[TheClimate.Vote] March 20, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/March 20, 2019/

[Show Me Statement]
*Missouri River Flooding "Historic"*
March 19, 2019
Circle of Blue:
Swelled by rainfall and melted snow, the Missouri River and its 
tributaries reached record levels this weekend in some of the worst 
flooding ever registered in parts of Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota...
- - -
The Missouri River at Plattsmouth, Nebraska crested at 40.6 feet on 
Saturday, nearly 4 feet higher than the previous record. It was one of 
at least 17 locations through the weekend that set a new high-water mark...
- -
The worst of the flooding has passed downstream but the waters will 
recede slowly. The National Weather Service expects that the Missouri 
River in southern Nebraska, northeastern Kansas, and northwestern 
Missouri will remain in major flood stage through Thursday...
- -
Even the U.S. Air Force couldn't stop the Mighty Missouri River from 
flooding Offutt Air Force Base.
- -
By Sunday morning, one-third of the base was underwater, she said. 
Thirty buildings, including the 55th Wing headquarters and the two major 
aircraft maintenance facilities, had been flooded with up to 8 feet of 
water, and 30 more structures damaged. About 3,000 feet of the base's 
11,700-foot runway was submerged. No one, though, had been injured.
https://climatecrocks.com/2019/03/19/missouri-river-flooding-historic/


[Money, money, money...]
*Big Banks Can Block Shareholder Climate Proposals, SEC Rules*
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently allowed two large banks 
to block a shareholder proposal addressing the climate impact of the 
banks' investment portfolios.

The proposal requested that Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo reduce the 
carbon footprint of their loan and investment portfolios to align with 
the Paris Climate Agreement's goal of holding global warming below 2 
degrees Celsius. The SEC's decision means that it will be excluded from 
proxy materials that the companies' shareholders will consider at the 
annual meetings...
https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2019/03/20/shareholder-climate-proposals-goldman-sachs-wells-fargo/ 



[What happens in one time and place, can happen in another ]
*Climate change making storms like Idai more severe, say experts*
Destructive power of storms likely to increase in future as world warms 
up...
- - -
Dr Friederike Otto, of Oxford University's Environmental Change 
Institute, said: "There are three factors with storms like this: 
rainfall, storm surge and wind. Rainfall levels are on the increase 
because of climate change, and storm surges are more severe because of 
sea level rises."...
- -
Mel Evans, a climate campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said the storm was 
further proof that the people least responsible for the climate crisis 
were suffering the most.

"The average CO2 emissions of a citizen of Mozambique, Malawi or 
Zimbabwe is a tiny fraction of a European's or an American's. The people 
who have done the least to cause climate change are at the front of the 
queue to receive its impacts and have far fewer resources to prepare for 
the storm, or repair the damage."

Evans said the disaster should be a wake-up call to governments 
everywhere to urgently deliver on their climate goals.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/19/climate-change-making-storms-like-idai-more-severe-say-experts


[Zentouro is a brilliant communicator]
*What's the best response to climate change?*
zentouro Published on Feb 20, 2019
Do I? or do we?
SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/1E75KJ8
After making the video on Adam's channel, we sat down and chatted about 
some of the nuances behind the individual vs structural changes debate 
that is frequently talked about by climate communicators, scientists, 
and activists. But, I'd love to hear what you think - please let me know 
how you think about mitigating climate change in the comments below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaBRs13dClY


[smart video message for 2015]
*Does climate change cause terrorism?*
zentouro
Published on Nov 24, 2015
On the eve of the biggest climate talks in over a decade, it is worth 
examining how climate change will affect our world in a myriad of ways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRn-sSsrWdk



[Forbes reports on the deluge in the middle]
*Four Lessons From 'Bomb Cyclone' Flooding In The Great Plains*
Marshall Shepherd - Contributor Science
The "bomb cyclone" dominated headlines last week, but the flooding  it 
caused in the U.S. Great Plains did not initially. Many communities, 
homes, and businesses in Nebraska and other parts of the Great Plains 
were literally underwater. Levees were breached causing some rural towns 
to be completely isolated. Flooding was so bad that the National Weather 
Service had to abandon its offices in the region, and Offutt Air Force 
Base, home of the U.S. Strategic Command, was partially submerged. I 
convened a virtual panel of experts to gather perspective on the 
forecast, the messaging, and perceptions about this event. Four lessons 
emerged...
- -
One thing that we learned is*that a tragic set of events came together 
to cause the dramatic flooding event*. Dewey provided the following 
hydro-meteorological analysis:

