MVCAC September 2015

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Fwd: Methane pollution stops here!
by Duane Nichols 17 Sep '15

17 Sep '15

> From: Clean Air Council <members(a)cleanair.org> > Date: September 17, 2015 at 1:40:27 PM EDT > To: duane330(a)aol.com > Subject: Methane pollution stops here! > Reply-To: eroben(a)cleanair.org > > > > Dear MonValley Clean Air Coalition, > > 7.3 million metric tons. > > That's how much methane the gas industry spills into our nation's air every year. Considering that methane is 86 times worse for climate change than carbon dioxide and is emitted alongside air toxics and other unhealthy pollutants, that spells bad news for our future. > > This August, the EPA proposed the first ever rules to cut methane pollution. It's a good first step, but the rules don't go nearly far enough if we're serious about mitigating climate change and protecting public health. That's why we need you out there with us, telling the federal government and Pennsylvania that we're fed up with unchecked pollution from the gas industry and we expect the toughest rules possible. > > Will you join us to rally for clean air in Pittsburgh? > > > > We're organizing buses from several locations across the state, so RSVP below if you need transportation! > > State College, Altoona, Blairsville: http://bit.ly/1P3oTmu > > Harrisburg, Somerset, New Stanton: http://bit.ly/1KTCn6k > > Washington, Waynesburg: http://bit.ly/1KszK9J > > Let's make sure the EPA can't ignore our message that we deserve clean air and a stable climate. > > > See you in Pittsburgh, > > Joseph Otis Minott, Esq. > Executive Director > > PHILADELPHIA > > 135 S. 19th Street > Suite 300 > Philadelphia, PA 19103 > P: (215) 567-4004 > F: (215) 567-5791 > HARRISBURG > > 107 N. Front Street > Suite 113 > Harrisburg, PA 17101 > P: (717) 230-8806 > F: (717) 230-8808 > WILMINGTON > > 100 W. 10th Street > Suite 607 > Wilmington, DE 19801 > P: (302) 691-0112 > Unsubscribe > >

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Re: [MVCAC] Optimized Citizen Air Sensors
by Duane 06 Sep '15

