Teaching Children about Air Pollution

Wings and Thingamajigs E- Book(21 page pdf, Halton Region, September, 2012)

Also discussed here: Wings and Thingamajigs – Children’s Picture Book(Halton Region)

Today we review a rare and exceptionally well-illustrated picture book, aimed at teaching children from 4 to 8 years old about air quality and climate change. It comes from Public Health in Halton Region, one of the more advanced  in the province of Ontario, when it comes to improving air quality and its impacts on human health- one of the first in Canada to use roadside air quality monitors, for example.The e-book is available free in a number of languages including French, Spanish, Cantonese, Polish and Punjabi, to meet the needs of the diverse multicultural community in southwestern Ontario (and for some in the rest of the world). Highly recommended!

To see Key Quotes and Links to key reports about this post, click HERE

The 10 Most Polluted (and Cleanest) American Cities in 2012

State of the Air 2012 (179 page pdf, American Lung Association, May 2012)

Today we review the 2012 report from the American Lung Association which showed that many if not most cities are making progress in cleaning up their urban air quality, notably New York and Detroit which the list of most polluted cities. Looking at the cities with the highest levels of short term particulate pollution, it is striking how many are in California with 6 out of the ten worse in that state. The cleanest cities are less clustered  in one state but many are on or near the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastlines. That said, over 40% of Americans live in counties with unhealthy levels of ozone or particulate pollution and 30-45% live close (300-500m) to busy roads.

To see Key Quotes and Links to key reports about this post, click HERE

A Plan to Reduce Greenhouse Gases for Canada’s Capital

An Energy & Emissions Plan for Canada’s Capital Region (78 page pdf, City of Ottawa, City of Gatineau, National Capital Commission, Lead Consultant, HB Lanarc Consultants Ltd., Feb. 2012)

Also discussed here:Talking Points for Presentation to Environment Committee on Choosing Our Future(2 page pdf, Bill Pugsley, Feb. 21, 2012)

Today, we review the plans for mitigating Climate Change over the next 40 years, developed by the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau that make up the National Capital Region of Canada. While the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions is from heating and cooling and energy for buildings, the  largest emission increases come from transportation and commuting by private vehicles in this urban area, one of the country’s cities at over 2,700 km2 (for Ottawa). Using best practices, emissions could be reduced by 27% from transportation, 95% from electricity and 100% from waste to meet the long term goal of 80% reductions by 2060. A number of potential targets for transportation, buildings, energy and waste are included. We look forward to a year by year funded action plan by each of the three jurisdictions (two cities, two provincial governments, and the federal government) to reach these targets.

To see Key Quotes and Links to key reports about this post, click HERE

GEO Medicine and Lifetime Exposure to Poor Air Quality

Bill Davenhall: Your health depends on where you live (9 min video, TED, Oct. 2009)

Also shown here: Bill Davenhall: Your health depends on where you live (9 min You-Tube)

And discussed here: Heart Attack Rates (Acute Myocardial Infarction per 100,000 Medicare Enrollees) (ERSI, 2005)

The focus today is on a new branch of environmental health called GEO Medicine that looks at geography applied to environmental health and epidemiology, using various new tools including Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and tracking tools such as those found on smart phones.  The speaker points out that while lifestyle and genetics are often included on one’s medical history file, rarely is there a record of where one lived and what was the environment . By extension to his own  “place history”, he shows how this can help to identify in advance what diseases to expect in old age.

To see Key Quotes and Links to key reports about this post, click HERE

Air pollution and congestion charges in London, England

Pay as you go: managing traffic impacts in a world-class city (55 page pdf, John Whitelegg, Eco-Logica Ltd, Lancaster, Dec. 2, 2011)

 

 

The report reviewed today looks back at almost a decade of experience with London’s congestion charge system and analyses the reasons for its success as well as its weaknesses. Several interesting points are made including the way that free parking at work offsets the advantages of road pricing, the process of persuasion needed to gain public support and the degree to which trucks and heavy vehicles are the source of road damage and should therefore bear higher congestion fees for road use.

 

 

Image via Wikipedia

To see Key Quotes and Links to key reports about this post, click HERE

Why Not Report Urban Air Pollution Publicly?

WikiLeaks reveals China’s failure to measure dangerous pollution- pollutant levels were not measured and made public because findings would have been ‘too sensitive’ for the authorities (Jonathan Watts, Guardian, Aug. 26, 2011)

Today’s focus is on a report provided by Wikileaks from the US foreign service in 2006 about the reluctance of Chinese officials to report or release urban air pollution data. There is some irony here of course in the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases criticizing #2. As well, there seems to be a tendency of those responsible for air quality, particularly in the USA and Canada, of refusing to monitor roadside roadside emissions in traffic-clogged cities, seen as one of the main factors for urban air pollution and its health impacts (as demonstrated in hundreds of reviews on this blog). There are exceptions, of course:  New York City Community Air Survey and

Managing Hot Spots in Urban Municipalities in England (UK Local Air Quality Management Agreements directed by DEFRA)

To Key Quotes and Links to key reports about this post, click HERE

Gridlock – real or imaginary?

Traffic Gridlock: The Real Deal or a Pile of Nonsense? (26 page pdf, Barry Wellar, Jul. 28, 2011)

The focus today is on an analysis by a leading Ottawa expert on mobility, Prof. Barry Wellar. He sees the use of the term “gridlock” as a dichotomy between “research-based, and deserve to be treated as the real deal” or “not research-based, and deserve to be dismissed as a pile of nonsense”. The answer is left to the reader of his paper to answer. That said, the causes of gridlock and the impacts it might have on mobility in general and the environment in particular are worth examination.