    "The event was a "perfect storm", similar to a hurricane arriving on
    the coast at high tide. A sudden warm up, an unusually deep snow
    pack that "flash" melted combined with heavy rains and a frozen
    ground with 100% of the melt water and rain running off (i.e. no
    infiltration). Add to that the river ice suddenly breaking up with
    huge ice chunks slamming into highway bridges knocking them out and
    water overtopping the roads and washing them out left some communities"

Scientists also identified other factors. For example, Mayes-Boustead, 
who published a doctoral dissertation on winter climate hazards said,

    "snowpack was extensive and very wet, and because it arrived late in
    the season, it was still there *and* the ground was still frozen.
    The rains that fell were on the high end of the range of
    possibilities, but not outside of what can happen in mid-March in
    the area. But they fell on that very wet snowpack, causing runoff
    into rivers covered with very thick ice."

She also pointed out that enhanced moisture and track shifts associated 
with changing climate must be factored in to events like this going forward.

*Another lesson is that infrastructure challenges played a role*. 
Bledsoe has spent a career thinking about such issues and how to 
engineer resilient systems. He told me:

    "These floods are the result of several cascading factors - heavy
    rain falling on snow and frozen ground, dams and levees breaching,
    ice jams clogging up and destroying structures, and yes, people
    building in floodplains. We have to do a better job of accounting
    for these cascading risks in our planning and designs if we want to
    avoid this domino effect in the future."

The levees were an important story in this event. Professor Ken Dewey 
has lived in Nebraska for several decades. He adds:

    "once one levee failed there was a cascading effect of surging water
    moving to the next levee downstream, overtopping that levee with
    additional failures….The rivers in some locations reached record
    levels. Remember many of these levees were built decades ago and
    most likely were built to standards of that time. I think it is more
    of weather disaster than a failure to properly maintain infrastructure".

Most of the panel agreed that a combination of weather, water, climate, 
and infrastructure failure led to the disaster. Mayes-Bousted 
paraphrased a message from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers that "all of 
the engineering around the Missouri River and its tributaries is 
designed to keep the majority of floods at bay, but not the most extreme 
of events."

While in the headlines now, there was a lag before this event was on the 
media and "social media" radars. I have previously written in Forbes 
about "urban" biases in how weather events are covered. *We learned from 
this event there are unique challenges in rural or non-coastal 
environments*. Tompkins messaged:

    "Unfortunately, late and limited coverage seems to be a common theme
    for inland flooding. Coastal flooding driven by hurricanes tends to
    grab headlines but some might be surprised to know that over the
    last 10 years, six out of the eight states experiencing the most
    major floods have been inland. Further, how many people outside of
    Nebraska would know this latest flood is the 14th such disaster to
    strike the state since 2008 – 5th most of any state in the nation."

Mike Chesterfield works for one of the largest weather-focused networks 
in the world. He provided a dose of realism:

    "Partly due to the fact that the forecast called for rainfall totals
    that were not earth shattering some were slow to realize the top end
    potential of this event thus many in the media were not prepared for
    the level of flooding that did occur which meant there was not a ton
    of run -up to this particular event. As a result the news media
    really did not have this event on their radar until late in the
    game....It became clear to us at The Weather Channel that this event
    had the potential to be a historic one. We started to plan crew
    deployment before the first rain drop even fell. With that said we
    can't do it alone".

He also pointed out that because this particular disaster did not strike 
a heavily populated area, there was likely less attention being paid to 
it. He went on to say:

    "There is no doubt that news executives are under more pressure than
    ever to get ratings up. Like it or not, the news has become a
    billion dollar business. This has an impact on which stories news
    organizations decide warrant their resources. The fact is that it is
    much easier to craft and sell a story that impacts everyone as
    opposed to a story that severely impacted an area that contains a
    relatively small population. It is much easier to justify a story
    that impacts everyone as opposed to one that impacts the few."

Chesterfield added that "this does not excuse the media, instead it 
should be seen as a challenge to the media to be better by finding ways 
to relate such stories to the masses."