06 Sep '15

On Sep 6, 2015, at 2:44 PM, Jim Rosenberg <jr(a)amanue.com> wrote: > Duane, thanks! *Link please*?? << JIM, SEE BELOW >> > > I'm familiar with both Speck and Air Quality Egg, and have built my own from off-the-shelf parts using the same particulate sensor as is in the Egg and a similar one to the one in the Speck. But I don't know anything about Air Beam. > > The VOC sensor in the Air Quality Egg is really awful, BTW, pretty much worthless for what we need. The dust sensor is quite good, however. > > -Thanks, Jim >>>>>>>>>>>>> OBSERVER REPORTER, Washington, PA, September 5, 2015 Are cheap sensors and concerned citizens leading to a shift in air monitoring? By Natasha Khan, PublicSource, newsroom(a)observer-reporter.com It wouldn’t have happened five or 10 years ago. That’s what one expert said about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency helping regular citizens – or “citizen scientists” – collect their own air quality data. “The idea that the EPA would take the lead, seemingly to promote community-collected data, would have been unthinkable,” said Gwen Ottinger, an assistant professor at the Center for Science, Technology and Society at Philadelphia’s Drexel University who studies how communities use developing technologies to measure air pollution near oil refineries. Some officials within the EPA have traditionally been skeptical of community-collected data, but the agency seems to be moving toward empowering communities to create their own studies, she said. Responding to an explosion of low-cost, easy-to-use sensors to monitor air quality in recent years, EPA scientists are studying the accuracy of these “next-generation air monitors,” and how the data collected might be used to improve communities and, eventually, affect how air quality is monitored and regulated. Right now, these sensors can cost as little as a few hundred dollars and have hip names, like Air Beam and Speck. They’re marketed as tools to empower citizens to learn about the air they breathe and to use their findings to take action – by, for instance, purchasing an air filtering system or choosing a less-polluted bike route. Air quality can be different from neighborhood to neighborhood. Or gas well to gas well. And environmental groups and citizens living around pollution sources have pushed governments – local, state and federal – for years to do more hyperlocal air monitoring, primarily to protect the health of people living close to these sites. That actually might be happening soon, but in a form that some wouldn’t have predicted. The development of low-cost air quality sensors, an increasingly aware and engaged public, and a government more willing to accept and help citizens collect data could mark a turning point in how air pollution is monitored and addressed in the country, experts told PublicSource. With scores of these air monitoring devices now available, citizens and the federal government want to know how well they work and how they can benefit from using them. Traditional air quality monitoring by regulators is done using expensive stationary equipment that takes averages of pollutants, like ozone and particulate matter, across a broad region. With citizen involvement, “can we go out there and obtain more data that we previously had not had the capabilities to obtain?” asked Ron Williams, a research chemist who is part of the effort to evaluate air quality sensors for the EPA’s Office of Research and Development. The answer may be ‘yes.’ In fact, citizen science projects contributed to policy changes and political action. For example, in a community-led study, trained volunteers took air samples near oil and gas sites in five states. They found eight volatile chemicals that exceeded federal health guidelines. It was one of the studies included in the New York health commissioner’s review of public health studies that led to the state’s fracking ban. EPA efforts New sensor technologies could supplement existing government air quality networks; make sure companies are complying with air quality regulations; and monitor people’s personal exposure to pollutants, Williams wrote in a 2013 paper he authored with other EPA researchers. “We have a vested interest in understanding this technology and trying to apply it for our own benefit,” he said. The EPA has been at this research effort for about three years. Right now, Williams said his team is comparing how well the new sensors perform against federal-grade monitors. “We consider that a major effort, because some of these sensors do not perform that well,” he said, but added they’re working with manufacturers to inform them of ways to improve sensor performance. But, when it comes to accuracy, not every sensor has to be as precise as government monitors, Williams said. For instance, if someone wants to figure out whether a pollutant is present in any concentration, he said “one doesn’t necessarily need to be able to measure to the ‘nth’ degree.” “Sensors have a wide range of applicability,” he said. The agency also offers resources for structuring citizen science projects, including a guidebook on how to develop an air monitoring project with a major emphasis on how to collect quality data. So just how interested are people in using EPA’s tools for air monitoring? That’s hard to measure, but Williams said the guidebook has been downloaded more than 100,000 times worldwide in the past six to seven months. Also, in early July, the EPA hosted a training event and webinar that drew more than 800 participants. Citizens as cheap labor Scientists realized citizens present a cheap labor pool in a world where funding for research is drying up, said experts who study and coordinate citizen science projects. “There just isn’t a lot of money for ‘big science’ at the EPA” anymore, said Mathew Lippincott, director of production at Public Lab, a nonprofit that develops open-source tools to investigate environmental concerns. “The EPA has begun to reconsider their role, moving away from ‘big science’ and professional judgments toward considering more public data in (the) form of citizen science.” Federal agencies recognized citizen science can help fill important data gaps, said Darlene Cavalier, the founder of SciStarter, a Philadelphia-based group that promotes citizen science and serves as a clearinghouse to connect the general public to more than 600 citizen science projects. For example, Cavalier’s group is working on a soil moisture project with NASA scientists who will use data gathered by citizen scientists on the ground to “complement and validate what is seen from space.” “NASA was clear with us” she said. They said, “‘This is where we have gaps in information’ … so we definitely see where there are clear cut cases where there is a need for the data.” But Ottinger, the Drexel professor, said the EPA’s efforts to help citizens monitor the air may be about “reasserting control” during this rapid proliferation of low-cost air sensors. “I think part of it is, sort of, a deep suspicion and mistrust that anything a community could be producing could be good,” she said. Along similar lines, a law passed in Wyoming in March effectively bans citizen science throughout the state. The law strengthens state trespass laws and makes it illegal to “collect resource data” on any private, public or federal land outside city boundaries. The law was passed after an environmental group took water samples they said proved cattle ranchers (a major industry there) were allowing their cows to graze too close to waterways, which caused high levels of E. coli bacteria in streams. Ottinger said she suspects people are gathering data using these new sensors the EPA doesn’t think is good data, but their projects still get a lot of traction in the media. “It must be driving those scientists nuts,” Ottinger said. Nadia Steinzor, a coordinator with the Oil and Gas Accountability Project at Earthworks, a national environmental advocacy group, said the EPA’s efforts are more likely a response to persistence by environmental groups. “I think that the EPA likely began the citizen air monitoring work because they recognized something that advocates and gas patch residents have said for years: Industry and state regulators aren’t monitoring air quality at [oil and gas] wells and facilities,” she said. If the EPA’s goal really is community-based monitoring, Steinzor said, they need to go further and actually equip communities with air monitors. “They will need to train the residents, distribute tools across a wide area, and conduct plenty of follow-up,” she said. “They will need to help communities interpret the data and figure out how to use it to fight for better protections from air pollution.” Reach Natasha Khan at 412-315-0261 or nkhan(a)publicsource.org. Follow her on Twitter @khantasha. >>>>>>>>> URL for above article, so you see sensors better: http://www.observer-reporter.com/article/20150905/NEWS01/150909635

