Former Australian fire chiefs say Coalition ignored their advice because of climate change politics

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/14/former-australian-fire-chiefs-say-coalition-doesnt-like-talking-about-climate-change

Naaman Zhou
Thu 14 Nov 2019 04.11 GMT
First published on Thu 14 Nov 2019 03.21 GMT

A coalition of former fire chiefs have said the government “fundamentally doesn’t like talking about climate change” and that politics is the reason the government was ignoring their advice.

Former heads of the New South Wales, Queensland, Victorian and Tasmanian fire services met in Sydney on Thursday after fires that killed four people tore through the the Australian east coast this week.

They said the climate crisis was making bushfires deadlier and bushfire season longer, and the federal government needed to act immediately.

“Just a 1C temperature rise has meant the extremes are far more extreme, and it is placing lives at risk, including firefighters,” said Greg Mullins, the former chief of NSW Fire and Rescue. “Climate change has supercharged the bushfire problem.”
NSW and Qld fires: teenager accused of lighting destructive bushfire near Yeppoon
Read more

“Bushfires are a symptom of climate change,” said Neil Bibby, the former chief executive of Victoria’s Country Fire Authority.

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Mullins said he and 23 other fire and emergency chiefs had been trying to have a meeting with the prime minister, Scott Morrison, since April because they “knew that a bushfire crisis was coming”.

Instead, he said current fire chiefs had been locked out of discussions and were “not allowed” to mention climate change.

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“None of us can understand why climate change in Australia is so political,” he said. “In the UK, the conservatives, Margaret Thatcher, said years ago this is a major problem.”

It may be a small risk, but we are exposed to thousands of chemicals, and I expect the total effect is not small.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/13/air-pollution-particles-linked-to-brain-cancer-in-new-research

Damian Carrington Environment editor
Wed 13 Nov 2019 05.57 EST

New research has linked air pollution nanoparticles to brain cancer for the first time.

The ultra-fine particles (UFPs) are produced by fuel burning, particularly in diesel vehicles, and higher exposures significantly increase people’s chances of getting the deadly cancer. Previous work has shown that nanoparticles can get into the brain and that they can carry carcinogenic chemicals.

Brain cancers are rare, and the scientists have calculated that an increase in pollution exposure roughly equivalent to moving from a quiet city street to a busy one leads to one extra case of brain cancer for every 100,000 people exposed.

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“Environmental risks like air pollution are not large in magnitude – their importance comes because everyone in the population is exposed,” said Scott Weichenthal, at McGill University in Canada, who led the study. “So when you multiply these small risks by lots of people, all of sudden there can be lots of cases. In a large city, it could be a meaningful number, particularly given the fact that these tumours are often fatal.”

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Toxic air has been linked to other effects on the brain, including huge reductions in intelligence, dementia and mental health problems in both adults and children. The World Health Organization says air pollution is a “silent public health emergency”.

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A troubling new study shows that legalizing marijuana is linked with an increase in problematic pot use among teens

https://news.yahoo.com/troubling-study-shows-legalizing-marijuana-160000871.html

Jeremy Berke
,Business Insider•November 13, 2019

A new study found that problematic marijuana use increased by 25% among teens in states with legal pot shops.

Adults over the age of 26 also reported increased marijuana use. The study looked at survey data for about 500,000 people.

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The study shows that among teens aged 12 to 17, problematic marijuana use was 25% higher when states legalized marijuana. The researchers note that the increase was small, from 2.18% to 2.72%. Among adults 26 and older, cannabis use disorder increased from 0.9% to 1.23%.

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Problematic cannabis use is associated with negative health effects, including increased anxiety, lower educational attainment, unemployment, cognitive decline, and potentially a decline in socio-economic class, according to the study's authors.

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tags: drug use, drug abuse

The US Navy canceled a routine Black Sea patrol after Trump complained that it was hostile to Russia

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-canceled-patrol-trump-said-it-was-hostile-russia-2019-11

Ellen Ioanes
Nov. 13, 2019

Christopher Anderson, an aide to former Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, testified that the White House canceled a Navy freedom-of-navigation operation in the Black Sea after President Donald Trump complained to then-national security adviser John Bolton about a CNN report that framed the operation as a counter to Russia, Politico reported.