Ken Dewey also pointed out another aspect of the "rural problem" that 
shouldn't be missed. He mentioned how the distance between towns makes 
it difficult to get assistance across such a large area. He reminded me:

    This was not a narrow zone like hurricane impacts along a coastline
    but an area covering three states. Many of these small communities
    have a declining population base and do not have the economic
    resources to quickly recover (even with Federal assistance). Many of
    the people that suffered flood damage will not have insurance
    coverage since homeowners insurance does not cover flood loss.

Mayes-Bousted expands on the scope of the human toll and vulnerability 
factors at play because farmers were not planting yet. She pointed out:

    the soaked ground may not be plantable until late season, at best,
    if at all this year. Lands may be silted and unusable for more than
    just this year. I'm afraid to know what the toll is of livestock
    losses. People sometimes dismiss the overland flooding as "just
    farmland flooding," but to those who live on and work that land,
    it's devastating financially (not to mention physically and
    emotionally).

What was learned going forward? With most weather-related disasters, we 
tend to be reactive rather than pro-active. I suspect this tendency will 
not change with this event. Steve Bowen says,

    The flood peril continues to deal with a perception problem. Damage
    from flooding is often much different than what you see from
    wind-driven impacts resulting from a tornado or hurricane-related
    winds. Because a home or business is not structurally scattered,
    there is a common perception that no damage has occurred. The
    reality is that even a few inches of water intrusion can lead to a
    significant cost to inside contents.

Professor Krajewski argued that there are ways forward. After the tragic 
floods of 2008, Iowa's state legislature established the Iowa Flood 
Center at the University of Iowa, of which Krajewski serves as Director. 
He sent the following email:

    the center has deployed 250 "bridge sensors" that report in real
    time, developed state-wide flood inundation maps, a real-time
    forecasting system that complements that operated by the NWS and the
    Iowa Flood Information System, an on-line platform that communicates
    all the data to general public in real time. All these advances
    cannot stop floods, of course, but they do provide relevant
    information. The IFC works side by side with the federal and state
    agencies responsible for public safety and well-being. Perhaps we
    need more systems like these that can engage the academic experts
    and provide additional service to the communities.

Dr. Marshall Shepherd, Dir., Atmospheric Sciences Program/GA Athletic 
Assoc. Distinguished Professor (Univ of Georgia), Host, Weather 
Channel's Popular Podcast, Weather Geeks, 2013 AMS President
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2019/03/18/four-lessons-from-bomb-cyclone-flooding-in-the-great-plains/#61c800a550a8
- -
[related article from 2017 ]
*'Worst-Case Scenario' Discussions About Hurricane Irma May Show An 
Urban Bias*
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2017/09/14/worst-case-scenario-discussions-about-hurricane-irma-may-show-an-urban-bias/#d8808963c682


["Hey doc, I got a new pain"]
*Medical schools must prepare students to work in a world altered by 
climate change*
By ANNA GOSHUA MARCH 19, 2019
As a medical student fumbling with the fundamentals of interviewing 
patients and taking medical histories, the realities of being a doctor 
seem like a far-off dream. My colleagues and I work hard to prepare 
ourselves to be equipped to address the increasingly complex health care 
issues that will affect the lives of our future patients, from 
inequities in access to quality care to multidrug resistance.

The most pressing of these issues is climate change, a growing 
environmental emergency that will have devastating health impacts. Food 
shortages induced by climate change are alone expected to account for 
more than 500,000 additional deaths globally by 2050. Regardless of 
their personal interest in climate change or their belief that advocacy 
about it is within the scope of medical practice, physicians will be on 
the front lines of confronting its effects.

Action on climate change has been paralyzed by denial, misunderstanding 
of its urgency, and a sense of powerlessness in the face of an 
existential threat. This is why it is especially important for medical 
schools to integrate climate change into their curricula so future 
physicians understand the challenges and are prepared to use their 
positions as care providers, educators, and advocates to tackle this threat.

Yet a recent search of the Association of American Medical Colleges 
Curriculum Inventory showed that no medical schools report including 
content related to climate change.

Some schools have begun to address this gap. The University of 
California, San Francisco, for example, has introduced elective courses 
covering topics such as food security and sustainability. It also 
integrated case studies on global climate change into a mandatory 
first-year course.

"Global warming is the biggest public health threat of the 21st century 
and is going to change life on earth as we know it. It is an essential 
part of any 21st century medical school curriculum," said Dr. Thomas 
Newman, co-founder of a Climate Health and Inquiry course launched in 
2017, in a UCSF article about the course.

