[✔️] April 30, 2024 Global Warming News | Carbon tax, Or helps, Meat and Dairy lobby, Nat Weather service, PDF, 2001 VP Dick Cheney

[Richard Pauli]

/*April 30*//*, 2024*/

/[ Understanding a carbon tax -- explanation meeting  ]/
*Carbon Pricing*
ToSaveTheWorld
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UsMlXplNuU



[ HEALTHWATCH Oregon style -  ]
*Oregon Medicaid patients get air conditioning, mini fridges as climate 
change drives health concerns*
healthwatch
By Samantha Young

April 29, 2024 / KFF Health News
Oregon is shipping air conditioners, air purifiers and power banks to 
some of its most vulnerable residents, a first-in-the-nation experiment 
to use Medicaid money to prevent the potentially deadly health effects 
of extreme heat, wildfire smoke and other climate-related disasters.

The equipment, which started going out in March, expands a Biden 
administration strategy to move Medicaid beyond traditional medical care 
and into the realm of social services.

At least 20 states, including California, Massachusetts and Washington, 
already direct billions of Medicaid dollars into programs such as 
helping homeless people get housing and preparing healthy meals for 
people with diabetes, according to KFF. Oregon is the first to use 
Medicaid money explicitly for climate-related costs, part of its 
five-year, $1.1 billion effort to address social needs, which also 
includes housing and nutrition benefits.

State and federal health officials hope to show that taxpayer money and 
lives can be saved when investments are made before disaster strikes.

"Climate change is a health care issue," so helping Oregon's poorest and 
sickest residents prepare for potentially dangerous heat, drought, and 
other extreme weather makes sense, said Health and Human Services 
Secretary Xavier Becerra on a visit to Sacramento, California, in early 
April.

Becerra said the Biden administration wants states to experiment with 
how best to improve patient health, whether by keeping someone housed 
instead of homeless, or reducing their exposure to heat with an air 
conditioner.

But Medicaid's expansion into social services may duplicate existing 
housing and nutrition programs offered by other federal agencies, while 
some needy Americans can't get essential medical care, said Gary 
Alexander, director of the Medicaid and Health Safety Net Reform 
Initiative at the Paragon Health Institute.

"There are 600,000 or 700,000 intellectually disabled people in the 
United States waiting for Medicaid services. They're on a waitlist," 
said Alexander, who oversaw state health agencies in Pennsylvania and 
Rhode Island. "Meanwhile Medicaid has money for housing and food and air 
conditioners for recipients. Seems to me that we should serve the 
intellectually disabled first before we get into all of these new areas."

Scientists and public health officials say climate change poses a 
growing health risk. More frequent and intense floods, droughts, 
wildfires, extreme temperatures, and storms cause more deaths, 
cardiovascular disease from poor air quality, and other problems, 
according to the federal government's Fifth National Climate Assessment...
- -
The mounting health effects disproportionately hit low-income Americans 
and people of color, who are often covered by Medicaid, the 
state-federal health insurance program for low-income people.

Most of the 102 Oregonians who died during the deadly heat dome that 
settled over the Pacific Northwest in 2021 "were elderly, isolated and 
living with low incomes," according to a report by the Oregon Health 
Authority, which administers the state's Medicaid program, with about 
1.4 million enrollees. The OHA's analysis of urgent care and emergency 
room use from May through September of 2021 and 2022 found that 60% of 
heat-related illness visits were from residents of areas with a median 
household income below $50,000.

"In the last 10-plus years, the amount of fires and smoke events and 
excessive heat events that we've had has shown the disproportionate 
impact of those events on those with lower incomes," said Dave Baden, 
the OHA's deputy director for programs and policy.

And, because dangerously high temperatures aren't common in Oregon, many 
residents don't have air conditioning in their homes.

Traditionally, states hit by natural disasters and public health 
emergencies have asked the federal government for permission to spend 
Medicaid dollars on back-up power, air filters and other equipment to 
help victims recover. But those requests came after the fact, following 
federal emergency declarations.
.
Oregon wants to be proactive and pay for equipment that will help an 
estimated 200,000 residents manage their health at home before extreme 
weather or climate-related disaster hits, Baden said. In addition to air 
conditioning units, the program will pay for mini fridges to keep 
medications cold, portable power supplies to run ventilators and other 
medical devices during outages, space heaters for winter and air filters 
to improve air quality during wildfire season...
- -
The cost savings are clear to Kaiser Permanente. After the 2021 heat 
wave, it sent air conditioners to 81 patients in Oregon and southwest 
Washington whose health conditions might get worse in extreme heat, said 
Catherine Potter, community health consultant at the health system. The 
following year, Kaiser Permanente estimated it had prevented $42,000 in 
heat-related ER visits and $400,000 in hospital admissions, she said.

