Tag: damage

Pollution’s Annual Cost? $4.6 Trillion and 9 Million Dead

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❝ And that was just in 2015, according to a new global report on the consequences of humanity’s actions.


Delhi — Udit Kulshrestha/Bloomberg

❝ Pollution in all its forms killed 9 million people in 2015 and, by one measure, led to economic damage of $4.6 trillion, according to a new estimate by researchers who hope to put the health costs of toxic air, water and soil higher on the global agenda.

In less-developed nations, pollution-linked illness and death drag down productivity, reducing economic output by 1 percent to 2 percent annually, according to the tally by the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, published Thursday by the U.K. medical journal. The report is intended to illuminate the hidden health and economic consequences of harmful substances introduced into the environment by human activity…

❝ The report represents an “extremely comprehensive and rigorous quantification” of pollution costs, said Francesca Dominici, a professor of biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who wasn’t involved in the study.

“In the scientific community, I don’t think there is any disagreement about the cost-benefit analysis of controlling pollution,” Dominici said. Reducing air pollution from vehicles and power plants, for example, would simultaneously improve human health and reduce planet-warming carbon emissions, she said. “The major barrier has been political, but not scientific.”

❝ As large as that figure is, it may even underestimate the full cost of pollution. Because the amount is derived from death rates, it doesn’t include the price of medical expenditures or lost productivity from those sickened but not killed by pollution-related disease. And it doesn’t measure some forms of pollution that are likely to have health effects, such as soil tainted with heavy metals or industrial toxins, because data to calculate its influence on health are insufficient.

No surprise when Bloomberg offers articles like this one. Folks selling services to investors realize that folks in all walks of life can develop a conscience about principled profit-making versus scumbags who don’t care how their profits are acquired.

Scientists have identified how cigarettes damage your DNA

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❝ The dangers of smoking tobacco are undeniable — it kills more than 480,000 in the US alone each year. Scientists have known for a while that smoking tobacco causes significant damage to the body; as well as causing or worsening respiratory and cardiovascular issues, smoking can trigger genetic mutations that can result in cancer. But the detailed mechanisms on how smoking wreaks damage on the body’s DNA have remained somewhat elusive.

❝ There’s finally some clarity in a new study, which provides a comprehensive picture on the devastating impact of smoking. People who smoke a pack a day (20 cigarettes) for a year develop the following mutations every year:

150 extra mutations in each lung cell
97 in each larynx cell (voice box)
23 in each mouth cell
18 in each bladder cell
six in each liver cell.

Each mutation doesn’t necessarily pose an immediate danger (most mutations are relatively harmless). But the more mutations there are, the higher the risk that accumulating mutations occur in key genes that turn cells cancerous.

❝ “You can really think of it as playing Russian roulette,” Ludmil Alexandrov, lead researcher and biologist at Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico told the Guardian. “You can miss the right genes. But if you smoke you still play the game. It’s a very strong message for people not to start smoking. If you smoke even a little bit you’ll erode the genetic material of most of the cells in your body.”

One of my few really bright accomplishments at an early age. Quitting smoking. Like most kids in my factory town neighborhood, I was smoking by age 12. It’s what our parents did. Made us “grown-ups”. By 20 I was smoking over 2 packs a day.

Quit cold turkey. Motivation doesn’t matter. Ayup, one of the best things I did for my own life as a young man.

Nuclear weapons screwup withheld from experts reviewing nuclear weapons screwups

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Oops!

❝In the spring of 2014, as a team of experts was examining what ailed the U.S. nuclear force, the Air Force withheld from them the fact that it was simultaneously investigating damage to a nuclear-armed missile in its launch silo caused by three airmen…

The accident happened May 17, 2014, at an underground launch silo containing a Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM. The silo, designated Juliet-07, is situated among wheat fields and wind turbines about 9 miles west of Peetz, Colorado. It is controlled by launch officers of the 320th Missile Squadron and administered by the 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base at Cheyenne, Wyoming.

❝The Air Force said that while three airmen were troubleshooting the missile, a “mishap” occurred, causing $1.8 million in damage to the missile. The service declined to explain the nature of the mishap, such as whether it caused physical damage, saying the information is too sensitive to be made public.

The three airmen were immediately stripped of their certification to perform nuclear weapons duty. The missile was taken offline and removed from its silo. No one was injured and the Air Force said the accident posed no risk to public safety.