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Optimized Citizen Air Sensors
by Duane330＠aol.com 06 Sep '15

06 Sep '15

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Audubon Society: North American Birds Are Threatened by Climate Change
by Duane 05 Sep '15

05 Sep '15

http://ecowatch.com/2015/09/05/changing-climate-birds/ Audubon Society: North American Birds Are Threatened by Climate Change From Tim Radford, Climate Change Network, September 5, 2015 Some of North America’s birds may no longer be at home on the range. More than half of 588 studied species could lose more than 50 percent of their flying, breeding and feeding space before the end of the century—because of climate change. The bald eagle, iconic bird of the U.S. is among the North American species threatened by climate change. The researchers who discovered the precarious future facing so many species say they were shocked to find that rising temperatures could have such widespread effects on the continent’s birds. The finding comes from one of the world’s most distinguished ornithological bodies, the U.S. National Audubon Society. Gary Langham, Audubon’s chief scientist, and colleagues report in the Public Library of Science journal PLOS One that they used mathematical models and results from two long-established annual surveys in the breeding season and in winter to estimate future geographic range shifts. Systematic Study The research was based on huge amounts of data. The society’s Christmas Bird Count has been continuous since 1900, and provides a good estimate of numbers in those species that overwinter. And the North American Breeding Bird Survey, a systematic study conducted between mid-May and July in the U.S. and Canada, involves tens of thousands of three-minute counts of every bird seen or heard at 50 stops along a 39-kilometer route. The scientists also used three different climate change scenarios—as carbon dioxide levels rise in the atmosphere because of fossil fuel combustion, so the planet’s average temperature rises and climate changes—to explore the possible futures for bird species in a vast landscape that is home to everything from eagles to hummingbirds. They found that 314 species would lose half or more of their traditional range. Of this total, around 180 species would find that although they would lose the range they had, they would probably be able to acquire new feeding or breeding habitat, as conditions changed. But for 120, the habitat would shrink altogether—that is, there would be nowhere else for them to go. The world’s birds are in trouble—and not just on land or on one continent. Conservation Measures One in eight species is threatened with extinction, although in the better-developed nations, there have been systematic attempts to establish conservation measures. The Audubon study, however, found that the strategies devised and supported now to extend conservation might not be of much use in a world in which climates changed and habitat that had endured for 10,000 years was destroyed, degraded or exploited. “We were shocked to find that half of the bird species in North America are threatened with climate disruption,” Dr Langham says. “Knowing which species are most vulnerable allows us to monitor them carefully, ask new questions, and take action to help avert the worst impacts for birds and people.” See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

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More evidence that the key to allergy-free kids is giving them plenty of dirt — and cows - The Washington Post
by Duane 03 Sep '15

