Global Warming Issues

The natural haze that seems to hang over every ridgeline gave the Great Smoky Mountains their name. But North Carolina’s top attorney argues that the increasingly opaque atmosphere is thick with unhealthy smokestack emissions - and that the Tennessee Valley Authority is largely to blame.

The state’s public-nuisance lawsuit against the TVA begins today in Asheville, N.C., putting the coal-fired power plants of the nation’s largest utility on trial in the mountain range that North Carolina argues has become a crime scene. Several expert witnesses are expected to testify in a case that assesses public health, economics, environment and the role utilities should play in curbing damage to all three.

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The government is due to make a decision on the future development of the UK’s largest airport by the end of the year.

Business secretary John Hutton said at the Farnborough airshow that the government might take “difficult decisions on airport expansion”.

Green groups have been opposed to plans to expand the west London airport, including a proposed third runway.

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A one-day regional conference on chest diseases and related disorders — Chest Update 2008 — was held in the city on Sunday. Nearly 200 medical practitioners participated in the conference.

Dr Surinder Kumar Gupta of Right Chest Clinic said: “Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) remains a major public health problem, and is the fourth leading cause of all deaths worldwide.” He is the only DM specialising in pulmonary diseases in the private sector in the city, and also the organiser of the event.

He added that according to the recent report of the Centre for Disease Control, nearly 21 million or 35 per cent of children are exposed to secondhand smoke on a regular basis. This is responsible for more than 1,00,000 lower respiratory tract infections every year.

Dr Gupta said that almost half of world’s population and nearly 90 per cent of rural households in developing countries rely on unprocessed biomass fuels for cooking and heating.

“According to the report of the Indian Council of Medical Research 28 per cent of all deaths due to indoor air pollutions in the developing countries occur in India,” added the doctor.

He further said, “In our country nearly 5 per cent of men and 2.5 per cent of women above the age of 30 years suffer from a chronic lung disease — COPD — caused due to smoking and exposure to biomass fuel.

Professor S K Jindal, Head of Pulmonary Medicines at PGI, said that oxygen therapy is the only intervention which could help increase the life span of patients with chronic lung diseases.

Dr D Behera, Director, LRS Institute of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases, New Delhi, emphasised on the use of spirometry (pulmonary function tests) to diagnose and measure asthma and distinguish it from smoking-related lung diseases like COPD.

Public institutions in Beijing will soon start work an hour later than normal in a plan to ease traffic congestion during the Olympic Games, state media said Monday.

Working hours in Beijing will change from July 20 in a bid to spread out morning traffic by staggering office openings and to reduce pollution, the China Daily newspaper said.

The government also is encouraging people to work flexible hours or work from home if possible, it said.

Working hours for companies will be set from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. Public institutions will begin work at 9:30 a.m., one hour later than normal. Shopping malls will open no earlier than 10 a.m. and stay open longer, until 10 p.m. or even later.

Schools, administrative bodies and essential service sectors are exempt from the changes, the paper said.
Beijing has announced a string of temporary measures to control its air pollution before the games start Aug. 8.

Also on July 20, cars with odd and even number plates will only be allowed on the roads on alternate days. Drivers violating the rule will be fined $15.

Beijing has spent more than $15 billion on anti-pollution measures for the Olympics, such as relocating factories and expanding its subway network, the China Daily said

Last September, the deputy director of a local Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in central China led a team to investigate the illegal discharge of waste water by a pharmaceutical factory. While the director was taking a sample of the waste water, he inhaled the fumes and passed out. Later he was diagnosed as suffering from poisoning and hospitalised.

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However, few commentators specifically mention the declining availability of water that is needed to grow irrigated and rainfed crops. According to some, the often mooted solution to the food crisis lies in plant breeding that produces the ultimate high yielding, low water- consuming crops. While this solution is important, it will fail unless attention is paid to where the water for all food, fibre and energy crops is going to come from.

A few years ago, IWMI (the International Water Management Institute) demonstrated that many countries are facing severe water scarcity, either as a result of a lack of available fresh water, or due to a lack of investment in water infrastructure such as dams and reservoirs. What makes matters worse is that this scarcity predominantly affects developing countries where the majority of the world’s under-nourished people– approximately 840 million — live.

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California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in an interview aired Sunday that he would be open to the idea of serving as energy czar in a Barack Obama administration.

Regardless of whether he takes that particular job, Schwarzenegger, a Republican, added on ABC’s “This Week” that he’s now committed to continuing public service even after he leaves Sacramento.

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The Baltic, an inland sea, is one of the most polluted seas in the world, so much so that the countries on its northern European shores have recently joined together to form the Baltic Sea Action Plan in an attempt to reverse its decline.

WWF contacted ferry lines and cruise ship companies sailing there asking for a voluntary ban on waste-water discharge. So far most of the ferry lines have responded positively, but only three of the international cruising lines have signed up.

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Now, Eawag has developed a model that allows vulnerable areas to be pinpointed using existing data on geology and soil properties. This has also enabled the researchers to detect high-risk areas in regions where groundwater studies had not previously been carried out, such as in Myanmar and on Sumatra.

Worldwide, more than 100 million people are exposed to excessive amounts of arsenic in drinking water. Arsenic is a geogenic contaminant – deriving from natural sources – which is dissolved in groundwater. In many areas, the problem is recognized, but because surface waters are polluted new wells are continually established, often without testing the pumped water for arsenic.

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“Within slightly more than two years, my team has developed, with the help of current software technology, the most modern and flexible simulation system for one of the most dreaded natural disasters of the world”, explains Dr. Jörn Behrens, Head of the Tsunami Modelling Group of the Alfred Wegener Institute. “In contrast to other currently available Tsunami Early Warning Systems, it does not only use earthquake data for its ultra-fast situational analysis, but it combines various measurements to a robust, precise, and quick situation report.”

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