(26 min YuTube video, May 14, 2011)

To see Key Quotes and Links to key reports abojut this post, click HERE

Mapping Environmental Security

2010 Environmental Performance Index (Environmental Performance Index, Yale University)

Today’s focus is on a global mapping project begun at Yale 5 years ago to display 25 indicators of health and the environment for all the reporting countries of the world- the map below shows the relative CO2 emissions. Maps such as these can be very useful when developing national and international agreements and policies concerning future emissions or to achieve specific quality of life goals.

To see Key Quotes and Links to key reports about this post, click HERE

Highest Ranked Cities in USA for Air Quality

Air Quality (SustainLane, 2008 Rankings)

 

This annual ranking of the most sustainable cities in the USA points to cities in the Northwest at the top across all categories (Portland was #1 overall) and to the Pacific coast for both the best  and worst for air quality. Some lessons learned from looking at cities which moved up and down are of general significance- such as New Orleans, which  after the flooding in 2005, replaced dirty old fleet vehicles with cleaner new ones.

To see Key Reports and Links about this post, visit the new internet platform for Pollution Free Cities by clicking HERE

Urban Vulnerability to Climate Change

Image via Wikipedia

Conceptualizing urban vulnerability to global climate and environmental change (Abstract, Patricia Romero Lankaoa, and Hua Qina, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Feb. 10, 2011)

 

The focus of the review article today is on the lack of action by many large cities world-wide. The author suggests that a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of urban vulnerability is needed where critical thresholds and indirect impacts are defined and made part of urban action plans, as well as more progress in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions as reducing energy demand, as seen in congestion pricing.

To see Key Quotes and Links to relevant reports, visit the new internet platform for Pollution Free Cities by clicking HERE

An Urban Air Pollution Simulator

Smog City

Today’s review is about a computer simulator from California showing ozone levels over a day as a function of population, temperature, amount of cars and trucks, industry etc.

To see Key Quotes and Links about this post, go to the new internet platform for Pollution Free Cities by clicking HERE

The Top Sustainable Canadian Cities

 

The 2011 Most Sustainable Cities in Canada (Corporate Knights, Feb. 9, 2011)

Also discussed here: The Metabolic Metropolis (editorial) (Corporate Knights, Feb. 8, 2011)

And here: Expanded Results (1 page pdf, Corporate Knights, Feb. 8, 2011)

Today’s review article is important because of the characteristics and programs that the top ranking cities use to achieve sustainability as well as to reduce harmful pollution to a minimum. It also allows for a comparison of cities making allowance for size and population, so that smaller cities such as Victoria or Mississauga score higher overall than Ottawa, Calgary or Montreal. The importance of governance and empowerment (established emission targets, education, voter turnout, etc) helped to keep Toronto and Vancouver among the top cities, while Saskatoon enjoyed the cleanest air quality (in terms of particulate matter) and Montreal and Edmonton got top marks for biodiversity.

Key Quotes:

“because of their urban “metabolism,” cities require only 85 per cent of the resources necessary to double in size, and they’re more energy efficient than rural communities”

“increased worldwide migration to cities is helping curb population growth because there is no need for large families for labour”

“When villagers migrate to the city, their family size drops, on average, by at least one child per family, often below the steady population rate of 2.1 children.. Without massive rural-to-urban migration, the world’s population would be growing at a far faster pace”

“We studied 28 indicators of sustainability in five categories—ecological integrity, economic security, infrastructure and built environment, governance and empowerment, and social well-being.. Toronto, Vancouver, and Victoria won top honours in our Big, Medium, and Small city categories respectively”

“Many of the strategies for reducing environmental pollution or reducing greenhouse gas emissions more broadly come down to actions that have to be taken at some city scale, whether that’s at the metropolitan, municipal, or corporate level.”

“Edmonton stands out in the biodiversity field. They joined the international Cities Biodiversity Index in 2010 and city staff is proactively monitoring hazard trees and invasive species”

“Saint John deserves applause for its Green Thermal Utility plan, a multi-building project that would make use of renewable energy sources, such as waste energy from Irving Pulp and Paper”

“Vancouver stands out for its competitive commitment to sustainability, with its Greenest City Action Team initiative aiming to transform the city into the world’s greenest city by 2020”

“Victoria topped the Small City category, and matched Vancouver for highest numbers by developing its Victoria Sustainability Framework, making sustainability a guiding principle of all city business”

Related articles

• Toronto’s top-ranking green initiatives on cost-cutting Mayor’s radar (theglobeandmail.com)
• Corporate Knights Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations Announced in Davos (greenreview.blogspot.com)
• Do Large Cities Reverse Climate Change, Population Explosion? (treehugger.com)
• Ranking The World’s Most Sustainable Companies (forbes.com)
• Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary named among world’s most livable cities (globaltvbc.com)
• Vancouver Once Again Tops List of World’s Most Liveable Cities (dailyfinance.com)
• Vancouver named world’s most livable city (windsorstar.com)

How Science is (and was) Communicated

The line between science and journalism is getting blurry….again (Scientific American blog, Dec. 20, 2010)

Today’s article under review gives us new insights into how (badly?)science is communicated today (and was yesterday) with an analysis or comparison between science journalists and science bloggers- and the need all along for knowledge filters to separate nonsense from fact. As a personal aside (not mentioned in the article), nowhere is this more evident than in the “debate” about climate change and, to a lesser extent, on the poor air quality in many cities- the focus of this blog.

