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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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City grime 'breathes back out' polluting nitrogen gases - BBC News
by Duane 18 Aug '15

18 Aug '15

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33970233 City grime 'breathes back out' polluting nitrogen gases From Jonathan Webb, BBC News, August 18, 2015 Field experiments were done in the German city of Leipzig Scientists say the grime which clings to urban surfaces "breathes out" nitrogen gases when hit by sunlight. The dark muck was known to absorb such gases from the air, but it appears the nitrogen does not stay locked away. In rooftop experiments in Germany, the researchers tracked the content of grime in both sunshine and shade. They say sunlit grime releases nitrogen in two forms: the toxic pollutant nitrogen dioxide (NO2), plus nitrous acid - a key driver of smog formation. The findings, presented at a conference of the American Chemical Society in Boston, were welcomed by pollution experts - and may explain a "missing" source of smog-producing gas in the skies of London. Grime and the city "Rather than being a permanent sink for nitrogen oxide gases... grime exposed to sunlight can re-release some of these gases back into the urban atmosphere," said James Donaldson, a chemistry professor at the University of Toroto in Canada who led the research. Some of Prof Donaldson's previous work had already shown that in a laboratory, artificial sunlight can strip the nitrogen component from grime - which is essentially a cocktail of chemicals belched into city air by exhaust pipes and chimneys. In the latest experiments he worked with colleagues in Leipzig, Germany, to shift the work outside. Two large trays of glass beads - one shaded, one sunny - were exposed to city air for six weeks On a tower above the city they set up two large shelves filled with beads of window glass. Both sets of beads received the same air flow - and got thoroughly grimy - but only one was in the sun. "The ones which were exposed to sunlight showed 10% less nitrate than the ones which were shaded, suggesting that there is a photochemical loss [of nitrogen] consistent with what we saw in the lab," Prof Donaldson told journalists at the conference. That 10% drop may seem like a small effect, but it reflects a "steady state" difference: as the sunshine eats away at the grime's nitrogen content, fresh nitrogen-rich grime is constantly being deposited. "In our lab experiments, what we did was take a full bathtub and pull out the plug," Prof Donaldson explained. "In the field experiment, we opened the plug but left the water running." Back in Toronto, he and his team measured exactly where the nitrogen goes when grime is exposed to sunlight. Two gases emerged, and neither of them were good news. Urban grime is "not a permanent sink" for nitrogen oxides "What we have seen in the lab is that [what comes out] is likely a combination of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and nitrous acid (HONO or HNO2)," Prof Donaldson told the BBC. This is important because while NO2 is toxic, HONO can drive the production of ozone - the gas which causes photochemical smog in cities. Smog accounting Dr James Lee, from the Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratory at the University of York, said this production of HONO was the most significant aspect of the findings. "The amount of nitrogen oxides (NOx) given off by exhausts in the centre of a city will probably be much higher than what grime can take up and then give back off again," he explained. "But if some of it is transformed into HONO, then that really is important." Why? In part, because it might explain a puzzling gap in Dr Lee's own observations of polluted London air. "If you put into a model all the known sources of HONO, from my work in London there's about 30% missing compared to the quantity of HONO that you can measure directly," he explained, adding that this missing source is "very significant" for predicting ozone quantities - which the Met Office does as part of air quality forecasts. Some parts of London have levels of NO2 that are well above safety limits Simon Birkett, of the campaign group Clean Air in London, described the study as "a really worthwhile piece of research", noting that the sheer quantity of grime in London could make it "a big potential source of pollution". Mr Birkett pointed out that NO2 and ozone are the two gases that are currently regulated for health purposes. "If grime is contributing, then we need scientists to tell us how much [gas] is coming off and what health effects it has." See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

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Open Letter to FERC from MVCAC
by Duane330＠aol.com 18 Aug '15

