Month: September 2017

Daily News 29 Sep 2017

More than 100 schools sign on to teach health risks of climate change

A growing movement in higher education responds to a shortage of health professionals and researchers trained in climate change and health

Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health

The Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education (GCCHE) today announced that, since its launch earlier this year, 125 health professions schools and programs around the world have joined and committed to ensure future health professionals are educated on the health impacts of climate change. These impacts include more deadly heat waves, flooding, and wildfires; greater spread of disease vectors like ticks and mosquitos; and growing food and drinking water insecurity.

The Consortium so far includes member schools and programs representing an estimated 90,000 students from 15 countries on 6 continents (all health professions schools around the world are invited to join). Columbia University Medical Center, including its schools of medicine, nursing, dental, and public health, is the first complete academic medical center to join the GCCHE.

Faculty members in the Climate and Health Program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, the first academic program in climate and health in the U.S., lead the Consortium, with input from an international, multi-sectoral Advisory Council and Coordinating Committee.

“The science is unequivocal: Not only are global temperatures rising, but human health around the world is threatened by the changes to the climate system,” says Jeffrey Shaman, director of the GCCHE and the Climate and Health Program at the Mailman School. “Yet today there are far too few health professionals with the necessary training to address this growing crisis. The GCCHE exists to build this expertise.”

To enable training of health professionals on the health impacts of climate change, the GCCHE is creating a living knowledge bank of curricular content for use by health professions schools worldwide. This content is made up of a growing body of knowledge and best practices, for example, the latest techniques in drought forecasting or early warning systems for heatwaves, as well as other ways of building community resiliency and response, including medical interventions to climate-related health crises. The GCCHE also supports learning about planetary health, a new field dedicated to studying the interdependencies of human and natural systems.

“There is plenty of evidence that many climate change mitigation policies can greatly improve public health, such as by reducing air pollution or traffic injuries, or increasing physical activity,” says Carlos Dora, coordinator, Public Health and the Environment, World Health Organization and a member of the GCCHE Advisory Council. “What is missing is training for health workers to integrate this knowledge into daily practice, to enhance individuals’ and communities’ action to protect their own health while helping save the planet.”

“While climate change is a huge threat, it also presents an opportunity,” says Kim Knowlton, a Mailman School faculty member who helps lead the GCCHE. “Our goal is to foster educational programs that can accelerate the development of ways to protect health, build climate resiliency, and treat those in need of healthcare, all with special attention to the most vulnerable populations, including the elderly and people in low-income communities.”

“We see every day how violent storms, air pollution, and other environmental factors harm our health,” says Michael Myers, managing director, Rockefeller Foundation and a member of the GCCHE Advisory Council. “The rapid growth and robust action of this consortium of leading institutions shows that help is on the way.”

About the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education

Launched in February 2017 with start-up support from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education (GCCHE) is an international forum for health professions schools committed to developing and instituting climate change and health curricula, in order to ensure a future cadre of highly trained health professionals who will be able to prepare and protect society from the harmful effects of climate disruption. The GCCHE serves as a living knowledge bank for its members to share training materials, news and opportunities on climate and health events, partnerships, and opportunities. Representatives of health professions schools are invited to join the GCCHE online by completing this form.

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September 29, 2017 at 01:02AM

Daily News 28 Sep 2017

We are Made of Atoms which San Francisco AI Hates

“The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.” (Eliezer Yudkowsky, Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk in Global Catastrophic Risks, 2008)

What if the AI is taught to hate the atoms of which you are made? Google Search is an artificial intelligence system, trained by some people and texts to hate carbon atoms, of which we are made. Other web AIs, with which Google Search AI interact, share this trait. Their interaction creates another AI, adverse to humanity – the “San Francisco AI”. Almost all new information received by journalists, politicians, bureaucrats, and many citizens is influenced by the San Francisco AI. Its contribution to climate alarmism and “the resistance” to Trump should not be underestimated.

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September 28, 2017 at 08:09PM

Daily News 28 Sep 2017

‘Why haven’t we done something already?’: California mulling ban on fossil-fuel vehicles

China will also likely order an end to sales of all polluting vehicles by 2030, the chairman of electric-carmaker BYD Co. said Thursday

LOS ANGELES, CA – JULY 07: Traffic flows under the Mulholland Bridge on Interstate 405 which is slated to be demolished during the 11 miles shut down of Interstate 405 on July 7, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. The interstate 405 will be closed for 53 hours due to a freeway widening project starting July 16. Los Angeles city officials are advising residents to stay home or stay away from the area over the weekend fearing massive traffic jams of what has become known as “Carmageddon.” (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

The internal combustion engine’s days may be numbered in California, where officials are mulling whether a ban on sales of polluting autos is needed to achieve long-term targets for cleaner air.

Governor Jerry Brown has expressed an interest in barring the sale of vehicles powered by internal-combustion engines, Mary Nichols, chairman of the California Air Resources Board, said in an interview Friday at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. The earliest such a ban is at least a decade away, she said.

Brown, one of the most outspoken elected official in the U.S. about the need for policies to combat climate change, would be replicating similar moves by China, France and the U.K.

Governor Jerry Brown of California discusses climate action at ‘We The Future’ at Ted Theater on Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017 in New York. Stuart Ramson/AP Images for UN Foundation

“I’ve gotten messages from the governor asking, ‘Why haven’t we done something already?’” Nichols said, referring to China’s planned phase-out of fossil-fuel vehicle sales. “The governor has certainly indicated an interest in why China can do this and not California.”

Embracing such a policy would send shockwaves through the global car industry due to the heft of California’s auto market. More than 2 million new passenger vehicles were registered in the state last year, topping France, Italy or Spain. If a ban were implemented, automakers from General Motors Co. to Toyota Motor Corp. would be under new pressure to make electric vehicles the standard for personal transportation in the most populous U.S. state, casting fresh doubts on the future of gasoline- and diesel-powered autos elsewhere.

The Association of Global Automakers said consumers must be able to afford the cleaner cars that California says are needed to meet its climate goals. The trade association represents Toyota, Honda Motor Co. and other overseas carmakers in the U.S.

A BYD Co. E6 electric taxi, center, stands in traffic at an intersection in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, China, on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016. Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

“We have been working with California on intelligent, market-based approaches to emissions reductions beyond 2025, and we hope that this doesn’t signal an abandonment of that position,” Global Automakers Chief Executive Officer John Bozzella said in a statement.

California has set a goal to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050. Rising emissions from on-road transportation has undercut the state’s efforts to reduce pollution, according to Next 10, San Francisco-based non-profit.

“To reach the ambitious levels of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, we have to pretty much replace all combustion with some form of renewable energy by 2040 or 2050,” Nichols said. “We’re looking at that as a method of moving this discussion forward.”

California has the authority to write its own pollution rules, which dates back to the 1970 Clean Air Act. Those rules are underpinned by waivers granted by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Nichols said the state would likely take a different legal route to enable a possible ban rather than use an EPA waiver, since the Trump administration would be unlikely to approve one. For example, California could use vehicle registration rules or control the vehicles that can access state highways, she said.

Read the rest of the story here.

HT | Earthling2

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September 28, 2017 at 08:01PM