Key Quotes:

“Journalism is communication of ‘what’s new’”

“science is the process of discovery of facts about the way the world works, but the communication of that discovery is the essential last step of the scientific process, and the discoverer is likely to be the person who understands the discovery the best and is thus likely to be the person with the greatest expertise and authority (and hopefully ability) to do the explaining”

“For the longest time, information was exchanged [orally] between people who knew each other to some degree..communication could be done by anyone…. communication in print was limited to those who were literate and who could afford to have a book printed”

“at the close of the 20th century. journalism and science..completely separated from each other. Journalism covered what’s new without providing the explanation and context for new readers just joining the topic. Science covered only explanation and only to one’s peers.. unfortunately operating under the rules of journalism and not science, messing up the popular trust in both”

“reasons science bloggers are more trusted than journalists covering science:

• they have the scientific expertise that journalists lack – they really know what they are talking about on the topic of their expertise and the audience understands this.
• they link out to more, more diverse and more reliable sources.
• being digital natives, they are not familiar with the concept of word-limits…Whatever length it takes to give the subject what it’s due.
• not being trained by j-schools, they never learned not to let their personality shine through their writing. So they gain trust by connecting to their readers – the phatic component of communication.

“Good science journalists are rare”

“Data journalism..what a number of forward-thinking journalists and media organizations are starting to do”

Related articles

• An informal chat about hard data (mindhacks.com)
• The line between science and journalism is getting blurry….again (scientificamerican.com)
• News Advisory and Embargo Policy Feed Rampant Speculation About Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life (bigthink.com)
• A Modest Proposal: Take “News” out of “Science News” (ionian-enchantment.blogspot.com)
• Evolution of a Science Journalist [Dean's Corner] (scienceblogs.com)
• Science Writers 2010: A Debate Over the Causes of Scientific Illiteracy and How Declining Science Journalism Fits Into That Picture | The Intersection (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
• The Value of Blogs (sandwalk.blogspot.com)
• Should science journalists take sides? | Not Exactly Rocket Science (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
• Employ science communicators? Want your science communication … (scicommjobs.posterous.com)
• ScienceOnline 2011, here I come | Not Exactly Rocket Science (blogs.discovermagazine.com)

Making Sense of Urban Complaints from 311 Calls

What a Hundred Million Calls to 311 Reveal About New York (Wired, Nov.1, 2010)

Also discussed here: The Future of Sustainable Urban Mobility: Switch to IT Networks (The City Fix, Dec. 9, 2010)

New York City, like many other large cities, has a special number (311) for its citizens to register complaints – at a rate of 50,000 a day and 100 million in 7 years. Today‘s review article looks at the nature of these complaints over 7 years by time of day and type. What is striking is the relatively large proportion of complaints about noise and streetlights with the former peaking not surprisingly in late evening and early morning and the latter (perhaps surprisingly) in late morning. Would be interesting to see how complaints work in other cities- if any of those who read this blog know of other analyses, please do let us know. The other striking aspect to this article is the way that complaints are followed up and linked- whether this be the smell of maple syrup and national security or something else.

Key Quotes:

“The first reports triggered a new protocol that routed all complaints to the Office of Emergency Management and Department of Environmental Protection, which took precise location data from each syrup smeller. Within hours, inspectors were taking air quality samples in the affected regions. The reports were tagged by location and mapped against previous complaints. A working group gathered atmospheric data from past syrup events: temperature, humidity, wind direction, velocity.. the data formed a giant arrow aiming at a group of industrial plants in northeastern New Jersey”

“After the first survey of 311 complaints ranked excessive noise as the number one source of irritation among residents, the Bloomberg administration instituted a series of noise-abatement programs, going after the offenders whom callers complained about most often”

“There are 13,000 cabs pinging back data on location, travel speeds, whether they have customers,”

“By making all complaints and queries public, these services let ordinary people detect emergent patterns as readily as civil servants can”

Related articles

• 311 ignoring our complaints. What to do? (ask.metafilter.com)
• 311 complaints: What’s bugging Toronto? (thestar.com)
• Making charts beautiful without adding unneeded bits (junkcharts.typepad.com)
• Airlines & Politicians: Wintry Weather Creates A New Use For Social Media (socialtimes.com)
• Blog: Bylaw officers set speed record in chicken crackdown (communities.canada.com)
• The Worst Bathroom in New York (opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com)

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.

 

In 2010, there were 269 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 446 posts. There were 232 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 21mb. That’s about 4 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was December 20th with 144 views. The most popular post that day was Greening Cities with Immigrants.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Greening Cities with Immigrants November 2010

2

Masdar City – zero carbon, zero waste December 2009
2 comments

3

Plasma arc waste disposal December 2009
7 comments

4

Oil, an exhibition by Edward Burtynsky October 2009

5

Intelligent Traffic Lights and Idling January 2010
7 comments

Why You Should Never Google “Climate Change”

The Psychology of Climate Change (Sustainability Forum, Sep.30, 2010)

The article under review today caught my eye with its use of a modified Venn diagram (note the red ball’s stability on and the curved line). These diagrams seem to allow for a better understanding of an issue than the simpler and more usual pros and cons approach. The article looks at the stereotypical individuals that make up each of the four quadrants of the diagram, depending on how much they value is put on individual freedom vs. conforming to society’s needs and the equality factor when it comes to climate change. The same analysis could be applied to urban pollution and its remedies.

Key Quotes:

“I have a golden rule: never, ever google ‘climate change’…you enter a weird parallel universe of paranoia, anger and derision aimed at much of the rest of the world.”

“the fatalist, we can ignore because they don’t care about the environmental debate, or indeed about the fact we ignore them. Life goes on is their attitude and it is very hard to get them excited about anything that doesn’t affect them directly”

“the egalitarian, is the viewpoint of the hardcore environmentalist. The environment is fragile and must be protected. ..Technofixes will not deliver what we need.. their attacks on solutions like biofuels, feed-in tariffs and carbon capture and storage are just as withering as those on Big Oil”

“the individualist believes that the environment is robust and can always absorb the burdens placed on it by man –..Individualists are optimists – they have an abundance mentality and are often very successful in business as a result. Any attempt to put limits on their ‘freedom’ is highly suspect”

“the hierarchist…the environment is robust between limits, but exceed those limits and then collapse happens.. The fundamental belief is that everything can be measured, quantified and managed. This is the typical attitude of Government employees, climate scientists”

“individualists and egalitarians despise each other and both suspect that hierarchists favour their enemy”

“But in all these battles, the individualists eventually lost. This is for a very simple reason – they’re up against the laws of physics, and in a battle between ideology and the laws of physics, the laws of physics will always win.”