Medical schools already have what some see as overloaded curricula. It 
is difficult to argue that they should add more material. Yet the 
medical curriculum lends itself to promoting eco-medical literacy and 
sustainability over all four years of education. During the preclinical 
years, this could take the form of connecting pathophysiology to 
climate, such as how climate change contributes to cardiovascular 
disease. A health policy course could be an opportunity to discuss 
relevant climate change policy action and opportunities for student 
engagement. During clerkships, the focus could be on how to identify and 
communicate with patients who are especially vulnerable to the effects 
of climate change, as well as diagnose and manage climate-related 
physical and mental health issues.

There are at least three major ways that climate change will affect the 
practice of medicine and for which medical education must prepare future 
physicians.

First, climate change will directly and indirectly affect individual and 
population health. Extreme weather events like drought affect physical 
and mental health, but also affect social determinants of health such as 
water and food security, air quality, and housing. Given that 
marginalized communities are most susceptible to the effects of climate 
change, it will widen existing health disparities. Physicians will need 
to work with patients to manage climate-induced health burdens, educate 
them about their risk factors, and help them develop contingency plans 
in case of environmental emergencies.

Second, climate change will require an unprecedented degree of 
adaptation to unexpected and changing threats. Diseases previously 
thought to be unrelated to climate, like chickenpox, are turning out to 
be climate sensitive. The geographic distribution and seasonality of 
various infectious diseases will change. Extreme weather events of 
increasing severity will strain our capacity to deliver care. Future 
physicians must be prepared to handle these challenges in both the 
clinical setting and, more broadly, work collaboratively within their 
communities to plan and implement pre-emptive strategies.

Third, physicians and the rest of the health care sector must be aware 
of and accountable for their collective contributions to climate change. 
The U.S. health system is the seventh-largest producer of carbon dioxide 
globally. It released 614 million metric tons of carbon dioxide 
equivalents in 2013, which would generate between 123,000 and 381,000 
disability-adjusted life years of adverse health effects in the future.

My generation of physicians must envision a new sustainable health 
system to reduce its substantial carbon footprint. Possibilities include 
expanding telemedicine, integrating environmental impacts into 
cost-benefit analyses of health services, and committing to carbon 
neutrality. Future physicians must also advocate for changes to health 
infrastructure that make health care facilities more resilient to 
climate damage. Without physicians lobbying for the greening of the 
health system, the good we accomplish could be outpaced by the damage we 
inflict.

Climate change is the context in which today's medical students will 
practice medicine. This threat will intersect with every facet of our 
patients' lives and impose barriers to health delivery we will have to 
navigate. Medical students can't afford the luxury of choosing to be 
interested in climate change the way we will select our medical 
specialties. It is an urgent reality we must confront with the knowledge 
and skills we acquire in order to innovate, advocate, and care for 
patients and communities affected by climate change.
Anna Goshua is a first-year medical student at Stanford University 
School of Medicine
https://www.statnews.com/2019/03/19/climate-change-medical-school/


[CBS news could have reported on this any time in the past few decades]
*Scientists warn of "inevitable sea level rise" as Antarctica ice melts*
BY MARK PHILLIPS - MARCH 18, 2019 - CBS NEWS
Whether you observe from the sea or from the air, there's less 
Antarctica to see every year -- less ice on the land-bound ice cap and 
glaciers and more ice breaking up and flowing off onto the oceans.
- - -
"So much of the earth's fresh water is sequestered here in Antarctica in 
that huge ice mass that's frozen there," NASA scientist John Sonntag 
said. "A good way to think of both Greenland and Antarctica is as a 
gigantic mountain of ice. They're not just thin layers of ice and rock, 
they're gigantic mountains of ice, two to three miles thick so that's a 
lot of sea level that's locked up in these ice sheets."

Scientists on NASA's ice-survey flights have confirmed that more ice 
melts into the sea each year than gets added back to the ice cap through 
snowfall...
- -
"What about the scientists who say it's worse than ever?" Lesley Stahl 
asked President Donald Trump on the Oct. 14, 2018, edition of CBS News' 
"60 Minutes."

"You have to show me the scientists because they have a very big 
political agenda," he responded.