More than a year later the three airmen were recertified and returned to duty.

❝At the time of the accident, a group of nuclear weapons experts was nearing the end of a three-month independent review of the entire U.S. nuclear force…The experts were operating on orders from then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who asked them to begin their review in March. They reported their results to him June 2.

The AP asked Lt. Col. John Sheets, spokesman…whether the May 17 accident had been reported to the Hagel-appointed review group…“No. The accident was going through the investigative process when” the review teams made their visits to ICBM bases, Sheets said. Pressed further, he said he could say no more and referred questions about this to the Pentagon, which did not immediately comment…

❝…The Air Force would not disclose the cause or the evidence. It said the cause is cited in the investigation report. The Air Force refused to make that public, saying the report is classified, even though the service’s own policy requires the public release of accident board reports.

The amount of damage to the missile — $1.8 million, according to the Air Force — suggests that the airmen’s errors might have caused physical damage, Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists said. If so, he said, it could have been categorized by the Air Force as a “Bent Spear” event, which is an official reporting code word for a significant nuclear weapon incident…

❝…Pentagon leaders were briefed on the results of the accident investigation in December 2015. Members of Congress also were briefed…

Oh.

Global warming’s hurricane cost in U.S. = $14 billion and still growing

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Click to enlarge — AP/David J Phillip

Climate change has added billions to the toll of hurricane strikes on the U.S., according to a study that challenges the prevailing scientific view that the rising cost is mainly because more buildings, towns and businesses are in the way.

Stronger, more frequent storms may have accounted for as much as $14 billion of hurricane damage in 2005, the year Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, according to research published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience. The cost, as much as 12 percent of total U.S. damage that year, is over and above what can be explained by coastal development alone, the scientists said.

“The main message is we have to be more cautious with climate change and reassess our estimates of how much it’s going to cost us,” lead author Francisco Estrada, an economist at National Autonomous University of Mexico, in Mexico City, said in a telephone interview. “The conclusion that there is no climate change signal in extreme events is no longer valid.”

While scientists are virtually unanimous in saying humans are warming the planet, there’s less certainty about the resulting effect on hurricanes. A study published in May said warmer ocean temperatures may decrease the number of tropical storms but make those that do form more powerful. There’s equal debate about how much blame should be tied to climate change for rising storm costs in the U.S., which increased at the rate of $136 million a year over the last century, according to Estrada…

Past studies have concluded that the higher costs are mainly a function of building more homes and businesses along the coast, as well as the rising value of that property, and not due to storms juiced up by global warming.

In the paper, Estrada and two European researchers say previous studies ignored the fact that more development often comes with added protection against hurricanes, from sea walls and stricter building codes to better early-warning systems. Those protections tend to reduce damages and may hide the effect of weather getting stronger, the scientists said…

“If you look at the scientific literature, the consensus is the climate change signal won’t appear in hurricanes until the end of this century,” Estrada said. “What we are saying is that it’s already there.”

Americans always forget – if they ever knew – that science is collected and examined in a wholly conservative manner. Then, re-examined, parsed and re-analyzed. In a wholly conservative manner.

Because our society’s rulers, pundits, priests and politicians are offended by reality – they choose to ignore the truth and the science that assembles truths for examination. They allow for no action confronting potentially negative change to our lives. The rest of us can’t afford such an alternative.

Thirdhand smoke causes DNA damage

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deathsmoke

A study led by researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has found for the first time that thirdhand smoke—the noxious residue that clings to virtually all surfaces long after the secondhand smoke from a cigarette has cleared out—causes significant genetic damage in human cells.

Furthermore, the study also found that chronic exposure is worse than acute exposure, with the chemical compounds in samples exposed to chronic thirdhand smoke existing in higher concentrations and causing more DNA damage than samples exposed to acute thirdhand smoke, suggesting that the residue becomes more harmful over time.

“This is the very first study to find that thirdhand smoke is mutagenic,” said Lara Gundel, a Berkeley Lab scientist and co-author of the study. “Tobacco-specific nitrosamines, some of the chemical compounds in thirdhand smoke, are among the most potent carcinogens there are. They stay on surfaces, and when those surfaces are clothing or carpets, the danger to children is especially serious…”

Thirdhand smoke is particularly insidious because it is extremely difficult to eradicate. Studies have found that it can still be detected in dust and surfaces of apartments more than two months after smokers moved out. Common cleaning methods such as vacuuming, wiping and ventilation have not proven effective in lowering nicotine contamination. “You can do some things to reduce the odors, but it’s very difficult to really clean it completely,” said Destaillats. “The best solution is to substitute materials, such as change the carpet, repaint.”

