Science Advocacy
Science Advocacy
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a startling report on October 6, 2018 that was a clarion call to the planet. The IPCC’s report warned that if the global temperatures increase by the formerly accepted 1.5 to 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures, the impacts will be far more devastating than previously projected. In December of 2015, the Paris Accord charged world leaders to keep the global average temperature increase well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Since before the industrial revolution, the global temperature has already increased by 0.8°C to 1.2°C, depending on the region.
We are already about halfway to the 2°C tipping mark.Continue reading…
I’ve been following NASA’s ICESat-2 mission with great interest. Why? Maybe because I like words that start with three capital letters. Maybe because it’s going to make the best, most precise measurements of how the Earth’s ice sheets are changing, that anyone has ever made. Maybe for no reason at all.
ICESat-2 launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base a couple of weeks ago, into a near-polar orbit that will fly almost, but not quite, over the North and South poles every 90 minutes for the next 3-7 years. It’s carrying one instrument, which is a laser altimeter—a powerful laser that sends out ultra-short pulses of light, then measures how long they take to bounce off the Earth and come back. Using some mind-boggling optics, ICESat-2 will be able to measure the height of the Earth’s surface using only 12 photons out of the trillions it sends out from each pulse. This sounds crazy, but because it does this ten thousand times every second, it will be able to put together very accurate measurements of the height of the surface. On a clear day, ICESat-2’s measurements will be precise to something like the width of a cucumber (that’s a 40-meter long cucumber, because it needs to combine lots of measurements to be that precise. If you find one of those, send us a picture). The plan for the mission is to have ICESat-2 make these measurements on the same paths across the ice sheets over and over again, so that when glaciers get thinner or thicker, ICESat-2 will measure those changes.
Just in case you’ve been getting too much sleep, you may be interested to know that researchers have uncovered a new potential danger: the effects of climate change on deadly, disease-causing microbes. There are millions of different types of microbes. Most are harmless to humans, or even helpful to us, but many are pathogenic. Pathogenic microbes can be bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi, or protists (an amoeba is an example of a protist) and they are responsible for some of the most terrifying illnesses on the planet, like cholera, salmonella, malaria, and anthrax. While each species has specific requirements for the environment they like to live in, many pathogens like warm, humid climates, especially in places with poor sanitation and drinking water. They can live in water, food, soil, fecal matter – pretty much anything moist and warm.
For example, you may have heard of Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes cholera, a diarrheal disease.
A cholera bacterium. Cute little guy, no?
Cholera kills you via dehydration, but before you go, you will expel vast amounts of liquid poop. Cholera killed at least 143 million people per year during a 26-year period. But what about a viral disease that causes diarrhea? Perhaps you have heard of Norovirus, a virus that spreads when you ingest fecal matter – most people hear about outbreaks on cruise ships. Yeah, I mean that you get Norovirus by eating food or drinking water contaminated with infected poo.
Definitely not.
Many of these kinds of pathogens are spread in contaminated food or water. In fact, the World Health Organization estimates that in developing nations, more than 50% of the people who live in urban areas are eventually affected by diseases related to unsafe drinking water. Poor sanitation, unsafe drinking water, and a warm moist environment, will make many of these buggers super happy and any humans that encounter them super… likely to poop.
Enter climate change. As the planet warms, we can expect that the warm parts of the planet are going to expand outward from the equator, meaning that the climate that our microbe friends enjoy is going to be moving more northerly and southerly. If you were a pathogenic microbe, and you were suddenly able to migrate into new areas – you know, find new stompin’ grounds – wouldn’t you? Especially if your old territory became much too hot for you to survive there. Diseases, like cholera and malaria, that typically live in warm, developing nations could be moving into Europe and the lower part of the United States. However, that doesn’t mean we will all die of dysentery, like in The Oregon Trail.
Oh no!