Related articles

• Tom Crompton: Working on Bigger-Than-Self Problems (peopleandplace.net)
• What Drives Pubic Reaction to Climate Change? (pollutionfree.wordpress.com)
• John Tropea: Framing to overcome bias (johntropea.tumblr.com)
• Beyond (or Beside) Environmentalism: Rise of the ‘Climate Hawks’? (treehugger.com)
• Interactive Activities when Teaching Greek Mythology (brighthub.com)
• Joining the Climate Hawks (rortybomb.wordpress.com)
• Embrace the Greenfield revolution (mindhacks.com)
• Google Suggest Venn Diagrams (mt-soft.com.ar)
• Google Suggest Venn Diagrams (googlesystem.blogspot.com)
• The Data Science Venn Diagram (dataists.com)
• Visualize Google Searches Using Google Suggest Venn Diagram Generator (googletutor.com)

Hazardous air pollutants- Highlights from EPA Workshop

Image via Wikipedia

Estimating the Benefits of Reducing Hazardous Air Pollutants: Summary of 2009 Workshop and Future Considerations

(26 page pdf, Environ Health Perspect., Oct. 4, 2010)

Key Quotes:

“Challenges related specifically to benefits analysis for air toxics include uncertainties in emissions information, air quality and exposure modeling, effects estimation, and economic valuation, as well as distribution considerations”

Summary:

• “Emissions. EPA maintains an inventory of emissions for most of the 187 air toxics, although the data are less reliable than the inventory for the six criteria pollutants.
• Air quality and exposure modeling. Exposure assessment of average or cumulative exposures may miss significant acute exposures…NATA does not provide estimates of ingestion risks (which are important for certain air toxics like mercury and lead)

• Health and environmental effects estimation…characterizing the health effects of air toxics at ambient levels can be subject to a very high level of uncertainty and therefore more difficult for use in economic benefits assessments.
• Economic valuation…Currently benefits are estimated by aggregating reduced mortality risks to an expected number of “deaths avoided” which are then multiplied by an aggregate willingness-to-pay (WTP) figure called the “value of a statistical life” (VSL)
• Efficiency vs. Distributional Considerations…protecting the most exposed individuals rather than maximizing risk reduction over the entire exposed population may be the guiding objective”

Conclusions

• “A clear definition of the purpose(s) of HAPs benefits analysis to frame long-term research priorities is needed
• Grouping by emissions sources would address more closely the issue of hotspots or highly exposed populations
• accounting for the heterogeneity in temporal and spatial distribution, specifically for emissions and receptors (e.g., children and other vulnerable populations) is critical for benefits analysis.
• The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey work on exposure distributions could be used to inform both exposures and health endpoints
• Analytical methods to define and measure equity considerations should be better supported.
• critical need to improve dose-response estimations
• More research on surveillance and bio-monitoring is needed
• More support is needed for research on the use of predictive biomarkers of exposure and health effects would allow for an early measurement of the impact in reduction of air toxics”

Related articles

• New Clean Air Standards Coming from EPA (public-healthcare-issues.suite101.com)
• New Report Shows Electric Sector Able to Manage Tighter Environmental Standards (eon.businesswire.com)
• Bill Chameides: Energy Industry Verklempt Over EPA Regs (huffingtonpost.com)
• Texas Refuses to Accept EPA GHG Emissions Permitting Rules (environmentalleader.com)
• Trip Van Noppen: Still a long way for the Clean Air Act and the EPA to go (yubanet.com)
• EPA’s E15 waiver–even EPA knows it threaten the air we breathe (switchboard.nrdc.org)
• Deadly deception: How some industry lobbyists peddle deception to block clean air protections (grist.org)
• EPA Goes Easy on Pollution from Chrome Plating Facilities; Public Health Suffers (treehugger.com)

Masdar City Update

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In Arabian Desert, a Sustainable City Rises (New York Times, Sept. 25, 2010)

The most read post on this blog has been Masdar City – zero carbon, zero waste which described the Masdar City concept.

Today’s review article reports on progress made since then with new approaches to the design of buildings, rasied to to take advanatage of cooling desert winds and a replace pollution emitting vehicles with a fleet of small electric ones underground.

Key Quotes:

“Masdar, would be a perfect square, nearly a mile on each side, raised on a 23-foot-high base to capture desert breezes. Beneath its labyrinth of pedestrian streets, a fleet of driverless electric cars would navigate silently through dimly lit tunnels”

“Not only did he close Masdar entirely to combustion-engine vehicles, he buried their replacement — his network of electric cars — underneath the city.”

“he located almost all of the heavy-duty service functions — a 54-acre photovoltaic field and incineration and water treatment plants — outside the city.”

“To conform to Middle Eastern standards of privacy, Mr. Foster came up with an undulating facade of concrete latticework based on the mashrabiya screens common in the region. The latticework blocks direct sunlight and screens interiors from view, while the curves make for angled views to the outside, so that apartment dwellers never look directly into the windows of facing buildings.”

