From the AMERICAN COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS and the “how do people survive the climate change when they move from New York to Miami?” department, comes this warning that has all these deaths attached to the press release. As I said about a similar press release wailing about potential excess deaths earlier today, show me death certificates that puts climate change as the cause.

ACP decries devastating impact of climate change order

Washington (March 28, 2017) President Trump’s executive order on climate change will have a devastating impact on public health, said the American College of Physicians (ACP) today. President Trump signed an executive order directing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to roll back the major ways that the U.S. is combatting air pollution.

“Today’s executive order moves us in the wrong direction on this issue,” said Nitin S. Damle, MD, MS, MACP, ACP President. “It signals a retreat from our nation’s efforts to curb carbon emissions and address climate change. Climate change is a problem we should be attacking aggressively on a global level.”

In a 2016 paper, Climate Change and Health, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, ACP outlined the negative consequences that climate change will have on public and individual health. The paper cited higher rates of respiratory and heat-related illnesses, increased prevalence of diseases passed by insects, water-borne diseases, food and water insecurity and malnutrition, and behavioral health problems as potential health effects of climate change. The elderly, the sick, and the poor are especially vulnerable.

The executive order specifically directs the EPA to rewrite, and presumably, loosen the standards set forth in the Clean Power Plan. As cited in ACP’s paper, implementing the Clean Power Plan in the U.S. would avoid 3,600 premature deaths, 1,700 heart attacks, 90,000 asthma attacks, and 300,000 missed work and school days.

“Climate change is real, is largely the result of human activity, and is affecting our health now. ACP is very concerned about the harmful health effects that climate change is having on our patients,” continued Dr. Damle. “We need to take action now to protect the health of our community’s most vulnerable members — including our children, our seniors, people with chronic illnesses, and the poor — because our climate is already changing and people are already being harmed.”

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Alpheus bellulus (Snapping shrimp) with partner Cryptocentrus cinctus (Yellow shrimp goby). A symbiotic relationship where the blind shrimp digs the protective burrow and the keen eyed goby serves as lookout. By Nhobgood Nick Hobgood (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

A new project is enlisting artists to listen to sound tracks of acoustic monitors in reefs and other ecological locations, so they can raise the alarm if anything sounds different.

World Science Festival: How music and science combine to monitor climate change

By Jessica McGrath Posted yesterday at 9:27am

Bubbling beakers and Bunsen burners are being traded in for drum machines, sound generators and music software at the World Science Festival in Brisbane.

Music researcher Dr Leah Barclay told the 100 Ways To Listen project that artists and scientists working together could unlock the secrets of climate change.

“The way we think about music and the way sound artists listen, can really influence and inspire how scientists are responding to climate change,” she said.

Recording sound from different environments, allowed music scientists to monitor climate change, by using hydrophones and binaural microphones that mimicked the same technology as the human ear.

“Dramatic changes in aquatic ecosystems can go unnoticed simply due to visibility,” said Dr Barclay, whose hydrology piece featured recordings of the world’s water systems collected over a decade.

This non-invasive technique called acoustic ecology enabled the researchers “to listen to an active and healthy reef and hear active fish and snapping shrimp” or the increased traffic of Humpback whales, she said.

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Read more: http://ift.tt/2oaUnAh

Who needs quantitative physical measurements, when we can learn all we need to know about the climate, from the chatter of the snapping shrimp, or artists’ interpretation of whale songs?