One important reason we don’t see these diseases in industrialized countries is because we have modern water treatment and sanitation facilities. Industrialized nations also have treatment plans for critters that carry diseases, like ticks or mosquitos.
Moving day.
Water treatment doesn’t always get every pathogenic microbe, but our climate is inhospitable to most of them which helps keep them under control. For now. If that isn’t enough to save us, we have modern medicine. Antibiotics and anti-viral medicines that may not be readily available in poorer nations, but they can be prescribed by your doctor in industrialized nations.
Now let’s head to the icy north. The second of those potential new climate change/pathogenic microbe threats I mentioned at the beginning is the possibility of emerging zombie pathogens. Pathogenic microbes that were frozen in soil and water (or in long-dead carcasses) thousands of years ago could become viable again if the conditions are right. Temperatures are warming at an alarming rate, from one perspective, but from a microbe’s perspective, the temperatures are warming just slowly enough for a gentle thaw. That’s exactly what most pathogenic buggers need to become viable again once exposed to the environment. When an infected human or animal dies and is buried in a cold climate, the ground freezes and layers of sediments, snow and ice are deposited on top of the grave. As the climate warms, the ice and permafrost thaw, releasing any microbes that survived.
In an article from National Public Radio, Zac Peterson described his research, which involved working with perfectly frozen seal carcasses in northern Alaska. The seals thawed into a gooey mess and Zac spent time kneeling in that goo. The knee that was in contact with the goo became red and inflamed. He had contracted a case of seal finger disease, a bacterial infection known to infect seal hunters. Zac had only been working with 800 year old, previously frozen seals. There have also been cases of frozen reindeer dying from anthrax in Siberia and becoming buried in the permafrost. 70 years later, the ice thawed during a heat wave in 2016. The infected reindeer were also able to thaw, decompose, and release the Anthrax spores into the environment. Lot’s of people got sick and one young boy died from the infection.
It sounds pretty dire, but don’t worry! The wonders of modern science and medicine will save us again! Or at least they should. Modern drugs and medical techniques should be able to contain any of pathogens that are viable. Couple that with good hygiene and modern water and sanitation facilities and those nasty buggers don’t stand a chance! Unless the emerging pathogen is something we don’t have an available vaccine or a current treatment for….
Variola Virus – The cause of smallpox
For example, one pathogen known to be in the Siberian tundra is smallpox. Smallpox is caused by the highly contagious variola virus. It hasn’t infected a human since 1979, when the World Health Organization listed it as an eradiated disease. There is worry that, should a viable variola virus find its way from its thawing grave into a warm host, we may not have any defense against it at first. We have not needed to vaccinate people against smallpox in decades, so young populations in many parts of the world don’t have any immunity. People still die from the flu and we distribute vaccines for that virus. If smallpox found its way into a human host, millions of people could die before we are able to get enough people vaccinated to slow the spread.
The possibility of disease-causing microbes migrating into new territory or emerging from their graves in the frozen tundra may sound like a premise of a new outbreak movie, but given that the probable (and currently observable) effects of climate change are dramatic enough on their own, this new problem is sort of like throwing a diseased match on a burning planet. There is cause for concern, but we also have science and human ingenuity on our side. And since we know the threat, there is yet time to defeat it!