18 Aug '15

Open Letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) TO: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street, NE, Washington, DC, 20426 RE: Interstate Pipelines for Natural Gas & NGL from Fracked Horizontal Gas Wells We assert to you a responsibility to apply the following principles to your consideration of the PIPELINES now being planned in the United States: >> Natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) are hydrocarbons and fossil fuels, as such they are greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of the EARTH; and, when they are consumed will ultimately become carbon dioxide which is a greenhouse gas already above 400 ppm in the atmosphere, an unsafe level which promotes Global Warming and other problems. >> The President of the US has mandated that greenhouse gases are to be controlled and limited to reduce Global Warming and Climate Change, which has already reached extremes as demonstrated by global temperature measures and weather conditions. >> The US EPA seeks to control and limit greenhouse gases from all sources, particularly the fossil fuels that are the major contributors of methane and carbon dioxide. >> The US Department of the Interior seeks to limit damages to our public lands, and this example should carryover to State properties of Schools, Parks, Forests, and others. >> The US Forest Service has expressed substantial concerns for certain damages to our National Parks, National Forests and other forested lands due to pipeline construction, compressor stations, and extensive land and forest damages including fires and explosions that are not uncommon. >> The right of “eminent domain” which grants permission to private companies for the taking of personal property has been grossly abused by FERC; therefore, only in the most urgent and essential cases should such authority be granted, the instances should be very few and the land taken should be a very small amount and of marginal value. >> The “Halliburton loopholes” should be set aside as not appropriate in the regulation of the environmental damages of fracking and pipelines to water supplies, air quality and other protections. These considerations should apply to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline across WV, VA, and NC; to the Mountain Valley Pipeline across WV and VA, to the Nexus Pipeline across Ohio, Michigan and Canada; to the ET Rover Pipeline across WV, OH, Michigan and Canada; to the Sunoco Mariner East 2 Pipeline across Ohio, WV and PA, and to the many other large diameter and long distance pipelines that are being developed. This should also apply to the thousands of miles of smaller and shorter pipelines within the individual States, as we are particularly concerned about Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and Virginia where extensive pipeline develop is underway. Access road construction and pipeline/compressor station installation and operation are destructive of the land, result in subsidence, sedimentation, fragmentation and other damages. Air pollution results from gas well development and from vents, leaks, flares, fires and explosions. The fracking silica sand and diesel trucks and other equipment have been shown to create dangerous health conditions due to ultra-fine particulates and other pollutants. Duane G. Nichols, Board Member, Mon Valley Clean Air Coalition 330 Dream Catcher Circle, Morgantown, WV 26508 cc: President Obama, Governors of PA, OH, VA and WV

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"Hands Across Our Land" Gathering at Pt. Marion, PA, Tuesday, August 18th
by Duane 15 Aug '15

15 Aug '15

>>> Hands Across Our Land rally meeting on the Monongahela River Bridge in Pt. Marion, PA at 12:30 PM (during the noon hour) and again at 6:30 PM. Private citizens and members of other organizations from northern West Virginia will join those from Greene, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland Counties in Pennsylvania. We will walk across the Bridge, thus connecting “Hands Across Our Land.” Come on out if you can or send a representative. >>> Tuesday, August 18th. NOTE: This is a peaceful event to involve walking across the Bridge in the designated walkway and back. Signs are welcome but certainly not necessary. We are showing our concerns about "hydraulic fracking" and large diameter pipeline construction thru our National Forests and over private land taken without owner approval. There will be an opportunity to sign a Petition for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as well as information on the protection of our region. Please come out for a few minutes at 12:30 pm or 6:30 pm. We will meet in the Post Office parking lot and adjacent spaces. Duane Nichols, duane330(a)aol.com, MonValley Clean Air Coalition, www.FrackCheckWV.net For more detail, see the following: http://www.FrackCheckWV.net/2015/08/06/hands-across-our-land-is-reaching-ou… >>>>>>>>>>>>> https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2015/08/12/sunoco-launches-eminent… Sunoco launches eminent domain proceedings against residents The planned Mariner East 2 trans-Pennsylvania pipeline is running into resistance from landowners. As Sunoco Logistics steps up efforts to create a pathway for its Mariner East 2 natural gas liquids pipeline across southern Pennsylvania, some landowners are resisting the company’s moves to build the pipeline across their properties. Residents in at least eight counties are rejecting the company’s offers of cash compensation as too low or unacceptable at any level, and say they will go to court to challenge any assertion of eminent domain that the company makes in an attempt to force its way across private land. Landowners contacted by StateImpact Pennsylvania accuse Sunoco of making low-ball compensation offers; proposing to locate the $2.5 billion pipeline in places where it could endanger water sources or buildings in the event of a leak or explosion, and of failing to state its plans clearly. Some who have rejected cash compensation have been served with documents that initiate an eminent domain action in court. The confrontations may represent just the beginning of a process that will pit local communities against energy companies that are sharply expanding Pennsylvania’s pipeline infrastructure in order to ship the abundant resources of the Marcellus Shale to domestic and international markets. The state could see as many as 30,000 additional miles of new pipeline built in the next 20 years, PA Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Quigley said at the first meeting of a statewide task force on pipelines in July. >>>>>>>>>>>>> See the following for a listing of "Hands Across Our Land" rallies in West Union, WV, in the Greenbrier River valley and many other locations ..... > Subject: Hands Across Our Land | Friends of Nelson County, VA > > http://friendsofnelson.com/hands-across-our-land/ > > Duane Nichols, Cell- 304-216-5535, www.FrackCheckWV.net >