"You know, we're not politicians here, we're not policy people, we're 
just engineers and scientists. I don't know anything about politics, but 
I do know how to measure changing ice," Sonntag said. "People can't hide 
from facts forever, and I think the American people understand that."...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/antarctica-climate-change-ice-melts-sea-levels-rise-inevitable-scientists-warn/


[vote of confidence]
*America Cares About Climate Change Again*
For the first time in years, a broad spectrum of climate advocates is 
playing offense.
ROBINSON MEYER
Suddenly, climate change is a high-profile national issue again.

It's not just the Green New Deal. Around the country, the loose alliance 
of politicians, activists, and organizations concerned about climate 
change is mobilizing. They are deploying a new set of strategies aimed 
at changing the minds--or at least the behaviors--of a large swath of 
Americans, including utility managers, school principals, political 
donors, and rank-and-file voters.
They make a ragtag group: United by little more than common concern, 
they don't agree on an ideal federal policy or even how to talk about 
the problem. They do not always coordinate or communicate with one 
another. And while their efforts are real, it remains far too early to 
say whether they will result in the kind of national legislative 
victories that have eluded the movement in the past.
- - -
Excitement is also coming from the grassroots. On Friday, thousands of 
U.S. students refused to go to school, participating in a worldwide 
student strike for climate action. The Sunrise Movement, a youth-led 
group that brought national attention to the Green New Deal in November, 
plans to hold 100 town-hall meetings in support of the plan across the 
country, organized by local chapters.

Much of this activity is concentrated among Democrats. But public 
opinion has shifted in their favor on the issue. Nearly two-thirds of 
Americans say that the Republican Party's position on climate change is 
"outside the mainstream," according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll 
conducted last month. That represents a nine-point bump since October 
2015, when the question was last asked.

That poll was conducted in February, when the Democratic-led Green New 
Deal dominated media coverage. But a majority of Americans said that 
month that Democratic positions on climate change were "in the mainstream."

Within the party, rank-and-file Democrats seem to be taking the issue 
more seriously. Eighty percent of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers 
say that primary candidates should talk "a lot" about climate change--a 
result that suggests climate change is one of the Democratic Party's top 
two issues, according to a CNN/Des Moines Register poll conducted by 
Selzer and Company this month. Only health care merited such consensus 
concern among the group.

That points to a potential upheaval in how important voters consider 
climate policy. In May 2015, when the same polling firm last posed a 
similar question to likely Democratic caucus-goers, climate change did 
not rank among the top five most important issues.

And several recent polls have also identified a huge, nearly 10-point 
surge in worry about climate change among all Americans. "We've not seen 
anything like that in the 10 years we've been conducting the study," 
Anthony Leiserowitz, a researcher at Yale, told me in January.

Those national surveys found that Americans were motivated by a series 
of urgent new reports about climate science and an outbreak of extreme 
weather.
- - -
In the House, Republicans are far more skeptical of climate action. 
Representative Rob Bishop, a powerful conservative lawmaker from Utah, 
has said the Green New Deal is nearly "tantamount to genocide." The 
House GOP has offered very few climate policies of its own. An 
exception: Two Republicans--Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of 
Pennsylvania and Representative Francis Rooney of Florida--last year 
co-sponsored a bipartisan bill to tax carbon emissions without 
increasing the federal budget.
It's still unclear whether the spike in public concern will translate to 
any lasting GOP shift. The Green New Deal, in all its ambition and 
haziness, has reframed the climate conversation around solutions, where 
Democrats have more to say right now; if moderate Democrats fell back to 
insisting on the acceptance of climate science alone, Republicans might 
be happy to meet them there.

In any case, the views of the country's most powerful Republican, 
President Donald Trump, seem extremely unlikely to change. So it's left 
to his would-be 2020 opponents to heighten the contrast. At least eight 
candidates have made climate change a top issue, according to The New 
York Times. And announcing his candidacy for president last week, the 
former congressman Beto O'Rourke of Texas said that "interconnected 
crises in our economy, our democracy, and our climate have never been 
greater." (He has yet to offer a concrete proposal on the issue.)

Whether this focus on climate change produces new policy ideas remains 
to be seen. Yet even so, environmental groups and their allies are 
feeling whiplash at how far the conversation has come since 2016. Says 
Alex Trembath, the deputy director of the Breakthrough Institute, an 
environmental research center based in Oakland: "If you had asked me a 
year ago if we would've been talking this much about climate change now, 
I would've said, 'Absolutely not.'"
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/suddenly-climate-change-advocates-are-march/585196/



[Links to global warming]
*'Medieval' Diseases Flare in US As Unsanitary Living Conditions 
Proliferate*
KAISER HEALTH NEWS on 03/17/2019 ANNA GORMAN
Infectious diseases -- some that ravaged populations in the Middle Ages 
-- are resurging in California and around the country, and are hitting 
homeless populations especially hard.