Related articles by Zemanta

• Masdar City: An Urban Fantasy (thecityfix.com)
• Aircuity Helps Masdar Institute of Science and Technology Realize Significant Energy and Capital Cost Savings (eon.businesswire.com)
• A Walled Green Utopia Rises in the Middle East (ecocentric.blogs.time.com)
• Masdar: Sustainable Model or High-End Ghetto? (treehugger.com)
• In Arabian Desert, a Sustainable City Rises, Walled and Lofty (nytimes.com)
• Critic’s Notebook: In Arabian Desert, a Sustainable City Rises, Walled and Lofty (nytimes.com)
• Masdar Update (greentechmedia.com)
• “In Arabian Desert, a Sustainable City Rises” and related posts (amnation.com)
• Letter: Efficient, Not Sustainable (nytimes.com)
• A Sustainable City in the Desert (learning.blogs.nytimes.com)

Uncertainty in Recycling Waste

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Uncertainty Regarding Waste Handling in Everyday Life (15 page pdf, Sustainability, 2(9), 2799-2813, Sept.3, 2010)

The need to reduce the output of waste for many cities is as great a need as to reduce vehicle emissions in that both, if not given enough priority, result in overflowing landfills and polluted water and air. This study based on research in one of the most advanced countries in this field found that uncertainty in the minds of the public initiating the recycling process at the sorting stage is a significant determining factor- based on cultural factors or habit among others. It concludes that less uncertainty could be achieved by associating waste with its ultimate impact on the environment rather than by a flood of (perhaps confusing) information.

Key Quotes:

“[Swedish Objective] by 2010 at least 50% of all household waste will be recycled, including biological treatment … and at least 35% of food waste from households, restaurants, caterers and retail premises will be recovered by means of biological treatment.”

“uncertainty—concerning for example, whether a particular item of waste was put in the correct bin or whether the waste recycling system works so that the item will actually be recycled and produce an environmental gain”

“Recyclng uncertainties:

• professional categories not matching cultural categories – usability, value, constituents, purity, disgust, satisfaction, to show/to hide, shame/pride, status
• challenged habits -If for instance a person has learned to sort waste into certain fractions, it is often easier to continue with this than to stop sorting and throw everything in the rubbish bin
• Lacking fractions -Some kinds of items cannot be left for recycling and this makes waste collection incomplete from the users’ point of view
• Missing or contradictory rules of thumb -particularly relevant if no motivating principle or rule of thumb (within the context of use) is successfully conveyed to the user.

“the waste system, in its cultural context, constitutes strong “information” in itself. ..do not recommend information as a measure on its own to overcome uncertainty and other barriers to reach goals concerning recycling levels, waste quantities and the environment”

“the habit of returning “bottles” has a strong cultural, definitely habitual and probably even institutional foundation“

“the environmental consequences seem to be the most important aspect of waste recycling”

Related articles by Zemanta

• Tampa Bay Area Habitat For Humanity ReStores Offer Free Electronics Recycling Sites (prweb.com)
• Recycling is a win-win for the environment and the economy (leftfootforward.org)
• Increased recycling could create 50,000 jobs, report finds (guardian.co.uk)
• RecycleMatch.com – A Better Way To Recycle (domainmacher.com)
• GaiaRecycle and Wake Forest University Jointly Collaborate on Pilot Project to Divert Food Scraps and Organic Waste On-Campus (pr.com)
• Recyclers Earn Retail Points Through Rewards Program (charlotte.news14.com)

Applying Public Health Approaches to Sustainable Transportation

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What Transportation And Public Health Can Learn From Each Other About Changing Public Behaviors (Steve Miller’s Blog-II, Aug. 26, 2010)

Also discussed here: A Framework for Public Health Action: The Health Impact Pyramid(Abstract, American Journal of Public Health 590-595, April 2010)

A fascinating article reviewed today looks at applying approaches used in public health to transportation. The 5-tier model is based on how much intervention is needed with the most effective being those with the least intervention at the individual level which in turn puts a priority on creating communities that support sustainable practices- as opposed to imposing rigid laws on personal behaviour.

Key Quotes:

“A 5-tier pyramid best describes the impact of different types of public health interventions… At the base of this pyramid, indicating interventions with the greatest potential impact.. tend to be more effective because they reach broader segments of society and require less individual effort”

“Which of the following is more likely to get you to drive slower down a street?

• A talk with a friend about the dangers of speeding to yourself and others.
• A newly posted sign announcing a lower speed limit.
• A stop sign placed in the middle of the block.
• A series of speed bumps along the road.

…changing the structure of the road is likely to have the greatest impact”

“[lower levels] On the built environment side  these strategies include creating walkable and bikeable communities that facilitate social interaction, expanding affordable public transit, and designing buildings to promote stair use”

“More traditional transportation issues would include reversing the past century of car-centric construction by prioritizing expanding facilities for walking, cycling, and public transit”

“We need to create new incentives that favor small, high mpg, non-polluting vehicles – or the decision to not have a car at all…we need to redo our zoning and building codes to encourage mixed-use neighborhoods located within walking distance of transit hubs”

“The middle-level strategies, only requiring one-time or infrequent connection with individuals, include bike-sharing”

“top level, individually-focused strategies include setting up programs to support parents wanting to go for a walk or a bike ride with their children, getting health care providers to issue “walking and biking prescriptions” to their patients”

Related articles by Zemanta

• Two transport reports (energybulletin.net)
• California Drive-Thru Ban and the “Health in All Policies” Approach (thecityfix.com)
• Feds Push ‘Active Transportation’ For Healthy Communities (wired.com)
• Why doesn’t the public health community get it about walkability? (switchboard.nrdc.org)
• New Report: Better Transportation Means Healthier People (thecityfix.com)
• Causes of Child Deaths Hiding in Plain Sight (fastcompany.com)
• Mobis Transportation to Open Bikestation Hillsboro Bike Transit Center, Representing Next Step in Alternative Transportation (prnewswire.com)

Communicating Scientific Concepts

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Do Earth and Environmental Science Textbooks Promote Middle and High School Students ‘ Conceptual Development about Climate Change? Textbooks ‘ consideration of students’ misconceptions (Bulletin, American Meteorological Society, p. 889-898, Volume 91, Issue 7, July 2010)

The article reviewed today looks at how climate change concepts are described in textbooks used by high school students and teachers.  It found  a tendency to oversimplify or exaggerate many concepts, as well as to avoid the degree of inter-linkages between the various fields and forces at play.  It concludes with three recommendations to make up for these deficiencies. The complexities of climate change science seem not unlike the links between vehicle emissions, level of pollution and impact on human health that are the focus of this blog.  One aspect, in particular, is the apparent lack of communication and knowledge exchange between highway traffic engineers, air quality scientists and environmental health authorities, with the result that each of the three disciplines continue without the progress that might be expected if all were regarded as parts of the bigger problem – as well as in education of the public as addressed in this article.

