cutting global warming would make people healthier

Cutting global warming pollution would not only make the planet healthier, it would make people healthier too, newly released studies say.

Slashing carbon dioxide emissions could save millions of lives, mostly by reducing preventable deaths from heart and lung diseases, the studies show. They were published in a special issue of The Lancet British medical journal, released Wednesday.

The calculations of lives saved were based on computer models that looked at pollution-caused illnesses in certain cities. The figures are also based on the world making dramatic changes in daily life that may at first seem too hard and costly to do, researchers conceded.

Cutting carbon dioxide emissions would also reduce other types of air pollution, especially tiny particles that lodge in the lungs and cause direct health damage, doctors said. Other benefits could come from encouraging more exercise and less meat consumption, to improve heart health, researchers said.

"Reducing greenhouse gases not only helps save the planet in the long term, but it's going to improve our health virtually immediately," said Christopher Portier, associate director of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. That agency helped fund the studies along with the Wellcome Trust and several other international public health groups.

"It's not 50 years from now, it's now," Portier said.

Instead of looking at the health ills causes by future global warming, as past studies have done, this research looks at the immediate benefits of doing something about the problem.

And for places like the United States, those advantages of reduced heart and lung diseases are bigger than the specific future health damage from worsening warming, Portier said.

Some of the benefits would only come from dramatic — and what could be considered unlikely — changes in everyday life, such as more bicycling and walking and reduced meat consumption. Other proposals studied are more concrete and achievable, such as eliminating cook stoves that burn dung, charcoal, wood and other polluting fuels in India and the rest of the developing world. All are part of a number of proposals examined by researchers that are aimed at cutting global greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, by 50 percent by 2050.

"Here are ways you can attack major health problems at the same time as dealing with climate change," said lead author Dr. Paul Wilkinson, an environmental epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

current co2 levels not seen in a million years

The readings at this 2-mile-high station show a troubling upward curve as the world counts down to crucial climate talks: Global-warming gases are building in the atmosphere at record levels from emissions that match scientists' worst-case scenarios.

Carbon dioxide concentrations this fall are hovering at around 385 parts per million, on their way to a near-certain record high above 390 in the first half of next year, at the annual peak.

"For the past million years we've never seen 390," said physicist John Barnes, the observatory director. "You have to wonder what that's going to do."

One leading atmospheric scientist, Stephen Schneider, sees "coin-flip odds for serious outcomes for our planet."

Al Gore rethinking energy

As a nation, we face three interrelated crises that collectively threaten to destabilize our way of life: the climate crisis, the continuing economic crisis and the security crisis, all stemming from our absurd overdependence on foreign oil, the largest reserves of which are controlled by sovereign states in the Persian Gulf.

Fortunately, there is a growing realization that the solutions to the climate crisis are also the most important solutions for the other two crises. We can simultaneously protect our climate and establish stability for our economy and our national security.

-- Costco Connection, November 2009

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Perhaps not too surprisingly the December issue prints some letters to the editor that are not favorable to Gore.

Here's something interesting (i.e. dirt) on Dr. Fred Singer who is featured there.

In 1994 Singer was the Principal Reviewer of a report authored by Kent Jeffreys titled Science, economics, and environmental policy: a critical examination which was published by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI), a right wing[13] think tank of which he was a Senior Fellow.[14] The report attacked the United States Environmental Protection Agency for their 1993 study about the cancer risks of passive smoking and called it "junk science". Singer also appeared on a tobacco industry list of people who could write op-ed pieces defending the industry’s views, according to a peer-reviewed commentary by Derek Yacht and Stella Aguinaga Bialous.[15] Writing for The Guardian, George Monbiot stated that in 1993 APCO, a public relations firm, sent a memo to Philip Morris vice-president Ellen Merlo stating: "As you know, we have been working with Singer and Dr. Dwight Lee, who have authored articles on junk science and indoor air quality (IAQ) respectively ..."[16] Monbiot wrote that he did not have direct evidence that Singer had been paid by Philip Morris.

So I wonder how much of a consensus is there on global warming? Or is it a few nutballs that disagree? (not to say that a few nutballs can't be right)

From wikipedia:

National and international science academies and scientific societies have assessed the current scientific opinion, in particular on recent global warming. These assessments have largely followed or endorsed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) position of January 2001 that states:

An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system... There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.[1]

Since 2007, no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion. A small minority of organisations hold non-committal positions.

Since 2001, 32 national science academies have come together to issue joint declarations confirming anthropogenic global warming, and urging the nations of the world to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The signatories of these statements have been the national science academies of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, the Caribbean, China, France, Ghana, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, India, Japan, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, New Zealand, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Sweden, Tanzania, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

A poll performed by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago received replies from 3,146 of the 10,257 polled Earth scientists. Results were analyzed globally and by specialization. 76 out of 79 climatologists who "listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change" believe that mean global temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and 75 out of 77 believe that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures. Among all respondents, 90% agreed that temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800 levels, and 82% agreed that humans significantly influence the global temperature. Economic geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively, believing in significant human involvement.

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Then again, some say wikipedia is biased. Actually I didn't really know when I wrote the previous sentence, but I had a hunch that almost everything is attacked by somebody. Kind of reminds me of the right-wing smear on snopes.

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[7/28/10] I wonder... Why don't most Republicans believe in global warming?

safemanuals

If a kitchen appliance, electronic gadget, cell phone, camera or something else breaks down, don't toss it just because you can't find the repair manual. You can download nearly 1.5 million user and instruction manuals for free by going to safemanuals.com.

-- GEICO Direct, Fall/Winter 2009

Arlene's computer

This is her new Dell (Dimension E521) that didn't get video last time (for me). I took it down to CyberLife and they got a picture on boot. Took it home, still no picture. Switched monitors. Picture. Next day, no picture. Back to CyberLife. They found a corrupted video driver.

Anyway, this time she got infected with a fake anti-security software virus. But when I booted it up, it looked like the file was already deleted. I ran Malwarebytes to get rid of the residual traces. Several times. Also ran AVG and Windows Defender.

Updated AVG Free from 8.5 to 9.0.

Saw HP Photoshop Express on her desktop. Kept saying needed HP Photoshop Essential to run. Downloaded and installed Essential. That runs, but Express still gets the message. I dunno. I guess use Essential instead of Express.

going for the green

LONDON — A British heritage charity is encouraging employees to help the environment by eschewing indoor toilets and relieving themselves outdoors.

The experiment applies to male gardening staff at Wimpole Hall, a stately home about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of London.

The National Trust, which runs the property, says the staff are being encouraged to urinate on straw which is then placed on compost heaps.

The trust said Friday that the chemical reaction helps the composting process, while the absence of flushing by 10 members of staff could cut the estate's water use by almost a third.

Officials warned the gardeners to make sure they urinate in spots where they cannot be seen by passers-by.