Jennifer Millar keeps trash bags and hand sanitizer near her tent, and 
she regularly pours water mixed with hydrogen peroxide on the sidewalk 
nearby. Keeping herself and the patch of concrete she calls home clean 
is a top priority.

But this homeless encampment off a Hollywood freeway ramp is often 
littered with needles and trash, and soaked in urine. Rats occasionally 
scamper through, and Millar fears the consequences.

"I worry about all those diseases," said Millar, 43, who said she has 
been homeless most of her life.

Infectious diseases -- some that ravaged populations in the Middle Ages 
-- are resurging in California and around the country, and are hitting 
homeless populations especially hard.

Los Angeles recently experienced an outbreak of typhus -- a disease 
spread by infected fleas on rats and other animals -- in downtown 
streets. Officials briefly closed part of City Hall after reporting that 
rodents had invaded the building.

People in Washington state have been infected with Shigella bacteria, 
which is spread through feces and causes the diarrheal disease 
shigellosis, as well as Bartonella quintana, which spreads through body 
lice and causes trench fever.

Hepatitis A, also spread primarily through feces, infected more than 
1,000 people in Southern California in the past two years. The disease 
also has erupted in New Mexico, Ohio and Kentucky, primarily among 
people who are homeless or use drugs.

Public health officials and politicians are using terms like "disaster" 
and "public health crisis" to describe the outbreaks, and they warn that 
these diseases can easily jump beyond the homeless population.

"Our homeless crisis is increasingly becoming a public health crisis," 
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in his State of the State speech in 
February, citing outbreaks of hepatitis A in San Diego County, syphilis 
in Sonoma County and typhus in Los Angeles County.
"Typhus," he said. "A medieval disease. In California. In 2019." GOV. 
GAVIN NEWSOM
The diseases have flared as the nation's homeless population has grown 
in the past two years: About 553,000 people were homeless at the end of 
2018, and nearly one-quarter of homeless people live in California.

The diseases spread quickly and widely among people living outside or in 
shelters, fueled by sidewalks contaminated with human feces, crowded 
living conditions, weakened immune systems and limited access to health 
care.

"The hygiene situation is just horrendous" for people living on the 
streets, said Dr. Glenn Lopez, a physician with St. John's Well Child & 
Family Center, who treats homeless patients in Los Angeles County. "It 
becomes just like a Third World environment where their human feces 
contaminate the areas where they are eating and sleeping."

Those infectious diseases are not limited to homeless populations, Lopez 
warned. "Even someone who believes they are protected from these 
infections are not."

At least one Los Angeles city staffer said she contracted typhus in City 
Hall last fall. And San Diego County officials warned in 2017 that 
diners at a well-known restaurant were at risk of hepatitis A.

There were 167 cases of typhus from Jan. 1, 2018, through Feb. 1 of this 
year, up from 125 in 2013 and 13 in 2008, according to the California 
Public Health Department.

Typhus is a bacterial infection that can cause a high fever, stomach 
pain and chills but can be treated with antibiotics. Outbreaks are more 
common in overcrowded and trash-filled areas that attract rats.

The recent typhus outbreak began last fall, when health officials 
reported clusters of the flea-borne disease in downtown Los Angeles and 
Compton. They also have occurred in Pasadena, where the problems are 
likely due to people feeding stray cats carrying fleas.

Last month, the county announced another outbreak in downtown Los 
Angeles that infected nine people, six of whom were homeless. After city 
workers said they saw rodent droppings in City Hall, Los Angeles City 
Council President Herb Wesson briefly shut down his office to rip up the 
rugs, and he also called for an investigation and more cleaning.

Hepatitis A is caused by a virus usually transmitted when people come in 
contact with feces of infected people. Most people recover on their own, 
but the disease can be very serious for those with underlying liver 
conditions. There were 948 cases of hepatitis A in 2017 and 178 in 2018 
and 2019, the state public health department said. Twenty-one people 
have died as a result of the 2017-18 outbreak.