Key Quotes:

“It is critical, therefore, that science textbook authors and publishers are aware of students’ common misconceptions about climate change when developing textbooks so that their works become effective tools for facilitating students’ conceptual development”

“The reviewed earth and environmental science textbooks did not adequately address students’ misconceptions about climate change, suggesting a need for revision.“

“Most of the reviewed studies reported that many held the misconception that the greenhouse effect is caused by a thin layer of dust or gases in the atmosphere“

“about half of the 18 scientific concepts of climate change were absent in the majority of the reviewed textbooks. Three of the textbooks neither distinguished among the types of radiation nor clarified how surface temperature is related to and distinct from infrared radiation“

“Six textbooks did not specifically mention that greenhouse gases are distributed in the atmosphere“

“Many students attributed global warming to an increase in incoming solar radiation, the Earth getting closer to the sun or the sun’s rays hitting more areas of the Earth”

“Recommendations:

*Clarification of scientific concepts of climate change.” Simple and familiar analogies and descriptions are pedagogically useful and appropriate for younger students; however, without careful clarification, these helpful analogies and simple explanations can hinder, rather than help, students’ conceptual development…

*Connecting and differentiating scientific concepts. Students’ misconceptions about climate change are often due to an inability to connect interrelated science concepts…..

*Presenting the nature of climate change science. Most of the reviewed texts described the impact of climate change in terms of global warming and did not address the likely variability of impacts on regional scales…”

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How Useful are Ecological Footprints?

A Review of the Ecological Footprint Indicator—Perceptions and Methods (49 page pdf, Sustainability 2010, 2(6), 1645-1693, June 7, 2010)

The Ecological Footprint has been used to assess the state of the world and compare countries, regions and cities as to the impact of resource consumption on the environment. Advocates have attempted to use the footprint as a basis for policy change. The article under review compares methods and results and reports on a survey taken regarding its utility.

Key Quotes:

“Key Points:

• seen as a strong communication tool,
• limited role within a policy context,
• limited in scope,
• should be closer aligned to the UN System of Environmental and Economic Accounting and
• most useful as part of a basket of indicators”

“Survey results:

• can not address all relevant issues and questions at once,
• basing bioproductivity calculations on Net Primary Production is promising
• advances in linking bioproductivity with ecosystem services and biodiversity have been made by the Dynamic EF concept and the HANPP indicator,
• input-output analysis provides advantages
• energy-based concept or the inclusion of pollutants not regarded as shift to the usefulness of EF for policy making”

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The Most (and Least) Polluted American Cities

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The State of the Air 2010 (175 page pdf, American Lung Association, April 28, 2010)

Key Quotes:

“over 175 million people—roughly 58 percent—still suffer pollution levels that are too often dangerous to breathe“

“Twenty of the 25 metropolitan areas with the worst year-round pollution reported much lower levels of particle pol­lution in State of the Air 2010 compared to the 2009 report. Sixteen metropolitan areas reported their lowest levels ever “

“Nearly six of ten people (58%) in the United States lives in counties that have unhealthful levels of either ozone or particle pollution“

“Roughly one in 13 people—some 23.8 million in the United States—live in 18 counties with unhealthful levels of all three: ozone and short-term and year-round particle pollution“

Five most polluted cities (by ozone):

#1: Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA

#2: Bakersfield, CA

#3: Visalia-Porterville, CA

#4: Fresno-Madera, CA

#5: Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Yuba City, CA-NV

Five cleanest cities (short term particulates)

#1. Alexandria, LA

#2. Amarillo, TX

#3. Athens-Clarke County, GA

#4. Austin-Round Rock, TX

#5. Bangor, ME

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• The 2010 Top 10 Most Polluted Cities In The U.S. (thegoodhuman.com)
• America’s Cleanest Cities (forbes.com)

Climate Change Indicators

Climate Change Indicators in the United States (80 page pdf, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, April 2010)

Key Quotes:

“The report presents 24 indicators, each describing trends related to the causes and effects of climate change. It focuses primarily on the United States, but in some cases global trends are presented to provide context or a basis for comparison.”

“In the United States, greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities increased by 14 percent from 1990 to 2008.. Worldwide, emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities increased by 26 percent from 1990 to 2005. Emissions of carbon dioxide, which account for nearly three-fourths of the total, increased by 31 percent over this period”

“Average temperatures have risen across the lower 48 states since 1901, with an increased rate of warming over the past 30 years. Seven of the top 10 warmest years on record for the lower 48 states have occurred since 1990, and the last 10 five-year periods have been the warmest five-year periods on record “

“The extent of Arctic sea ice in 2009 was 24 percent below the 1979 to 2000 historical average… Snow covered an average of 3.18 million square miles of North America during the years 2000 to 2008, compared with 3.43 million square miles during the 1970s.