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“Hands Across Our Land” is Reaching Out for You
by Duane 06 Aug '15

06 Aug '15

==================== >>> Duane Nichols is Hands Across Our Land coordinator for the Mon Valley Clean Air Coalition meeting on theMonongahela River Bridge in Pt. Marion, PA at 12:30 PM (during the noon hour) and again at 6:30 PM. Private citizens and members of other organizations from northern West Virginia will join those from Greene, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland Counties in Pennsylvania. We will form a chain across the Bridge, thus joining “Hands Across Our Land.” Come on out if you can or send a representative. >>>>>>>>>>>>> http://www.frackcheckwv.net/2015/08/06/hands-across-our-land-is-reaching-ou… “Hands Across Our Land” is Reaching Out for You People Who Care Are Reaching Out To Protect Our Land Friends of VA, WV, PA, MD — Hands Across Our Land Join us on August 18, 2015, as we take a stand to protect our land and communities from the unnecessary and unwanted onslaught of new natural gas infrastructure. The Hands Across Our Land activities in Augusta, Nelson, and Buckingham Counties in VA are timed so that participants can move from west to east and be at each action: Hands Across Our Land – Augusta County, VA — Tuesday, August 18; 3:00 p.m. Braley Pond, 3:30 p.m. at the George Washington National Forest sign on 250 For directions to Braley Pond, click here. The group will meet at Braley Pond and then shuttle to the next stop at the George Washington National Forest sign on 250 (there is very little parking at this site, so please plan to take the shuttle with the group). Contact Deirdre Skogen (deirdre.skogen(a)gmail.com) or Ernie Reed (lec(a)wildvirginia.org) for more information. Coordinator: Misty Boos Hands Across Our Land – Nelson/Augusta Counties — Tuesday, August 18 at 5:15 p.m. Where: Rock bridge which connects the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive at Rt. 250 on Afton Mountain. We will meet at the top of Afton Mountain at 5:15 p.m., with photos at 5:30 p.m. on the rock bridge that joins the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Skyline Drive. This bridge has great history and certainly holds a special place in the hearts of Augusta/Nelson residents. It sits on the county line and has lots of available parking with an easy walk to the bridge. Nelson/Augusta coordinators are Marilyn Shifflett (Free Nelson) and Jennifer Lewis (Friends of Augusta). Contact freenelson3(a)gmail.com Hands Across Our Land – Nelson/Buckingham Counties — Tuesday, August 18 at 6:30 p.m. Where: James River Bridge, Rt. 56, Wingina. It will be held at the bridge across the James River on Route 56 at 6:30 p.m., with photos at 6:45 p.m. Nelson’s Matt Dwyer and Buckingham’s Chad Oba are coordinating the event. Contact freenelson3(a)gmail.com See entries below for “Hands Across Our Land” actions in other locations – Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and elsewhere! We are citizens, small business owners, and farmers from every walk of life standing up for our heritage and culture in rural West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina, Maryland and Pennsylvania and beyond. We are united in our goal to stop the industrialization of our properties and communities by energy companies who seek to profit by stealing our land through the misuse of eminent domain! Dominion, Duke, Piedmont Natural Gas, AGL Resources, NextEra, EQT, Williams, Transco, Kinder Morgan and others would build their pipelines, well pads, compressor stations, and export facilities within feet of our homes, destroy thousands of acres of forested land, pollute our water supply, degrade our national treasures by crossing the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Appalachian Trail, and pristine national forests, all in the name of profit for the few on the backs of thousands of private property owners. Stand with us as we hold Hands Across Our Land to protect our way of life! Each community participating plans a local event in their community to be held on August 18, 2015 at a location and time of your choosing! This is a solidarity action to let the fossil fuel industry and government officials know that while we are separate grassroots groups we stand with each other across our country in opposition to the build out of new fossil fuel infrastructure. Here is how it works: Local group/community plans an