Now the new study suggests thirdhand smoke could become more harmful over time…The researchers found that the concentrations of more than half of the compounds studied were higher in the chronic samples than in the acute. They also found higher levels of DNA damage caused by the chronic samples…

Great. The more we learn about cigarette smoking the more we learn about how deadly the smoke and its residue is. I expect we’ll eventually learn that many modern diseases might be traceable back to generations of cigarette smoke clinging to the household infrastructure of modern life – and how it affected DNA.

A society which does comparatively little to end this national habit is measured by stupidity more so than ignorance.

Mid-winter freeze stops famed Brussels statue from peeing

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The Manneken-Pis, a bronze statue of a young boy urinating that is a symbol of Brussels and a major tourist attraction, has had to stop peeing because of sub-zero temperatures…

Officials turned off the flow of water through the statue, which has stood on a Brussels corner since the 1600s, out of concern the cold might damage its internal mechanism.

Temperatures in the Belgian capital were set to fall to minus 10 Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) Wednesday night, far below the average minimum for February.

“It all depends on the weather, if the temperatures go up again it will work again,” a tourist office spokeswoman said.

The statue, which is on the site of a 15th Century drinking fountain, has more than 800 specially made outfits which city officials use to dress it up during the year. It is one of Brussels’ most popular attractions.

I have been in circumstances when I worried about it being too cold to pee. Normal pressures won out over weather.

Baghdad sends U.S. $1 billion bill for damage AFTER the war!

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Baghdad municipal workers remove US blast walls
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Iraq’s capital wants the United States to apologize and pay $1 billion for the damage done to the city not by bombs but by blast walls and Humvees since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The city’s government issued its demands in a statement on Wednesday that said Baghdad’s infrastructure and aesthetics have been seriously damaged by the American military. “The U.S. forces changed this beautiful city to a camp in an ugly and destructive way, which reflected deliberate ignorance and carelessness about the simplest forms of public taste,” the statement said.

“Due to the huge damage, leading to a loss the Baghdad municipality cannot afford…we demand the American side apologize to Baghdad’s people and pay back these expenses…”

Baghdad’s neighborhoods have been sealed off by miles of concrete blast walls, transforming the city into a tangled maze that contributes to massive traffic jams. Despite a sharp reduction in overall violence in recent years only 5 percent of the walls have been removed, officials said.

The heavy blast walls have damaged sewer and water systems, pavement and parks, said Hakeem Abdul Zahra, the city spokesman.

If you know the least amount of history you’d already be aware that we helped rebuild cities we destroyed in just about all of our wars since 1941. The big one, of course, being a war where we were attacked.

The worst examples of imperial America trying to shove the world around are VietNam, Iraq and Afghanistan – all of which seem to be ending up with little or no conscience on the part of successive American governments for what we have done.

Staying up-to-date, we should at least declare a special war tax on everyone who voted George W. back into a second term in office. 🙂

Common, safe blue food dye may reduce effects of spinal cord injury

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Picture 2

A common and safe blue food dye might provide the best treatment available so far for spinal cord injuries, U.S. researchers have reported.

Tests in rats showed the dye, called brilliant blue G, a close relative of the common food dye Blue no. 1, crossed into the spinal fluid and helped block inflammation, Maiken Nedergaard of the University of Rochester Medical Center and colleagues reported.

“We have no effective treatment now for patients who have an acute spinal cord injury,” Dr. Steven Goldman, who worked on the study, said in a statement.

“Our hope is that this work will lead to a practical, safe agent that can be given to patients shortly after injury, for the purpose of decreasing the secondary damage that we have to otherwise expect.”

When nerve cells in the brain or spine are damaged, they often release a spurt of chemicals that causes nearby cells to die. No one is sure why, and stopping this process is key to preventing the damage that continues to build after a stroke or spinal cord injury.

One of the chemicals is ATP. Nedergaard’s team looked for something that would interfere with this and found the blue dye, which they called BBG, would do this…

Nedergaard cautioned that tests in humans are likely still years away. Treatment would have to be immediate, she added – because the damage to nerve cells is irreversible.

Think to before the accessibility of online databases – and how much more difficult research like this was.