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that operation, was canceled, but then we were able to get a second one for later in February.

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Venice floods: Climate change behind highest tide in 50 years, says mayor

13 November 2019

Severe flooding in Venice that has left much of the Italian city under water is a direct result of climate change, the mayor says.

The highest water levels in the region in more than 50 years would leave "a permanent mark", Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro tweeted.

"Now the government must listen," he added. "These are the effects of climate change... the costs will be high."

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St Mark's Basilica was flooded for the sixth time in 1,200 years, according to church records. Pierpaolo Campostrini, a member of St Mark's council, said four of those floods had now occurred within the past 20 years.

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Climate change: do more now or risk catastrophe, warns energy agency

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/13/climate-change-do-more-now-or-risk-catastrophe-warns-energy-agency

Jillian Ambrose
Tue 12 Nov 2019 19.01 EST

The world’s existing climate policies will not be enough to end the upward march of record energy emissions rising beyond 2040 without a “grand coalition” of governments and investors, according to the global energy watchdog.

The International Energy Agency said carbon emissions from the global energy industry reached a new record in 2018 despite progress in renewable energy in recent years.

The IEA expects the growth of renewables to accelerate over the coming decades, but warned it would not be enough to put a ceiling on the energy sector’s emissions before 2040.

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Energy efficiency is one of the most important levers for policymakers to help reduce carbon emissions across the economy, according to the IEA’s report, yet efforts to cut energy waste have fallen to record lows even as the climate crisis has climbed the political agenda.

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Free speech rights a concern in Wisconsin water resolution

https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/national-international/article237285124.html

The Associated Press
November 12, 2019 01:10 PM,

A southwestern Wisconsin county council on Tuesday dropped a proposal to prosecute journalists over their reporting on a water quality study but could still decide to discipline any county officials who talk about the research without government approval.

The Lafayette County Land Conservation Committee drafted a resolution last week that warned journalists against reporting on the well contamination study without running an official news release verbatim. Media law experts warned that the proposal was unconstitutional.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the committee removed that from the resolution Tuesday.

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/national-international/article237285124.html#storylink=cpy

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If the US military is facing up to the climate crisis, shouldn't we all?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/12/us-military-pentagon-climate-crisis-breakdown-

Michael Klare
Tue 12 Nov 2019 08.12 EST
Last modified on Tue 12 Nov 2019 10.17 EST

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Military leaders have not said much in public about global warming, in part because they’re reluctant to become involved in partisan political issues (as climate has become) and partly because top government officials—in the United States, at least—have actively discouraged such involvement. Nevertheless, senior officers are fully aware of warming’s deleterious effects and have devised a thorough analysis of its strategic implications. As I demonstrate in my new book, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, senior American officers believe that global warming is already threatening the survival of many poor, resource-deprived countries and poses a significant risk to even the wealthiest of nations.

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In this, and other Pentagon documents, senior officials have identified three main pathways by which climate change is likely to endanger American security: by increasing the level of conflict and chaos abroad; by exposing the homeland to ever more destructive climate effects; and by obstructing the military’s capacity to carry out its assigned missions.

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Pronunciation counts

I love the song "Morning Has Broken", but it jars me when the linger pronounces the first syllable of "re-creation" with a short "e", like "recreation" as in playing a game of checkers, instead of a long "e", which jars me because it feels like it trivializes the wonder of life.

A minimum-wage worker needs 2.5 full-time jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment in most of the US

https://www.businessinsider.com/minimum-wage-worker-cant-afford-one-bedroom-rent-us-2018-6?utm_content=buffer61d86&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer-bi&fbclid=IwAR0JpzUzWva5SBnwtZ8gOUgGhZvYB8V29nkrUbNMJ6yyDov10SvtXRLOiIc


Andy Kiersz and Hillary Hoffower
Jun 14, 2018, 1:46 PM

• Many minimum-wage workers can't even afford a modest one-bedroom apartment, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition's annual report.
• The national housing wage for a modest one-bedroom apartment is $17.90, while the federal minimum wage is $7.25.
• A low-income worker earning the federal minimum wage would need 2.5 jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment.

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Only five states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington — have one-bedrooms affordable for minimum-wage workers across 22 counties.