event in their local community at a location and time of their choice on August 18, 2015. Make signs! For example: “No Eminent Domain for Private Gain” “We’re Rural, Not Stupid” “Ban Fracking” “No Fracked Gas Pipelines” “We stand with Nelson County, VA” Or “We stand with Lancaster, PA” et cetera – you get the idea! Use “Hands Across Our Land” in the Name your Action. Example: Hands Across Our Land – Nelson County, VA Use the hashtag #HandsAcrossOurLand when using social media. Use the HAOL FaceBook page to share the time and place of your event, and photos of the event as it occurs. Send us your email addresses, and if you use twitter, your handle, so we can coordinate social media coverage on August 18. Promote your action on your Facebook pages and with the press. We have sample press releases for you to use. Give us local media information and we will send a press release to your local press about your participation in this action of solidarity! If your newspaper has a calendar section, list your event there. Hold your event and make sure to have participants hold hands to promote solidarity and symbolically create a blockade to the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure. Standing together, united in our cause, we will make a difference!! You may contact us at freenelson3(a)gmail.com Contact Free Nelson with questions or to plan an event in your community at freenelson3(a)gmail.com Here are some other “Hands Across Our Land” activities you may be close to (and, of course, there may be other events elsewhere): Charlottesville: Hands Across Our Lands event at 4:30 pm at the Free Speech Wall on the Downtown Mall. Front Royal: Protest Against Pipelines in Our National Forests and Parks. Gather at 4 pm at the Gazebo on Main Street. Brief speech by local anti-fracking activist, Tes Vogel. 4:30 begin marching up Main to N. Royal, then down to South Street Intersection, banner, drumming, chanting, holding hands across intersections with the signal permits. Should be over at 6 when a contingent will drive up to the Skyline pkwy for a photo with banner and mountains in background. Contact: Maya White Sparks, spiralgr(a)shentel.net >>> Mark Laity-Snyder is coordinating in Franklin County VA (Mountain Valley Pipeline) Here’s a link to their event. >>> Debra Carter is coordinating in Roanoke (Mountain Valley Pipeline). Here’s a link to their event. >>> Michael James-Deramo is coordinating with the Virginia Student Environmental Coalition. >>> Ann Marie Nau is coordinating Meyersville MD and Loudoun County, VA as they work together. >>> Tina Badger and Ann Osimani are coordinators in Montgomery County, VA >>> Deirdre Skogen (deirdre.skogen(a)gmail.com) has graciously volunteered to coordinate an HAOL action in the George Washington National Forest. >>> Leslee McCarty is Greenbrier County, WV‘s coordinator. Hands Across Our Land action will take place at Ronceverte City Park. Bring your boat and meet at the boat ramp at 6 pm or walk up on the bridge over the river. >>> Jessica Abramson is the Monroe County, WV coordinator. Monroe County is fighting the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline. >>> Leslie Garcia is Hands Across Our Land coordinator for Calvert Citizens for a Healthy Community. CCHC is fighting Dominion’s liquefaction plant to export LNG at Cove Point in Lusby, MD. ==================== >>> Duane Nichols is Hands Across Our Land coordinator for the Mon Valley Clean Air Coalition meeting on the Monongahela River Bridge in Pt. Marion, PA at 12:30 PM (during the noon hour) and again at 6:30 PM. Private citizens and members of other organizations from northern West Virginia will join those from Greene, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland Counties in Pennsylvania. We will form a chain across the Bridge, thus joining “Hands Across Our Land.” Come on out if you can or send a representative. Tagged as: compressor stations, drilling, explosions, fires, flares, fracking, gas well pads, leaks, marcellus shale, natural gas, noise, pipelines, public health issues, road damages Duane Nichols, Cell- 304-216-5535, www.FrackCheckWV.net

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The Case for Divestment
by Duane Nichols 22 Jul '15

22 Jul '15

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7842740?ir=Politics Sent from my iPhone

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WV MetroNews – The EPA’s fish story
by Duane 22 Jul '15

