by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 17, 2012 | Climate Change, Indigenous Autonomy
By Social Science and Humanities Research Centre
Indigenous people around the world are among the most vulnerable to climate change and are increasingly susceptible to the pathogen loads found in potable water after heavy rainfall or rapid snow melt.
These are the preliminary findings of Sherilee Harper, a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar in Aboriginal People’s Health at the University of Guelph, who says that there has been a significant increase in the incidence of diarrhea and vomiting following these weather events.
Harper is undertaking a comparative study of how extreme weather events affect waterborne diseases in the Arctic and in southwestern Uganda—and is finding plenty of similarities between health issues faced by indigenous groups in Uganda and those in Inuit Nunangat.
“There are a lot of similarities,” she says. “One of the most significant is caused by changes to the climate; in both places, increased temperatures and rainfall are leading to increased bacterial loads in water. This can be because of heavy rainfall or rapid snowmelt, but, in each case, it leads to an increased risk of exposure to waterborne disease from both tap water and brook water.”
With climate change, these weather events are expected to increase in frequency, duration and intensity, in turn increasing the risk of disease. As a result, the risks associated with some centuries-old practices may be changing. For example, when Inuit go hunting or to cabins, they use water from brooks and streams or melt ice. Harper’s research shows that this water can have a negative impact on their health.
“After a heavy rainfall, there is an increase in E. coli and total coliforms in the water, which means there is an increased risk of exposure to these bacteria,” says Harper. “In Nunatsiavut, where I started this research, clinic records showed a significant increase in cases of vomiting and diarrhea after these high-impact weather events.”
Harper’s research indicates that water issues such as these are not likely to diminish in the near future.
“Under any climate change scenario you consider, this is going to increase,” she says. “Waterborne diseases are not just an Arctic issue; they are global. The World Health Organization projects that most of the climate change disease burden in the 21st century will be due to diarrhea and malnutrition.”
Harper’s comparative research also takes her to Uganda, where she is studying how climate events similar to those affecting Canada’s North are affecting Batwa peoples’ health. The Batwa are conservation refugees who were moved out of their forest homeland when the Ugandan government made it a national park to protect the silverback gorillas.
“The Batwa face similar social and societal issues to the Inuit, of which one of the most important is access to safe drinking water,” she says. “Comparing the two cultures allows me to examine similarities between two seemingly different populations and start addressing a deficit in understanding of the health dimensions of climate change among indigenous populations. This information can then be used to offer best practice guidelines and develop adaptation strategies in an indigenous context.”
Harper will discuss her research and answer questions from the press as part of the Canada Press Breakfast on the Arctic and oceans, being held at the 178th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The breakfast will be held in Room 306 of the Vancouver Convention Centre at 8 a.m. on February 17, 2012, and will feature Canadian research experts from across natural sciences, engineering, health, social sciences and humanities.
From Physorg: http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-climate-pollution-indigenous-people.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 14, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Protests & Symbolic Acts
By iLoveMountains.org
More than 1,200 people are gathering in Frankfort, Ky. on Feb. 14 to celebrate I Love Mountains Day and call for an end to mountaintop removal coal mining—a destructive practice that has shortened lifespans and caused illnesses in Central Appalachia for decades.
The iLoveMountains.org team has just launched an innovative new web tool to illustrate the overwhelming amount of data that shows the high human cost of coal mining, and we invite you to check it out. See it live now by clicking here.
The Human Cost of Coal page maps national data including poverty rates from the 2010 U.S. Census, birth defect rates from the Center for Disease Control, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, and life expectancy and population numbers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. The site also includes summaries for twenty-one peer-reviewed studies that show human health problems such as heart, respiratory and kidney diseases, cancer, low birth weight and serious birth defects are significantly higher in communities near mountaintop removal mine sites.
Ada Smith, a resident of Letcher County Kentucky explains the significance of The Human Cost of Coal:
“Though many of the (health) studies state the obvious for those of us living in these communities, the scientific facts give us much-needed evidence to make sure our laws are truly enforced for the health of our land and people. If we choose to not pay attention to these recent studies we are deciding to make Appalachia a sacrifice zone. What we do to the land, we do to the people.”
From EcoWatch
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 14, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Repression at Home, Toxification
By Maura Stephens
Pennsylvania’s state legislature has effectively signed a death warrant for some number of residents, who knows how many. Corbett’s about to make it official.
Pennsylvanians: Fight back — or suffer the consequences.
The fracking industry has written a bill that gives itself legal permission to poison Pennsylvanians-and keeps doctors who treat them once they’re poisoned from telling anyone else what poisoned them. The bill also essentially permits all gas drilling and processing activities anywhere, including in residential areas.
It’s all being sold as an “impact fee” bill. Counties that want the income will sign on — and that probably means most counties will.
The industry was helped in this covert operation by crooks in political office. Those political criminals should be held accountable (more on this below).
The 174-page bill, HB1950, was signed in both the House and Senate of the state’s General Assembly, and on Friday (2/10/12) the Senate passed it to Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett for signature.
This is yet the latest egregious example of industry-state denial of municipalities’ right to protect themselves. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that this is the legal permitting of murder — and legalization of coerced suicide.