All of these states have minimum wages higher than the federal minimum wage, but if you're looking for housing outside of the 22 counties, even these higher minimum wages aren't enough.

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Medical costs in U.S. compared to Canada

https://qr.ae/TW4MZi

Question on Quora:

Why is universal healthcare praised for being cheap despite taxes for said countries being significantly higher and thus the true medical cost being either as expensive or more than the US?

Answer by Scott Young, Commissioning Specialist Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Answered Aug 28

OK, Daniel Micheals lets do a comparison. You studied in Florida but do not list your home state so we will calculate your taxes based on there. I am in Alberta. 100,000 income for both. we could complicate this, I am married, you probably are too. Maybe kids,etc. Lets keep is simple though. Straight taxes only, no deductions.

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Your premise is inaccurate.

The total cost per person by country is everything that anyone spends on healthcare, government insurance, private insurance, personal outlay.

In the USA, you pay about 40% more than in Canada. Why?

1. None of the government insurance systems has to make a profit. Your health insurance premiums have about 15% pulled right off the top for profit before you see one penny’s worth of medical treatment.

2. Your health insurance company has a bunch of people to check to see if you are covered. a whole department’s worth. In Canada, they check at the doctor’s office to see if you have a health card. That means that anything except for vanity cosmetic surgery is covered, every time.

3. Your health insurance company has a bunch of lawyers to fight the lawsuits when they turn you down. If they never turn you down, there are no lawsuits so no lawyers needed.

4. In Canada, there are 13 health insurance systems (provincial or territorial). In California, about the same population, there are over 50. That means that there are 4 times as many Presidents, CEOs, boards, etc.

5. Your doctor works for several health insurance systems. He has a separate billing system for each. My doctor in Illinois had three full timers and a part time billing clerk. My doctor in Edmonton has one billing system and one billing clerk who is also the receptionist.

You [in the U.S.] pay more but you end up with more children dying (High childhood mortality), more women dying (high prenatal mortality) and people just dying earlier (lower expected lifespan) than any other first world country.

Income for poorest Americans fell faster than previously thought

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/469040-income-for-poorest-americans-fell-faster-than-previously-thought-study

By Niv Elis - 11/05/19 12:52 PM EST

The poorest Americans saw their income decline 7 percent over the past 15 years, while everyone else gained financially, according to a new study.

Real income for low-income Americans fell more than 7 percent between 2004 and 2018, in part because of rising costs for items and services purchased by those Americans, according to the report published by the Groundwork Collaborative and the Center on Poverty and Social Policy (CPSP) at Columbia University.

“Given strong evidence that low-income families in America are paying higher prices and living in poverty in higher numbers than official metrics account for, this is a major problem,” said co-authors Christopher Wimer, co-director of CPSP; Sophie Collyer, a policy analyst at the center; and Xavier Jaravel, an assistant professor at the London School of Economics.

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What the dip in US life expectancy is really about: inequality

By Julia Belluz@juliaoftorontojulia.belluz@voxmedia.com Updated Nov 30, 2018, 9:13am EST

Living in the US increasingly looks like a health risk. Average life expectancy in the country dropped for the third year in a row, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s the longest downturn since the Spanish flu wiped out more than 50 million people a century ago.

The grim trend stems from a toxic mixture of more drug- and alcohol-related deaths and more suicide in many parts of the country. And it puts Americans at a higher risk of early death compared to their counterparts in other wealthy countries.

But what’s often lost in the conversation about the uptick in mortality in the US is that this trend isn’t affecting all Americans. In fact, there’s one group in the US that’s actually doing better than ever: the rich. While poor and middle-class Americans are dying earlier, the wealthiest among us are enjoying unprecedented longevity.

So when we talk about life expectancy slipping, what we should also talk about is the growing problem of health inequality in America. And it’s an increasingly urgent discussion, health researchers are warning, because of policy changes on the horizon that are poised to make the mortality gap even wider.

Some of these policies will hamper access to medical care (such as rescinding funding for CHIP, the health insurance program for low-income children) but others that aren’t even directly related to health care, like tax cuts, may have even more insidious effects on the American mortality gap.

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They also found that men who were among the top 1 percent of income earners lived 15 years longer than men at the bottom 1 percent. For women at the extremes of the income distribution, life expectancy differed by 10 years.