22 Jul '15

http://wvmetronews.com/2015/03/25/the-epas-fish-story/ The EPA’s fish story Commentary by Hoppy Kercheval, MetroNews Talkline, March 25, 2015 Fifteen percent of all babies in utero in West Virginia have mothers who are subsistence fisherwomen — each of whom eats up to 300 pounds of fish every year that they or their family caught themselves from lakes. Well, at least that is the contention of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Today the U.S. Supreme court takes up challenges to the EPA’s proposed new standards for emissions of mercury and other toxic air pollutants from power plants. The agency proposes that those emissions be cut by between 75 and 90 percent starting next year. That would seem to be a good thing. As the New York Times opined this week, “One of the most toxic of these pollutants is mercury, a heavy metal that accumulates in waterways and the fish American’s eat.” It can be dangerous for young children and fetuses. The EPA argues that the potential health benefits justify the new rules, which will be yet another blow to the coal industry and coal-fired power plants. But the EPA has strained mightily to try to explain how domestic power plant emissions, which account for about one-half of one percent of all mercury in the atmosphere, are so dangerous that they justify spending almost $10 billion per year to reduce them. And that brings us back to the fisherwomen. The EPA has created a hypothetical population of women of child-bearing age who catch and ingest huge amounts of lake fish that contain high levels of mercury to try to demonstrate the risk. According to the agency’s calculations, there are about 240,000 pregnant women per year in America who supposedly live off of fish caught by themselves or their families in lakes. The agency then further calculates that the IQ of children born to these fisherwomen would be lowered by an average of 0.009 of a point because of neurotoxins in mercury, an utterly insignificant number when you consider the error range for IQ tests is between five and ten points. The EPA model contends the diminished IQ will result in an annual loss of future earnings of about $6 million per year for all individuals. The EPA even breaks out the alleged impact by state. According to the agency’s numbers, about 15 percent of all births in West Virginia in 2005 (3,042 babies) were to subsistence fisherwomen who caught and ate up to six pounds of lake fish a week. As one person tweeted to me yesterday, “It’s no wonder I can’t catch any fish lately; all the pregnant women are catching/eating them.” But there’s more. The EPA says when power plants are forced to install equipment to reduce mercury there will be “co-benefits” from the removal of other pollutants that will generate up to $90 billion annually in additional health benefits. However, as attorney Brian Potts pointed out in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, “The EPA has acknowledged that more than 90 percent of the mercury rule’s ‘co-benefits’ occur at air-quality levels the EPA itself says are already safe.” The EPA’s numbers sound official enough, but they’re clearly absurd to everyone… except the EPA and its acolytes who keep searching for ways to expand the agency’s authority to shut down coal-fired power plants. That’s something to contemplate the next time you are wetting a line and chatting with the pregnant woman next to you. Duane Nichols, www.FrackCheckWV.net

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GASP Alerts Have a New Look!
by Duane 16 Jul '15

16 Jul '15

Rachel Carson Clean Power Hike The Sierra Club invites you to "explore, enjoy, and protect the planet" with them this Saturday morning along the Rachel Carson Trail. Hear from them and others about large pollution sources, such as the coal-fired power plant in Rachel Carson's hometown--and how the Clean Power Plan can help protect us from the dangerous emissions these sources create. Learn more and RSVP here. Begin forwarded message: > From: Group Against Smog and Pollution <jamin(a)gasp-pgh.org> > Date: July 14, 2015 4:31:14 PM EDT > To: <duane330(a)aol.com> > Subject: GASP Alerts Have a New Look! > Reply-To: Group Against Smog and Pollution <jamin(a)gasp-pgh.org> > > Rachel Carson Clean Power Hike > > The Sierra Club invites you to "explore, enjoy, and protect the planet" with them this Saturday morning along the Rachel Carson Trail. Hear from them and others about large pollution sources, such as the coal-fired power plant in Rachel Carson's hometown--and how the Clean Power Plan can help protect us from the dangerous emissions these sources create. Learn more and RSVP here.

