The Delta Fire rages in Shasta-Trinity National Forest in California on Sept. 6.  Noah Berger / AP file

nbcnews.com - by Avichai Scher - December 24, 2018

 . . . The increasing visibility of climate change, combined with bleak scientific reports and rising carbon dioxide emissions, is taking a toll on mental health, especially among young people, who are increasingly losing hope for their future. Experts call it “climate grief,” depression, anxiety and mourning over climate change.

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Infectious disease experts have had plenty to worry about in recent decades, including HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and Zika. But one disease scares them above all others—influenza. That’s right, the flu.

news.emory.edu - by Martha McKenzie - December 2018

Even though many people dismiss and misunderstand it—calling everything from a cold to a stomach bug “the flu”— influenza actually claims 12,000 to 56,000 lives in the U.S. every year. And that’s in a normal flu season.

Every so often, a flu pandemic emerges. That’s when a new strain appears that is so different from what has circulated before that people have no immunity to it. A hundred years ago, the 1918 H1N1 pandemic swept the globe infecting about a third of the world’s population and killing 50 million to 100 million people. Since then, there have been three more pandemics, in 1957, 1968, and 2009.

The next pandemic, say experts, is a question of when, not if. Are we ready?

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submitted by Gavin Macgregor-Skinner

nebraskamed.com - December 29, 2018

Omaha, Neb – An American providing medical assistance in the Democratic Republic of Congo recently experienced a possible exposure to the Ebola virus and is in Omaha for monitoring. This person has no Ebola symptoms but will be monitored closely. Should any symptoms develop, the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit would be activated and the person admitted.

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submitted by Carrie La Jeunesse

Growing up working class gives people social skills that help broaden their perspective during conflicts. NICOLAS HOIZEY/UNSPLASH

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Social class and wise reasoning about interpersonal conflicts across regions, persons and situations

sciencemag.org - by Michael Price - December 20, 2017

There’s an apparent paradox in modern life: Society as a whole is getting smarter, yet we aren’t any closer to figuring out how to all get along. “How is it possible that we have just as many, if not more, conflicts as before?” asks social psychologist Igor Grossmann.

The answer is that raw intelligence doesn’t reduce conflict, Grossmann asserts. Wisdom does. Such wisdom—in effect, the ability to take the perspectives of others into account and aim for compromise—comes much more naturally to those who grow up poor or working class, he says.

In the next 6-9 months, the following countries are expected to deteriorate significantly leading to a spike in #humanitarian needs: https://t.co/mf3f5iyUqW pic.twitter.com/Q000xiembR

— ACAPS (@ACAPSproject) December 26, 2018

In the next 6-9 months, the following countries are expected to deteriorate significantly leading to a spike in #humanitarian needs:

CLICK HERE - ACAPS - CrisisInSight: Global Risk Analysis

Workers install solar panels.  Associated Press

The open letter includes a signature from a former high-level Mobil Oil executive.

CLICK HERE - Elected Officials to Protect America - Empowering lawmakers to act boldly on climate

huffingtonpost.com - by Alexander C. Kaufman - December 14, 2018

In a little over a month, the so-called Green New Deal has won endorsements from more than three dozen sitting or incoming federal lawmakers as Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) makes a high-profile bid to shift debate over climate change toward policy on the scale of the crisis. 

On Friday, the effort got a boost from 311 state and local officials.

Forty-four mayors, 63 county and state legislators and 116 city council members were among the officials from 40 states ― including some top oil and gas producers ― who signed an open letter issuing a sweeping, full-throated call for the phaseout of fossil fuels and adoption of Green New Deal-style climate policies.

DW Documentary - November 8, 2017

Climate change and rising sea levels mean the island nation of Kiribati in the South Pacific is at risk of disappearing into the sea.

But the island’s inhabitants aren’t giving up. They are doing what they can to save their island from inundation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ0j6kr4ZJ0

FILE PHOTO: Vapor is released into the sky at a refinery in Wilmington, California March 24, 2012. REUTERS/Bret Hartman/File photo

reuters.com - by Maria Caspani - December 13, 2018

A growing percentage of Americans see climate change as an “imminent” threat driven mainly by human activity, and more than two-thirds want Washington to work with other nations to combat it, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday . . . 