    Typhus. A medieval disease. In California. In 2019. GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM

The infections around the country are not a surprise, given the lack of 
attention to housing and health care for the homeless and the dearth of 
bathrooms and places to wash hands, said Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, the health 
officer for Seattle and King County, Wash.

"It's a public health disaster," he said.

In his area, Duchin said, he has seen shigellosis, trench fever and skin 
infections among homeless populations.

In New York City, where more of the homeless population lives in 
shelters rather than on the streets, there have not been the same 
outbreaks of hepatitis A and typhus, said Dr. Kelly Doran, an emergency 
medicine physician and assistant professor at NYU School of Medicine. 
But Doran said different infections occur in shelters, including 
tuberculosis, a disease that spreads through the air and typically 
infects the lungs.

The diseases sometimes get the "medieval" moniker because people in that 
era lived in squalid conditions without clean water or sewage treatment, 
said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine and public health at 
UCLA.

People living on the streets or in homeless shelters are vulnerable to 
such outbreaks because their weakened immune systems are worsened by 
stress, malnutrition and sleep deprivation. Many also have mental 
illness and substance abuse disorders, which can make it harder for them 
to stay healthy or get health care.

One recent February afternoon, Saban Community Clinic physician 
assistant Negeen Farmand walked through homeless encampments in 
Hollywood carrying a backpack with medical supplies. She stopped to talk 
to a man sweeping the sidewalks. He said he sees "everything and 
anything" in the gutters and hopes he doesn't get sick.

She introduced herself to a few others and asked if they had any health 
issues that needed checking. When she saw Millar, Farmand checked her 
blood pressure, asked about her asthma and urged her to come see a 
doctor for treatment of her hepatitis C, a viral infection spread 
through contaminated blood that can lead to serious liver damage.

"To get these people to come into a clinic is a big thing," she said. "A 
lot of them are distrustful of the health care system."

On another day, 53-year-old Karen Mitchell waited to get treated for a 
persistent cough by St. John's Well Child & Family Center's mobile 
health clinic. She also needed a tuberculosis test, as required by the 
shelter where she was living in Bellflower, Calif.

Mitchell, who said she developed alcoholism after a career in 
pharmaceutical sales, said she has contracted pneumonia from germs from 
other shelter residents. "Everyone is always sick, no matter what 
precautions they take."

During the hepatitis A outbreak, public health officials administered 
widespread vaccinations, cleaned the streets with bleach and water and 
installed hand-washing stations and portable toilets near high 
concentrations of homeless people.

But health officials and homeless advocates said more needs to be done, 
including helping people access medical and behavioral health care and 
affordable housing.

"It really is unconscionable," said Bobby Watts, CEO of the National 
Health Care for the Homeless Council, a policy and advocacy 
organization. "These are all preventable diseases."
https://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/26497/medieval-diseases-flare-in-us-as-unsanitary-living-conditions-proliferate


*This Day in Climate History - March 20, 2007 - from D.R. Tucker*
March 20, 2007: In a published interview, then-Rep. Wayne Gilchrest 
(R-MD) notes that he was blocked from being appointed to the bipartisan 
Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming by House 
Minority Leader John Boehner because Gilchrest refused to disavow the 
overwhelming evidence of human-caused climate change. Gilchrest also 
notes that fellow Republican Roy Blunt of Missouri "…said he didn't 
think there was enough evidence to suggest that humans are causing 
global warming," Gilchrest said. "Right there, holy cow, there's like 
9,000 scientists to three on that one."
http://www.orangepower.com/threads/global-warming-panel-makeup-questioned.33589/
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

/Archive of Daily Global Warming News 
<https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html> 
/
https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote

/To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe 
<mailto:subscribe at theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request> 
to news digest./

*** Privacy and Security:*This is a text-only mailing that carries no 
images which may originate from remote servers. Text-only messages 
provide greater privacy to the receiver and sender.
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for democratic 
and election purposes and cannot be used for commercial purposes.
To subscribe, email: contact at theclimate.vote 
<mailto:contact at theclimate.vote> with subject subscribe, To Unsubscribe, 
subject: unsubscribe
Also you may subscribe/unsubscribe at 
https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Pauli for 
http://TheClimate.Vote <http://TheClimate.Vote/> delivering succinct 
information for citizens and responsible governments of all levels. List 
membership is confidential and records are scrupulously restricted to 
this mailing list.