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Why Parts of the World Are Experiencing Record-Breaking Rainfall
by Duane 14 Jul '15

14 Jul '15

http://ecowatch.com/2015/07/13/record-breaking-rainfall/ Why Parts of the World Are Experiencing Record-Breaking Rainfall By Alex Kirby, Climate Network, News, July 13, 2015 If you think you’re getting an unusually hard soaking more often when you go out in the rain, you’re probably right. A team of scientists in Germany says record-breaking heavy rainfall has been increasing strikingly in the last 30 years as global temperatures increase. Before 1980, they say, the explanation was fluctuations in natural variability. But since then they have detected a clear upward trend in downpours that is consistent with a warming world. The scientists, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), report in the journal Climatic Change that this increase is to be expected with rising global temperatures, caused by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. High-impact flooding Short-term torrential rains can lead to what the team calls “high-impact” flooding. For example,extreme rainfall in Pakistan in 2010 brought devastation that killed hundreds of people and led to a cholera outbreak. In the same year, rainstorms in Texas caused dozens of flash floods. And no fewer than three “once-in-a-century” floods in Germany all happened in just a couple of years from 1997. “In all of these places, the amount of rain pouring down in one day broke local records—and while each of these individual events has been caused by a number of different factors, we find a clear overall upward trend for these unprecedented hazards,” says the lead author, Jascha Lehmann, a PIK researcher into climate impacts and vulnerabilities. Statistical analysis of rainfall data from 1901 to 2010, derived from thousands of weather stations around the globe, shows that from 1980 to 2010 there were 12 percent more of these intense events than would be expected in a climate without global warming. In the last year of the period the team studied, there were 26 percent more record-breaking daily rainfall events globally. Not all parts of the world are experiencing a similar pattern of soaking. The PIK scientists found that—possibly not surprisingly—wet regions generally saw a bigger increase in deluges and drier regions a smaller one. In southeast Asia, the observed increase in record-breaking rainfall events is as high as 56 percent, in Europe 31 percent, and in the central U.S. it is a more modest, but still worrying, 24 percent. In marked contrast, some regions have experienced significantly fewer record-breaking daily rainfall events. In the Mediterranean, the reduction is 27 percent, and in the western U.S. it is 21 percent. Both regions are at risk from severe droughts. The team says there is a simple scientific explanation for what they report. They compared their findings with existing knowledge about how much more water the atmosphere can store when temperatures rise, described by what they call the well-known Clausius-Clapeyron equation. Put simply, warmer air holds more moisture, which can be released during short-term heavy rainfall. The scientists show that the observed increase in unprecedented heavy rainfall generally fits with this thermodynamically expected increase under global warming. Upward trend “One out of 10 record-breaking rainfall events observed globally in the past 30 years can only be explained if the long-term warming is taken into account,” says co-author Dim Coumou, a PIK researcher into the links between atmospheric circulation and extreme weather events. “For the last year studied, 2010, it is even one event out of four, as the trend is upward.” There are, of course, qualifications to the broad picture. For instance, the scientists allowed for the fact that the quality of historic weather data differs from one place to another. Unsurprisingly, rainfall measurements from the Sahara desert are scarce, so the team avoids drawing conclusions for the region. But rainfall in regions such as Europe and the U.S. has been carefully monitored for over a century, allowing the authors to draw conclusions with high levels of confidence “The pronounced recent increase in record-breaking rainfall events is, of course, worrying,” Coumou says. “Yet since it is consistent with human-caused global warming, it can also be curbed if greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels are substantially reduced.” 5 Extreme Weather Events Impacting the Planet June 2015 Smashes Heat and Rainfall Records in U.S. See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

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Science Magazine: Our oceans are being impacted, more and more
by Duane 02 Jul '15

02 Jul '15

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/349/6243/aac4722.full?utm_campaign=email-… CONTRASTING FUTURES FOR OCEAN AND SOCIETY FROM DIFFERENT ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 EMISSIONS SCENARIOS The ocean moderates anthropogenic climate change at the cost of profound alterations of its physics, chemistry, ecology, and services. Here, we evaluate and compare the risks of impacts on marine and coastal ecosystems—and the goods and services they provide—for growing cumulative carbon emissions under two contrasting emissions scenarios. The current emissions trajectory would rapidly and significantly alter many ecosystems and the associated services on which humans heavily depend. A reduced emissions scenario—consistent with the Copenhagen Accord’s goal of a global temperature increase of less than 2°C—is much more favorable to the ocean but still substantially alters important marine ecosystems and associated goods and services. The management options to address ocean impacts narrow as the ocean warms and acidifies. Consequently, any new climate regime that fails to minimize ocean impacts would be incomplete and inadequate. Science -- July 3, 2015: Vol. 349 no. 6243 See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

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