A highway stands immersed in floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey in West Columbia, Texas, on Aug. 30.  Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

CLICK HERE - CDP - Company Scores

bloomberg.com - by Christopher Flavelle - January 22, 2019

Bank of America Corp. worries flooded homeowners will default on their mortgages. The Walt Disney Co. is concerned its theme parks will get too hot for vacationers, while AT&T Inc. fears hurricanes and wildfires may knock out its cell towers.

The Coca-Cola Co. wonders if there will still be enough water to make Coke.

As the Trump administration rolls back rules meant to curb global warming, new disclosures show that the country’s largest companies are already bracing for its effects. The documents reveal how widely climate change is expected to cascade through the economy -- disrupting supply chains, disabling operations and driving away customers, but also offering new ways to make money.

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A vendor selects fruit for sale at a market in Lima, Peru November 2, 2018. REUTERS/Mariana Bazo/File Photo

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - The Lancet - Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems

reuters.com - by Kate Kelland - January 16, 2019

Scientists have unveiled what they say is an ideal diet for the health of the planet and its people - including a doubling of consumption of nuts, fruits, vegetables and legumes, and a halving of meat and sugar intake.

If the world followed the “Planetary Health” diet, the researchers said, more than 11 million premature deaths could be prevented each year, while greenhouse gas emissions would be cut and more land, water and biodiversity would be preserved.

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who.int

The world is facing multiple health challenges. These range from outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles and diphtheria, increasing reports of drug-resistant pathogens, growing rates of obesity and physical inactivity to the  health impacts of environmental pollution and climate change and multiple humanitarian crises.   

To address these and other threats, 2019 sees the start of the World Health Organization’s new 5-year strategic plan – the 13th General Programme of Work. This plan focuses on a triple billion target:  ensuring 1 billion more people benefit from access to universal health coverage, 1 billion more people are protected from health emergencies and 1 billion more people enjoy better health and well-being. Reaching this goal will require addressing the threats to health from a variety of angles. 

Here are 10 of the many issues that will demand attention from WHO and health partners in 2019.

1.  Air pollution and climate change

2.  Noncommunicable diseases

3.  Global influenza pandemic

4.  Fragile and vulnerable settings

5.  Antimicrobial resistance

6.  Ebola and other high-threat pathogens

PACK ICE MELTING IN SPRING IN ANTARCTICA'S WEDDEL SEA. CREDIT: PLANET OBSERVER/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The faster the ocean warms, the faster key Antarctic glaciers will disintegrate.

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Four decades of Antarctic Ice Sheet mass balance from 1979–2017

thinkprogress.org - by Joe Romm - January 15, 2019

A stunning new study on Antarctic sea ice collapse greatly raises the risk of a 10-foot sea level rise this century if President Donald Trump’s climate policies aren’t quickly reversed.

Warming ocean waters drove a 6-fold increase in annual ice mass loss from the Antarctic ice sheet between 1979 and 2017, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It’s been known for a while that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) was unstable and collapsing at an accelerating rate due to global warming. But the new study finds that parts of the vastly larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) are also disintegrating.

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Hazed and Confused: The Effect of Air Pollution on Dementia

washingtonpost.com - by Christopher Ingraham - September 5, 2018

Low air quality, even at pollution levels well below current Environmental Protection Agency thresholds, is associated with increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease in later life, according to a new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Researchers Kelly C. Bishop, Nicolai V. Kuminoff and Jonathan D. Ketcham of Arizona State University cross-referenced more than a decade of Medicare records for 6.9 million older adults with EPA air-quality data to track how exposure to air pollution correlated with rates of dementia.

They found that levels of fine particulate pollution known as PM2.5 were closely associated with higher rates of dementia.

Trends in ocean heat content match those predicted by leading climate change models. Overall ocean warming is accelerating. Credit: Michele Hogan

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Science - How fast are the oceans warming?

af.reuters.com - by Alister Doyle - January 10, 2019

The oceans are warming faster than previously estimated, setting a new temperature record in 2018 in a trend that is damaging marine life, scientists said on Thursday.

New measurements, aided by an international network of 3,900 floats deployed in the oceans since 2000, showed more warming since 1971 than calculated by the latest U.N. assessment of climate change in 2013, they said.

And “observational records of ocean heat content show that ocean warming is accelerating,” the authors in China and the United States wrote in the journal Science of ocean waters down to 2,000 metres (6,600 ft).

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FILE PHOTO: Wind turbines are pictured in RWE Offshore-Windpark Nordsee Ost in the North sea, 30 km from Helgoland, Germany, May 11, 2015. REUTERS/Christian Charisius/Pool

reuters.com - Reporting by Vera Eckert, editing by Susan Fenton  - January 3, 2019

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Renewables overtook coal as Germany’s main source of energy for the first time last year, accounting for just over 40 percent of electricity production, research showed on Thursday.

The shift marks progress as Europe’s biggest economy aims for renewables to provide 65 percent of its energy by 2030 in a costly transition as it abandons nuclear power by 2022 and is devising plans for an orderly long-term exit from coal.

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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