There can be no question that the legislators who signed it are in collusion with industry. They are corrupt. There can be no other explanation. These people have an obligation to protect the citizens of Pennsylvania, and not only are they not doing so, but they are also denying citizens the right to protect themselves—and denying physicians and nurses the ability to protect their patients!
And if this outrage does not get Pennsylvanians (and everyone) out in the streets, in Harrisburg at the governor’s mansion demanding a veto, and at the offices of state legislators, demanding a reversal of the bill’s passage, I do not know what will.
As Berks-Mont News reported on January 25, Pennsylvania municipalities currently do “have the legal right to decide where and how gas development occurs. Both the Municipalities Planning Code and the State Constitution vest municipalities with the authority and responsibility to address local environmental and public resources. State Supreme Court rulings have also made it clear that the state Oil and Gas Act allows municipalities the right to use zoning codes to restrict the location of gas wells.”
This law negates those rights and completely strips communities of their rights to self govern. This is a blatant abrogation of the United States constitution and all the hackneyed assertions that We the People have any say any longer in crafting U.S. law.
Read more from TruthOut:
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 14, 2012 | Toxification
By Bernice Yeung / Huffington Post
Southern Californians are among those at highest risk of death due to air pollution, according to recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency research published in the journal Risk Analysis.
The study, published last month, was conducted to “provide insight to the size and location of public health risks associated with recent levels of fine particles and ozone, allowing decision-makers to better target air quality policies,” the federal agency said in a statement responding to California Watch inquiries.
“While overall levels of fine particles and ozone have declined significantly in the past two decades, these two pollutants still pose a burden to public health,” the EPA statement said.
The study examined air pollution exposure based on 2005 air quality levels and projected there could be between 130,000 and 360,000 premature deaths among adults in coming years. The 2005 data was the best available for analyzing fine particulates and ozone, the EPA said. Among vulnerable populations like children, the EPA also estimates that fine particulate matter and ozone results in millions of cases of respiratory symptoms, asthma and school absences, as well as hundreds of thousands of cases of acute bronchitis and emergency room visits.
The analysis also found that Southern Californians and residents of the industrial Midwest experience the highest exposure to fine particulate matter, which has been found to exacerbate respiratory illnesses and increase heart attacks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Among the most populated areas of the country, Los Angeles had the highest estimated rate of deaths attributable to air pollution, at nearly 10 percent; San Jose had the lowest at 3.5 percent.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District conducted a similar risk assessment last year and found that about 1,700 premature deaths can be attributed to fine particulate matter in the Bay Area each year, which is about 3.8 percent of all deaths.
Particulate matter is made up of extremely small particles and liquid droplets that are 2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller – which means they have a width 30 times smaller than a human hair. Common sources of fine particulate matter, often referred to as PM 2.5, are forest fires and emissions from power plants, industrial sources and cars. Unhealthy forms of ozone are created when nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) react in the presence of sunlight; ozone is typically linked to byproducts from industrial facilities and electric utilities, car exhaust, gas vapors and chemical solvents.
Local air districts in Southern California and the Bay Area have attempted to limit fine particulate matter and ozone emissions through Spare the Air days by regulating wood burning and offering financial incentives to businesses to phase out the use of diesel engines.
Public health advocates say that the EPA study illustrates the importance of improving air quality and that these types of studies on the risks of air pollution have been used to determine federal regulations and inform local clean air plans.
“One of the hardest things to explain to the public is that while the air is cleaner, we continue to find that we have underestimated the health effects of breathing in air pollution,” said Joe Lyou, president and CEO of the Coalition for Clean Air and a governing board member of the South Coast Air Quality Management District. “Yes, we have made significant accomplishments, but we still have a long way to go. The public needs to understand that this is a life-and-death situation.”
From The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/13/southern-california-air-pollution_n_1273348.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 13, 2012 | Agriculture, Toxification
By Reuters
A French court on Monday declared U.S. biotech giant Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning of a French farmer, a judgment that could lend weight to other health claims against pesticides.
In the first such case heard in court in France, grain grower Paul Francois, 47, says he suffered neurological problems including memory loss, headaches and stammering after inhaling Monsanto’s Lasso weedkiller in 2004.
He blames the agri-business giant for not providing adequate warnings on the product label.
The ruling was given by a court in Lyon, southeast France, which ordered an expert opinion of Francois’s losses to establish the amount of damages.
“It is a historic decision in so far as it is the first time that a (pesticide) maker is found guilty of such a poisoning,” François Lafforgue, Francois’s lawyer, told Reuters.
Monsanto said it was disappointed by the ruling and would examine whether to appeal the judgment.
“Monsanto always considered that there were not sufficient elements to establish a causal relationship between Paul Francois’s symptoms and a potential poisoning,” the company’s lawyer, Jean-Philippe Delsart, said.
Previous health claims from farmers have foundered because of the difficulty of establishing clear links between illnesses and exposure to pesticides.
Francois and other farmers suffering from illness set up an association last year to make a case that their health problems should be linked to their use of crop protection products.
The agricultural branch of the French social security system says that since 1996, it has gathered farmers’ reports of sickness potentially related to pesticides, with about 200 alerts a year.
But only about 47 cases have been recognised as due to pesticides in the past 10 years. Francois, who suffers from neurological problems, obtained work invalidity status only after a court appeal.
Read more from Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/13/france-pesticides-monsanto-idUSL5E8DD5UG20120213