. . . The survey came close on the heels of a U.S. government report released last month that said climate change will cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century, undermining health, infrastructure, and industries from farming to energy production.

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weather.com

CLICK HERE - FOURTH NATIONAL CLIMATE ASSESSMENT

bbc.com - November 23, 2018

Unchecked climate change will cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars and damage human health and quality of life, a US government report warns.

"Future risks from climate change depend... on decisions made today," the 4th National Climate Assessment says . . .

. . . But it says that projections of future catastrophe could change if society works to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and "to adapt to the changes that will occur".

CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE - Climate change: Report warns of growing impact on US life

ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLES WITHIN THE LINKS BELOW . . .

CLICK HERE - U.S. Should Expect Worsening Weather Disasters, New Government Climate Report Warns

Global investors managing $32tn are urging governments to phase out all coal burning. Photograph: Alexander Koerner/Getty Images

UN summit urged to end all coal burning and introduce substantial taxes on emissions

theguardian.com - Damian Carrington - December 9, 2018

Global investors managing $32tn issued a stark warning to governments at the UN climate summit on Monday, demanding urgent cuts in carbon emissions and the phasing out of all coal burning. Without these, the world faces a financial crash several times worse than the 2008 crisis, they said.

The investors include some of the world’s biggest pension funds, insurers and asset managers and marks the largest such intervention to date. They say fossil fuel subsidies must end and substantial taxes on carbon be introduced.

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Protesters demonstrate against rising costs of living they blame on high taxes near the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris on Dec. 8, 2018.  Sameer Al-Doumy/ AFP/Getty Images

chicagotribune.com - apnews.com - by ELAINE GANLEY and JOHN LEICESTER - December 8, 2018

The rumble of armored police trucks and the hiss of tear gas filled central Paris on Saturday, as French riot police fought to contain thousands of yellow-vested protesters venting their anger against the government in a movement that has grown more violent by the week . . . 

. . . Amid the melee, President Emmanuel Macron remained invisible and silent, as he has for the four weeks of a movement that started as a protest against a gas tax hike and metamorphosed into a rebellion against high taxes and eroding living standards . . .

. . . Macron on Wednesday agreed to abandon the fuel tax hike, which aimed to wean France off fossil fuels and uphold the Paris climate agreement. Many economists and scientists say higher fuel taxes are essential to save the planet from worsening climate change, but that stance hasn't defused the anger among France's working class.

Slides of human tissue at the University of Arizona taken by British military pathologist William Rolland a century ago.  MAMTA POPAT FOR STAT

statnews.com - by Helen Branswell - December 5, 2018

Late one night Michael Worobey began poking around on the internet, looking for descendants of a World War I British military doctor named William Rolland.

Rolland, a pathologist, had written a report in 1917, the year before the start of the Spanish flu. It described cases of British soldiers in France who had contracted an unusually fatal respiratory illness.

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Harvesting soybeans in Mato Grosso, Brazil.  Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

CLICK HERE - STUDY - World Resources Institute - Creating a Sustainable Food Future

nytimes.com - by Brad Plumer - December 5, 2018

If the world hopes to make meaningful progress on climate change, it won’t be enough for cars and factories to get cleaner. Our cows and wheat fields will have to become radically more efficient, too.

That’s the basic conclusion of a sweeping new study issued Wednesday by the World Resources Institute, an environmental group. The report warns that the world’s agricultural system will need drastic changes in the next few decades in order to feed billions more people without triggering a climate catastrophe.

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cop24.gov.pl

COP24 is the informal name for the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The UNFCCC is a “Rio Convention”, one of three adopted at the “Rio Earth Summit” in 1992. The UNFCCC entered into force on 21 March 1994. Today, it has near-universal membership. The countries that have ratified the Convention are called Parties to the Convention. Preventing “dangerous” human interference with the climate system is the ultimate aim of the UNFCCC. 

The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the supreme body of the UNFCCC Convention. It consists of the representatives of the Parties to the Convention. It holds its sessions every year. The COP takes decisions which are necessary to ensure the effective implementation of the provisions of the Convention and regularly reviews the implementation of these provisions.

In accordance with a decision of the 22nd Session of the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Convention (COP22) in Marrakesh in November 2016, the successive climate summit will be held in Poland. Poland was selected to host this event within the framework of the Eastern European Group (EEG).