03 Sep '15

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/09/03/more-e… More evidence that the key to allergy-free kids is giving them plenty of dirt — and cows By Rachel Feltman, Washington Post, September 3, 2015 I'm not saying you should let this cow lick your baby, but ... (Boris Roessler/DPA via AFP) People who grow up on farms -- especially dairy farms -- have way fewer allergy and asthma problems than the rest of us. Now one research team thinks they've brought science closer to understanding why. In a study published Thursday in Science, researchers report that they were able to pinpoint one possible mechanism for the allergy protection in mice they studied. Surprisingly, the protein that they fingered as the likely allergy-preventer doesn't actually affect the immune system -- it affects the structural cells that make up the lining of the lung. [Hotel rooms aren’t yucky – you colonize them with your own personal bacteria within hours] The research is related to something called the hygiene hypothesis, where a lack of exposure to microbes as a tyke leads to more allergy and asthma. It's what leads microbiologists to say that the best thing you can do for your kid is roll them around on the floor of the subway. That may indeed be true (as long as you roll very, very carefully!) but there's increasing evidence that farms have the best germs for preventing respiratory problems and allergic reactions later in life. One study found that just 25 percent of children living on Swiss farms reacted to common allergens like dust mites, pollen, animals and mold, while 45 percent of children in the general population reacted. An estimated 50 million Americans suffer from seasonal allergies. Here's what happens when things like grass, pollen, trees and molds affect your body. (Jhaan Elker, Osman Malik and Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post) And among Amish children -- who obviously have some of the farmiest of farm lives, though other factors may also be at play -- reactions fall to a shocking 8 percent or less. It's still not totally clear what's behind this amazing allergy protection, but many scientists believe that the bacteria native to farms, especially ones that house livestock, may trigger something in children who live nearby. The researchers behind the latest study had previously found that the epithelial cells of the lungs are important in the development of allergy responses. "How does your body react the first time you inhale an allergen? The first cells that recognize the allergen are not so much the cells of the immune system, but the structural cells that make up the inside of the lungs," Bart Lambrecht of Ghent University, who co-led the study with Hamida Hammad, told The Post. So they wanted to see how this farm effect might be visible in the lungs themselves. In their experiment, Lambrecht and Hammad induced dust mite allergies in mice, then showed that exposure to dust from a dairy farm made early in life made them immune. [In space, astronauts’ immune systems get totally confused] Then, they studied the mechanism that was protecting the mice, making their mucous membranes less likely to react to the allergens. They found a protein called A20, which the mice were producing when exposed to the farm dust. When the researchers knocked out the A20 in their subjects' lungs, the farm dust stopped protecting them from allergic reactions. Roll that baby in the dirt, lady. (iStock) A test in mice can't definitively provide answers on human health. But the research team did go one step further -- they tested 2,000 children who lived on farms, and they found that those who suffered from allergies in spite of their upbringing had a mutation on the gene related to A20, causing the protein to malfunction. "A20 was not a coincidence, it was really necessary," Lambrecht said. "This is linking, showing a cause and effect link, between exposure to farm dust and fewer allergies. I think our study is a big step forward." While there are almost certainly other factors at play in allergy development and prevention, Lambrecht and his colleagues hope that the cells of the lung itself will get more attention in research. This could be a sign, he said, that allergy and asthma vaccines need to be administered by aerosol instead of injection in order to truly be effective. And it may mean that epidemiologists need to think twice before focusing on blood samples alone in their allergy studies. [Exposing infants to peanuts causes big reduction in peanut allergy, study shows] "The study opens an new area of investigation in our long quest to understand the hygiene hypothesis, which is the complex interaction of farm exposures and their impact on the function of structural cells of the airway," said Mark Holbreich, a physician who studies the hygiene hypothesis but was not involved in the new research. But while A20 is a fascinating new piece of the puzzle, it's unlikely to put an end to allergies as we know them. "We know from many studies that there appear to be multiple factors that contribute to protection," Holbreich said. "This article adds to our expanding knowledge yet we are still far from developing a means for the primary prevention of allergies and asthma."

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MVCAC September 2015