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• Global warming ‘undeniable,’ earth getting warmer each year (thestar.com)
• The Earth is hotter than ever, global warming is real: Researchers (theglobeandmail.com)
• EPA’s “Climate Change Indicators in the US” report: What’s Up with Weather and Climate? (planetsave.com)
• “International panel of 300 scientists report that global warming is still under way” and related posts (taragana.com)
• Tackle climate change now: AMA (news.theage.com.au)
• Scientists say global warming is continuing (sfgate.com)
• Scientists say global warming is continuing (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Incentives for Changing Behaviour

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Using Community-Based Social Marketing Techniques to Enhance Environmental Regulation (23 page pdf, Sustainability 2010, 2(4), 26 April 2010)

Does the publicity from “world” days change how individuals treat their environment? Or does strict regulation followed up with fines?  Or are economic tools such as road tolls or fines needed to change behaviour or comply with regulations? This article examines how tools used for marketing goods might be applied at the community level  to produce changes in behaviour which would improve the quality of the environment.

Key Quotes

“Community-based social marketing.. behavior change initiatives are most effective when they are delivered at the community level using personal contact [57]. It focuses upon removing barriers to behavioral change while concurrently promoting the benefits of change“

“Public commitments are particularly significant. .. (residents were told that their names would be publicized with the results of the program).. In the group from which a public commitment was sought, a decrease of approximately 10–20% of energy usage was reported.“

“attention must be captured to initiate behavior change.. an estimated 60% of homeowners implementing improvements  “

“Incentives are most effective where the incentive and the behavior are closely paired, and where they are visible ….the group provided with incentives increasing its recycling by 54%.“

“Prompts can remind people to engage in activities that they might otherwise forget (such as bringing recyclable bags to the supermarket) “

“narrow educational approaches (such as telling people what behaviors are environmentally beneficial, or simply that environmental disaster is looming) have not proven overly effective“

“Law is particularly effective in doing so when it requires disclosure of specific information targeted at personal beliefs, which may in turn activate personal norms “

“It is difficult to change individual behavior with information alone where barriers exist to less environmentally harmful alternatives, or where it is more convenient to engage in the harmful behavior “

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• Behavioural advertising can be a win-win for consumers and advertisers (econsultancy.com)
• Approach to anti-social behaviour ‘must be turned on its head’ (independent.co.uk)
• Nick Marsh: On Social Marketing and Social Change: Making Change Happen: The Marketing Approach (socialmarketing.blogs.com)

Ecological Citizens

Ecological Citizens Identifying Values and Beliefs that Support Individual Environmental Responsibility among Swedes (25 page pdf, Sustainability, 20 April 2010)

The role of the individual and its importance of individual interests in changing behaviour toward a pollution free environment is always (or should be) the basis for improvement. This article examines a concept of being an ecologically friendly citizen and what this means in terms of behaviour and attitudes- and more important and less academic perhaps, how to make ecological citizenship “operational” based on poll results of the general public (in four Swedish municipalities)

Key Quotes

“private activities and non-contractual relations between citizens have an impact on the public arena and thus should be considered as of a citizenly character alongside participation in politics proper.. ecological citizenship also recognizes motivational values that draws on personal relationships (social justice)”

“as a consequence of the primacy of social justice the duties of the ecological citizen are non-reciprocal in character.. individuals are not asked to take on new duties with the motivation that they personally will gain from them’

“attribute the highest importance to the two value-items FAMILY SECURITY (Safety for loved ones) and FREEDOM(freedom to think and act). At the very bottom of the list are the value-items SOCIAL POWER (control over others, dominance) and AUTHORITY (having the right to lead or command others), both of which enjoys a markedly low support”

“New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale … 82% stating that they felt a moral obligation to sort household waste, 74% to reduce private car-use; and 70% to increase consumption of eco-labelled products”

“The strongest overall support is displayed for the introduction of policy instruments that facilitate individuals to increase their participation (pull measures)… considerably less supportive of the push measures (i.e., policy instruments in the shape of fiscal disincentives)”

“this initial survey of environmental beliefs suggests that the respondents are favorably disposed to general acts of and policies for environmental protection…understand the environmental problem to be highly serious (even when described as an imminent crisis or a catastrophe); global in scope and with its causes to be found both in human activities in general and in private, household-related activities”

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Communicating Sustainability

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Science, Open Communication and Sustainable Development ( 23 page pdf, Sustainability – Special Issue Advanced Forum for Sustainable Development, 13 April 2010)

Often, if not always, the most effective approach to sustainability starts at the local level as we have seen in this example from the UK Think Global, Act Local.

Open communication of knowledge acquired at or disseminated to the local level then becomes crucial in the determination of solutions to the challenge of pollution in cities and the like.

Key Quotes

“Sustainable development is therefore a process of adaptation, usually at a local scale—geographically, sectorally, and/or socially. “

“Knowledge is the foundation for discovery and innovation as well as for coping“

“Transferring knowledge is therefore a fundamental challenge for sustainability, in a context where external knowledge must be integrated with local knowledge in order to promote user-driven action.

“Open innovation depends on the fundamental knowledge ―leakage in the institution”

“user driven innovation.. focuses on the individual innovator, who tends to be an end user with an idea to improve a product”

“the innovation power of a collected set of individuals whose individual actions ―snap together into a coherent group through standard technical systems and digital networks.. is generally called ―distributed innovation”

“The rapidly emerging information technology (IT) revolution is becoming a powerful enabler for such access, if intellectual property obstacles can be overcome—not only making information readily available but promoting a network culture that can integrate the advantages of closeness to a sustainability problem with an ability to share information and ideas with others who have a wider range of perspectives and experiences to draw upon”

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Air Quality Awareness Week

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration‘s (NOAA) National Weather Service urge Americans to “Be Air Aware” during Air Quality Awareness Week, May 3 – 7, 2010.

A web site created to promote this week includes excellent graphics and educational material such as this look at urban pollution and inversions:

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The 20 Most Sustainable British Cities

Sustainable Cities Index (Forum for the Future, Nov. 19.2009)

Key Quotes:

“ Forum for the Future’s Sustainable Cities Index has driven real change by inspiring cities to adopt more ambitious sustainability strategies and by providing a framework against which they can benchmark their efforts.”

