out that “since World War II, the background level of EMF from electrical sources has risen exponentially, most recently by the soaring popularity of wireless technologies such as cell phones (two billion and counting in 2006), cordless phones, WI-FI and WI-MAX networks. Several decades of international scientific research confirm that EMFs are biologically active in animals and in humans.”

The authors generally conclude:

We cannot afford ‘business as usual” any longer. It is time that planning for new power lines and for new homes, schools and other habitable spaces around them is done with routine provision for [reduced EMFs]. The business-as-usual deployment of new wireless technologies is likely to be risky and harder to change if society does not make some educated decisions about limits soon. Research must continue to define what levels of RF [radio frequency] related to new wireless technologies are acceptable; but more research should not prevent or delay substantive changes today that might save money, lives and societal disruption tomorrow.

New regulatory limits for [EMFs] based on biologically relevant levels of [EMF] are warranted.

While it is not realistic to reconstruct all existing electrical distribution systems, in the short term, steps to reduce exposure from these existing systems need to be initiated, especially in places where children spend time.

For regulators and policy makers, the report recommends specific exposure limits.

What can you do to protect yourself? Go back to an old-fashioned corded phone for regular use, and use a corded earplug for your cell phone. Disconnect in-home wireless transmitters for routine use (hook your computer to the internet via a wire), and if you have kids in school, encourage your school board to use wired alternatives also. Next, encourage regulators and elected officials to review this report (why not forward this post to them) and to give serious consideration to the author's recommendations.

Links: The BioInitiative Report can be found here. The most valuable information for the public and policy makers is in Section 17, KEY SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE AND PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS, beginning on page 567.

More information on today's call, and within the next several days, a MP3 recording of the call, are available here.

101 Solutions

A book review of Cancer: 101 Solutions to a Preventable Epidemic, by Liz Armstrong, Guy Dauncey, Anne Wordsworth.

This book is a good choice for the activist on your Christmas shopping list, and with our deteriorating health, our imploding health-care system, rocketing insurance costs, and economic hardship even among the insured (68% of personal bankruptcies are due to health care costs, and 75% of those people had insurance when diagnosed) more or us should become activists.

All three authors are Canadians who have been actively engaged in environmental health issues for years. They joined forces to create a book that says we can do something positive, we can join together to improve life for everyone. Cancer and other debilitating illnesses affect each and every one of us, directly and indirectly. At the beginning of the book, Dauncey says, “To work for a cure is clearly important—but it is equally important to prevent cancer before it starts.”

The book begins with a section that outlines the scope of the cancer epidemic and its impacts on individuals and society. It provides a fact-rich skeleton upon which the authors build the need for action, just in case anyone was still in doubt, including:

Body burden studies have shown that every one of us, including newborn babies, have hundreds of industrial chemicals in our bodies, many of which are known or suspected carcinogens.

Only about 5 to 10 percent of cancers result from damaged genes inherited from our parents. The other 90+ percent are from damage incurred during our lives.

There is also a cancer epidemic in wildlife (who don’t drink, smoke, or get obese). One in beluga whales in the St. Lawrence river is dying from cancer.

Cancer is also on the rise among companion animals. In a study that analyzed data from veterinary teaching hospitals around the country, there was a six-fold increase in bladder cancer in dogs between 1975 and 1995.

The second section of the book is dedicated to the 101 solutions, with ideas for individuals, parents, youth, action groups, the health-care system, cities, labor, business, governments, and global initiatives. The final solution, number 101, is “Don’t sit this one out.” Their message is to get involved. To make changes in your own life, and to say “enough.”

“Speak up,” they say. “Use your voice and vision of a healthy world to create the changes we need.”

Good advice!

Learn more about the book at Earth Future.