•••••

Right now, there are several policies that are not only expected to hamper health care access but also exacerbate income inequality — and widen the life expectancy disparity, David Blumenthal, president of the Commonwealth Fund, says. Blumenthal has written about the potential effects of the tax bill President Donald Trump signed into law last December, on low- and middle-income Americans in particular, and how it’ll disproportionately ding them while rich Americans and corporations will enjoy tax breaks:

Americans earning less than $75,000 would face higher taxes on average by 2027, according to the Joint Commission on Taxation’s estimates of the bill’s distributional effects. The bill has varying effects on different income groups in different years, but consistently cuts taxes for the richest Americans. For example, individuals earning less than $10,000 would see their federal taxes go up on average by $182 each year until 2027. People earning a million dollars or more would, on average, see their taxes fall by $6,800 annually over the next decade.

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If Americans are better off than a decade ago, why doesn’t it feel that way?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/05/if-americans-are-better-off-than-a-decade-ago-why-doesnt-it-feel-that-way

Jessica Goodheart
Tue 5 Nov 2019 05.00 EST
Last modified on Tue 5 Nov 2019 15.48 EST

Economic mobility is on the decline, according to a Harvard team of researchers led by economist Raj Chetty.

More than 90% of children who were born in 1940 grew up to earn more than their parents. Only 50% of children born 40 years later will go on to earn more than their parents. But the top 1% is doing better than fine: the average CEO pulled in 312 times as much as the average worker in 2017, up from 20 times as much in 1965, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

The rise in economic inequality is a global phenomenon. But it is more extreme in the US, where social mobility has been shown to be lower than in other industrialized nations, and where the safety net is weaker and poverty more severe. Even though the US spends more per capita on healthcare, the system covers fewer people and produces worse outcomes, including lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality rates.

If the United States had experienced the same decline in infant deaths as have other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member states since 1960, 300,000 fewer babies would have died over the course of 50 years, according to a recent report.

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Scientists foresee 'untold suffering', another climate record falls

https://news.yahoo.com/scientists-foresee-untold-suffering-another-climate-record-falls-192240500.html

Marlowe HOOD, Elizabeth DONOVAN
,AFP•November 6, 2019

More than 11,000 scientists warned Tuesday of "untold suffering" due to global warming, even as another team said Paris carbon-cutting pledges are "too little, too late".

The European Union, meanwhile, confirmed that last month was the warmest October ever registered, fast on heels of a record September and the hottest month ever in July.

Three-quarters of national commitments under the Paris climate accord to curb greenhouse gases will not even slow the accelerating pace of global warming, according to a report from five senior scientists.

The sobering assessment came a day after President Donald Trump formally notified the United Nations of the US withdrawal from the 2015 Paris climate pact, triggering concerns of how other nations might react.

"With few exceptions, the pledges of rich, middle-income and poor nations are insufficient to address climate change," said Robert Watson, who chaired both the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the UN's science body for biodiversity.

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Just over half of greenhouse gas emissions from power, industry, agriculture and deforestation -- the main drivers of global warming -- came from four nations last year: China, the United States, India and Russia.

Accounting for 13.1 percent of the total, the US has turned its back on the Paris deal. [The U.S. has less than 4% of the world population, so causes much more than its share of greenhouse gas emissions. And since so many of U.S. products come from China, we are actually even more disproportionately responsible.]

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At 29 percent of the global total, China alone pumps out more CO2 than the next three nations combined, though about 13 percent of those emissions are generated by exports destined for rich nations, recent research has shown.

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Among major economic blocs, only the European Union, with its 28 member states, got a passing mark.

"The EU is clearly in the lead in trying to address the climate crisis," Watson said.

The emissions of the world's poorest nations have been and continue to be negligible, but steps must be taken today to shape their energy futures.

"Sooner or later, they will start to grow, and we don't want them to become dependent on cheap fossil fuel energy," Watson noted.

"They need financial and technical assistance."

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Daylight Saving Time has long-term effects on health

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-11/vumc-dst110419.php

News Release 4-Nov-2019
Vanderbilt University Medical Center

The annual transition to and from daylight saving time (DST) has clinical implications that last longer than the days where clocks "fall back" or "spring forward."