"We didn't used to have extreme heat like this, and we do now," said 
Potter, who has lived in the temperate Portland area for 30 years. "If 
we can prevent these adverse impacts, we should be preventing them 
especially for people that are going to be most affected."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/medicaid-climate-change-oregon-air-conditioning-mini-fridges-power-banks/


/[ no surprise here ]/
*Big Meat and Dairy Companies Have Spent Millions Lobbying Against 
Climate Action, a New Study Finds*
The companies have been slow to make emissions reductions pledges, and 
have worked to undercut climate and environmental legislation.
By Georgina Gustin
April 2, 2021
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02042021/meat-dairy-lobby-climate-action


/[ Experiment from National Weather Service  - save the link ]/
*National Weather Service NWS  HeatRisk*
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Identifying Potential Heat Risks in the Seven Day Forecast
The NWS HeatRisk is an experimental color-numeric-based index that 
provides a forecast risk of heat-related impacts to occur over a 24-hour 
period. HeatRisk takes into consideration:
How unusual the heat is for the time of the year
The duration of the heat including both daytime and nighttime temperatures
If those temperatures pose an elevated risk of heat-related impacts 
based on data from the CDC
This index is supplementary to official NWS heat products and is meant 
to provide risk guidance for those decision makers and heat-sensitive 
populations  who need to take actions at levels that may be below 
current NWS heat product levels.
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/heatrisk/

- -

Category 	Risk of Heat-Related Impacts
Green
0 	Little to no risk from expected heat.
Yellow
1 	Minor - This level of heat affects primarily those individuals 
extremely sensitive to heat, especially when outdoors without effective 
cooling and/or adequate hydration.
Orange
2 	Moderate - This level of heat affects most individuals sensitive to 
heat, especially those without effective cooling and/or adequate 
hydration. Impacts possible in some health systems and in heat-sensitive 
industries.
Red
3 	Major - This level of heat affects anyone without effective cooling 
and/or adequate hydration. Impacts likely in some health systems, 
heat-sensitive industries and infrastructure.
Magenta
4 	Extreme - This level of rare and/or long-duration extreme heat with 
little to no overnight relief affects anyone without effective cooling 
and/or adequate hydration. Impacts likely in most health systems, 
heat-sensitive industries and infrastructure.

- -

[ PDF 
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/heatrisk/pdf/HeatRisk-v2.5-Overview.pdf ]

*HeatRisk - Overview (PDF)*
The experimental National Weather Service (NWS) HeatRisk is a 
color-numeric-based index that provides a forecast of the potential 
level of risk for heat-related impacts to occur over a 24-hour period. 
That level of risk is illustrated by a color/number along with 
identifying the groups potentially most at risk at that level. Each 
HeatRisk level is also accompanied by recommendations for heat 
protection and can serve as a useful tool for planning for upcoming heat 
and its associated potential risk. Based on the NWS high resolution 
national gridded forecast database, a daily HeatRisk value is calculated 
for each location from the current date through seven days in the future.

HeatRisk serves as another NWS tool that can be used to protect lives 
and property from the potential risks of excessive heat, being 
especially useful for those who are more easily affected by heat or 
those who provide support to those communities of heat-vulnerable 
individuals. We know that weather extremes generally affect historically 
underserved vulnerable communities the most, and HeatRisk ensures that 
communities have the right information at the right time to be better 
prepared for upcoming heat events. HeatRisk has been available in the 
Western United States since 2014 and was expanded across the contiguous 
United States in 2024.

*Who is most susceptable to heat?*
Extreme heat can make everyone uncomfortable, but heat commonly affects 
certain groups, typically identified as heat-sensitive or 
heat-vulnerable, at lower thresholds than other populations. These 
groups face a higher risk of heat-related illness and negative impacts 
than others. Some of these groups include:

*The elderly and the very young*
People experiencing homelessness
Those on certain medications and/or those with pre-existing conditions 
which make them more sensitive to heat (your doctor can let you know if 
this is you)
Those working outdoors -- especially new workers, temporary workers, or 
those returning to work after a week or more off, along with workers 
working indoors in a non-cooled space
Those exercising or doing strenuous activities outdoors during the heat 
of the day - especially those not used to the level of heat expected, 
those who are not drinking enough fluids, or those new to that type of 
activity
Those without a reliable source of cooling and/or hydration - this 
includes otherwise healthy individuals who are attending outdoor 
activities and are exposed to the heat and may not recognize the early 
symptoms of heat stress
Those not acclimated to the level of heat expected - especially those 
who are new to a much warmer climate
Those sensitive to poor air quality, which can be exacerbated by heat waves
Those living in low income communities
Some economic sectors are also affected by increasing levels of heat, 
such as energy and transportation
Why is this different from the Heat Index, Wet Bulb Globe Temperature, 
or official NWS Heat Products?
The NWS has multiple tools to assess the potential for increased heat 
stress due to extreme temperatures. Each tool can inform the issuance of 
NWS official heat watches, warnings, and advisories. Each of these tools 
integrate various weather parameters to provide a deeper level of 
information beyond what the actual air temperature can tell you. Because 
of that, each tool provides a different perspective and should be used 
appropriately to get the best understanding of the risk from an 
excessive heat event.

The biggest difference between the HeatRisk approach and other 
approaches is that the HeatRisk identifies unusual heat (defined as the 
warmest 5% of temperatures) specifically for a particular date and 
location, resulting in daily thresholds that are unique for each 
location and date. This allows the approach to better account for 
acclimation (many of us become “used to the heat” and so our thresholds 
change) and the variation in climatology that we know exists across most 
regions of the United States. HeatRisk uses a high-resolution gridded 
climatology to put the forecast into context and also incorporates 
heat-health data from the CDC to influence the local thresholds and 
inform the approach.

While the heat index is a valuable component toward understanding heat 
risk for people, there just are not an adequate number of stations 
across the country, particularly in the West, that report hourly 
humidity values for a long enough period of years to develop a high 
resolution gridded climatology needed for an approach like HeatRisk. 
Additionally, in most approaches to heat index warning criteria, the 
impacts of excessively warm nights are not considered, nor are the 
impacts from heat over the entire 24 hour period. To get around those 
limitations, HeatRisk utilizes both the high and low temperatures for a 
location and compares them to historical values at that location to 
classify those temperatures that are in the top 5% and above levels 
identified by the CDC heat-health data as excessive for that climate. 
The approach also leverages well-known relationships between temperature 
and dew point to approximate the important role of humidity. So, the 
HeatRisk approach does factor in humidity, but in a more general sense. 
Because of these important differences in approaches, HeatRisk’s 24-hour 
based output will differ somewhat from specifically calculated heat 
index values.

The Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) is another useful index that 
measures heat stress in direct sunlight, taking many factors into 
account. If you work or exercise in direct sunlight, this can be a good 
index to monitor. Like HeatRisk, it also is a multi-color numeric index 
that provides precautionary actions that can be taken at the various 
predicted values. While useful for the active person conducting 
strenuous activities in direct sunlight, WBGT may be less useful as a 
universal measure for heat risk, especially for the heat-sensitive whose 
thresholds are much lower, for the homebound without effective cooling 
methods where the impacts of accumulated heat inside buildings is 
important, and the output (in degrees of temperature) can be confusing 
as they are cooler than the Heat Index (also in degrees of temperature). 
It also can be quite challenging to accurately predict WBGT beyond the 
next day or two due to the many factors that need to be accounted for on 
the local scale.

As mentioned earlier, HeatRisk is an experimental product, which means 
that there is no guarantee of timely availability and changes may occur 
without advance notice. The NWS's heat watches, advisories, and warnings 
remain the official heat products from the NWS. Forecasts of HeatRisk, 
WBGT, and Heat Index are available to supplement these official NWS heat 
products and one or more of these may be particularly suited for a 
person’s particular needs.

As the newest addition to the suite of heat-related tools the NWS 
provides, HeatRisk provides additional information that can be used to 
better identify those days of the year when heat may be at levels that 
pose a risk to certain populations or economic sectors. For groups who 
are heat-sensitive, their individual levels of action may be below NWS 
established heat criteria which are established to warn the entire 
general population to specific action. Additionally, while methodologies 
for specific heat product criteria can be different from one NWS office 
to another, a goal of HeatRisk service is to explore applying a 
scientific and consistent methodology nationally to provide potential 
risk from upcoming heat in a uniform manner with output available for 
any level of heat, not just for the most extreme heat events, over the 
entire seven day forecast period.

https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/heatrisk/pdf/HeatRisk-v2.5-Overview.pdf



/[The news archive -  is he still alive?  ]/
/*April 30, 2001 */
April 30, 2001: Speaking in Toronto at an annual meeting of the 
Associated Press, Vice President Dick Cheney asserts, "Conservation may 
be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a 
sound, comprehensive energy policy."
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2001-05-01-cheney-usat.htm


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