References
Climate change and infectious diseases. (n.d.). Retrieved January 30, 2018, from http://www.who.int/globalchange/climate/summary/en/index5.html
Doucleff, M. (2018, January 24). Are There Zombie Viruses In The Thawing Permafrost? Retrieved January 30, 2018, from https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/01/24/575974220/are-there-zombie-viruses-in-the-thawing-permafrost
Frequently asked questions and answers on smallpox. (n.d.). Retrieved February 22, 2018, from http://www.who.int/csr/disease/smallpox/faq/en/
Meyer, R. (2017, November 06). The Zombie Diseases of Climate Change. Retrieved January 30, 2018, from https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/the-zombie-diseases-of-climate-change/544274/
University of Liverpool. (2017, August 2). Europe’s most dangerous pathogens: Climate change increasing risks. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 30, 2018 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170802082915.htm
Unsafe drinking-water, sanitation and waste management. (n.d.). Retrieved January 31, 2018, from http://www.who.int/sustainable-development/cities/health-risks/water-sanitation/en/
You may have seen the news online – Donald Trump plans to appoint Sam Clovis as the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics (REE). Since 2008, this position has been synonymous with the title of “Chief Scientist” of the USDA. Sam Clovis is not a scientist, and no, it makes no sense to appoint a non-scientist as chief scientist of a major government research organization. But before we panic, let’s take a look at what the RRE actually does, who has led this group in the past, and how Mr. Clovis’s skills might fit in with the agency’s mission.Continue reading…
Glaciers in almost every part of the world are getting smaller, often at jaw-dropping rates. That seems like a pretty clear sign that the world is warming, right? It’s good enough for most people, but at long last, there is paper to tell you exactly what ‘good’ and ‘enough’ mean.
Let’s back up for a minute. A glacier is a big piece of ice that slowly flows downhill. If it collects more snow in the winter than it loses to melt in the summer, it gets thicker, and, eventually, grows longer, and if the opposite happens, it thins and shrinks. Because it takes years for glaciers to grow or shrink, their changes tell us not so much about the weather this year or last year, as about how the climate has changed over the last few decades. What’s more, glaciers are big and easy to measure, so even in places where we don’t have great long-term records about weather, we often know how the glaciers have changed for centuries.
Want to comment on the proposed roll-back of EPA regulations? Here’s how!
You may have heard that the current administration is not very pro-science. No governmental agency is impacted more (at least currently) than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The new head of the EPA doesn’t’ seem to understand basic climate science.
That sucks, but things could be worse, right? On wait…. As part of the cryptically titled executive order “Enforcing the regulatory reform agenda”, the EPA is reviewing its existing regulations. As is the law, the EPA is required to seek public comment on any potential changes.
The good news is that they have done just that – posting a request for comment on their “evaluations of existing regulations”. The bad news? There is a lot of bad news. No specific proposed regulations or regulatory roll-backs are mentioned. Instead, this is just a call for suggestions of what regulations to cut. The notice gives some handy suggestions, and they are deeply troubling. In the request for comment, the EPA states that it is targeting regulations that do the following:
i) Eliminate jobs, or inhibit job creation;
(ii) are outdated, unnecessary, or ineffective;
(iii) impose costs that exceed benefits;
(iv) create a serious inconsistency or otherwise interfere with regulatory reform initiatives and policies;
(v) are inconsistent with the requirements of section 515 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriates Act, 2001 (44 U.S.C. 3516 note), or the guidance issued pursuant to that provision in particular those regulations that rely in whole or in part on data, information, or methods that are not publicly available or that are insufficiently transparent to meet the standard of reproducibility; or
(vi) derive from or implement Executive Orders or other Presidential directives that have been subsequently rescinded or substantially modified.”
Yipes! Nowhere in the above rules is the need to protect the environment or human health even mentioned. It’s all about jobs and cost. Loosely translated, this means that the EPA is planning to value money over protecting the environment and human health. Relaxation of clean air standards could lead to increased rates of asthma and deaths among those with reduced lung function, not to mention the acceleration of global warming. The clean water act regulations could be significantly affected as well. That’s ok, clean water is over-rated.
It’s important to understand that changes to literally decades worth of environmental regulations can not be accomplished overnight. Any changes will take time. Still, heading back towards pre-regulation times when the air in Los Angeles was unsafe to breathe on most days or one of the great lakes was effectively dead is something most people would like to avoid.
So let the EPA know what you think. Click here to comment. Tell them not to repeal the clean water act or reduce the emissions standards. Tell them to value human health over money. Tell them whatever you want – just let your voice be heard!
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