Over time, DST eliminates bright morning light that critically synchronizes biologic clocks, which can be associated with increased risk of heart attack and ischemic stroke, as well as other negative effects of partial sleep deprivation.

Average sleep duration shrinks by 15 to 20 minutes for adults during DST transitions, which may also increase the risk of fatal accidents.

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"It's not one hour twice a year. It's a misalignment of our biologic clocks for eight months of the year. When we talk about DST and the relationship to light, we are talking about profound impacts on the biological clock, which is a structure rooted in the brain. It impacts brain functions such as energy levels and alertness," she said.

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While the sleep and circadian communities believe returning to standard time may be more biologically appropriate, gaining political buy-in for a nationwide change remains a challenge. State legislation is "all over the map," with some states considering a return to standard time and others in favor of permanent DST. Tennessee has passed legislation supporting permanent DST, although such a change would require action from the U.S. Congress.

Seriously ill Medicare beneficiaries can face considerable financial hardship

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-11/htcs-ssi110119.php

News Release 4-Nov-2019
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Despite high beneficiary satisfaction with Medicare overall, a new national survey led by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard Business School, and colleagues finds that its coverage gaps may cause considerable financial distress for the most seriously ill patients. About half reported a significant problem paying medical bills, with prescription drugs posing the most hardship.

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Among the respondents, 53% reported having a serious problem paying a medical bill of any kind, with 30% reporting difficulty paying for prescription drugs, followed by hospital bills (25%). Beneficiaries also reported experiencing financial hardships due to the costs of their illness, including using up all or most of their savings (36%) and being unable to pay for necessities such as food, heat, and housing (23%). Emotional or psychological distress was reported by 45% of respondents.

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Want to Raise Successful Boys? Science Says Do This (but Their Schools Probably Won’t)

Inc. | Bill Murphy Jr.

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Researchers at the University of Eastern Finland recently tried to document whether boys actually achieve less in school when they're restricted from running around and being physically active.

They studied 153 kids, aged 6 to 8, and tracked how much physical activity and sedentary time they had during the day. Sure enough, according to a report by Belinda Luscombe in Time, the less "moderate to vigorous physical activity" the boys had each day, the harder it was for them to develop good reading skills:

The more time kids ... spent sitting and the less time they spent being physically active, the fewer gains they made in reading in the two following years. [It] also had a negative impact on their ability to do math.

The results didn't apply to girls. I know that sounds sexist; the researchers offered a few possible explanations. Maybe there simply are physiological differences—or maybe the girls were just as eager to move around as the boys, but they were better able to set aside that disappointment and concentrate.

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The IRS Tried to Hide Emails That Show Tax Industry Influence Over Free File Program

Please consider donating to ProPublica

Remember that most taxpayers can have their taxes prepared and filed for free by Tax-Aide

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-tried-to-hide-emails-that-show-tax-industry-influence-over-free-file-program?utm_source=pocket-newtab

by Justin Elliott and Paul Kiel Oct. 29, 5 a.m. EDT

For a decade and a half, the IRS program to allow most Americans to file their taxes for free has been floundering.

Now, IRS emails obtained by ProPublica help show why: The agency has allowed the tax preparation industry to write the rules.

The IRS tried to hide the documents from public view, initially withholding more than 100 pages of emails between agency officials and industry representatives in response to ProPublica’s Freedom of Information Act request filed in April. The agency released the emails this month only after ProPublica sued.

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One in 5 children live below the poverty line

https://news.yahoo.com/1-5-children-live-below-184447258.html

Mack DeGeurin
,INSIDER•November 1, 2019

One in five American children live below the poverty line, and over 2.9 million students live in households where they are unsure when they might get their next meal.

Around 30 million students around the country qualify for free or reduced cost school lunches through a federal program called the National School Lunch Program.

A New York Times report released in July shows how a new rule being proposed by the Department of Agriculture to restrict access to food stamps (one qualifier for free school lunches) could kick more than 500,000 students off their lunch plan.

States with the most students eligible for federally subsidized free lunches also tend to have the most cases of child poverty, INSIDER found.

INSIDER reviewed federal data to find out how dependent on free lunches students were in every US state, and the top 10 most dependent were all based in the South.

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