“Index tracks progress on sustainability in Britain’s 20 largest cities:

• Environmental impact – the city’s impact in terms of resource use and pollution;
• Quality of life – what the city is like for people to live in;
• Future-proofing – how well the city is preparing for a sustainable future.”

<leader in each category or subcategory shown in brackets>

environmental impact basket (Newcastle)

• Air quality (Edinburgh)

• Ecological footprint (Birmingham)

• Household waste collected per head (Bristol)

• Biodiversity (Newcastle)

quality of life basket (Bristol)

• Life expectancy from birth (London)

• Green spaces (Nottingham)

• Transport (Liverpool)

• Unemployment (Edinburgh)

• Education (Edinburgh)

future-proofing basket (Leicester)

• Local authority commitments on climate change (Sunderland)

• Economy (Brighton)

• Recycling (Bristol)

• Food (Sunderland)

“2008 Rank: Newcastle, Bristol, Brighton and Hove, Leicester, London, Leeds, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Sheffield, Cardiff, Coventry, Plymouth, Sunderland, Manchester, Liverpool, Bradford , Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Glasgow, Hull”

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Benchmarks for Walking and Cycling

Bicycling and Walking In the United States: 2 0 1 0 Benchmarking Report (196 pages pdf, Alliance for Biking & Walking, 2010)

This report from the U.S. examines measurable indicators of walking and cycling, as well as comparison with other countries. Benchmark reports of this type have also been done in Canada in this report: Benchmarking Toronto’s Bicycle Environment: Comparing Toronto to other World Cities (2 page pdf, Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation, Apr. 25, 2008) and in this “ Online Benchmarking Tool” from the European Union which looks at various measures for 41 cities.

Over 1/3 of the population is either too young (under 16) or too old (over 65) to drive and this fraction will grow as society ages. Current and past urban design, aimed almost exclusively at driver comfort and convenience, ignores the needs of the young and old as well as the health impacts of congestion and pollution that accompany this. Benchmarks are a start to reverse this unsustainable trend.

Key Quotes:

“found the U.S. to have the second lowest bicycle share of trips when compared to several European countries, Canada, and Australia. Countries like the Netherlands and Denmark with 27% and 18% of trips by bicycle, respectively, are setting the benchmark for what is possible.”

“countries and cities that invest the most in bicycling and walking have higher bicycling and walking mode share, and are safer places to bicycle and walk.. [in the US]bicyclists and pedestrians make up over 13% of traffic fatalities and receive just 1.2% of federal transportation dollars”

“Over one-third of the U.S. population is under age 16 (cannot legally drive) or over age 65. Streets designed just to move cars are leaving behind the most vulnerable road users,”

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E-Waste

Recycling – From E-Waste To Resources (120 page pdf, UNEP July 2009)

Also discussed at Hazardous E-Waste Surging in Developing Countries (Science Daily, Feb. 23, 2010)

The growth of cell phones and computers and their limited (5-8 year) useful lives has resulted in a growing – some say alarming – increase in the disposal of the outmoded and highly toxic materials that make up these electronic devices. Unless municipalities and the private sector take steps to separate this e-waste from conventional waste and recycle useful components, it ends up either in land fills with threats to ground water quality or shipped without processing to developing countries such as China and India, where even greater health threats can be found – as demonstrated in the remarkable photographic and award winning presentation by Edward Burtynsky in his  “Manufactured Landscapes” TED presentation.

Key Quotes

‘In the European Union (EU) the total weight of electronic appliances put on the

market in 2005 ranged up to more than 9.3 million tons… In the United States of America (USA), in 2006, more than 34 million TVs and displays have been placed on the market, while more than 24 million PCs and roughly 139 million portable communication devices such as cell phones, pagers or smart-phones have been manufactured”

“Modern electronics can contain up to 60 different elements; many are valuable, some are hazardous and some are both. The most complex mix of substances is usually present in the printed wiring boards “

“In South Africa and China..by 2020 e-waste from old computers will have jumped by 200 to 400 percent from 2007 levels, and by 500% in India.. in China, e-waste from discarded mobile phones will be about 7 times higher than 2007 levels and, in India, 18 times higher..By 2020, e-waste from televisions will be 1.5 to 2 times higher in China and India while in India e-waste from discarded refrigerators will double or triple”

“This report gives new urgency to establishing ambitious, formal and regulated processes for collecting and managing e-waste via the setting up of large, efficient facilities in China,”

“recommends countries establish e-waste management centers of excellence, building on existing organizations working in the area of recycling and waste management.”

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Modelling Energy Use in Cities

Urban Form, Behavior Energy Modeling in China: Sim City for Real? (Green Flow, Feb. 16, 2010)

The application of urban simulation modelling to the development of new cities in China and an assessment of energy, water and emissions over varying conditions of time of year permits urban planners to find solutions that reduce pollution, while optimizing the resources needed to run the cities.

Key Quotes:

“One of the great challenges in urban planning and green building has been material life cycle energy use”

“myriad consequences on life-cycle energy use that arise from commuting and transit choices, food and product consumption, and building heating or cooling.”

“has integrated building life-cycle assessment (LCA) and urban form agent-based modeling tools to capture embodied, operational and behavioral aspects of urban form energy use and emissions”

“Simulations ran through the four seasons, showing cumulative energy use based on household and individual appliance and transportation use, showing cars or buses shuttling between supermarkets, offices, schools and the Lu Jing Superblock”

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Why do you drive to work?

How Does Car Parking Availability and Public Transport Accessibility Influence Work-Related Travel Behaviors? (15 page pdf, Sustainability 2010, 2, 576-590, 12 February 2010)

How to get people out of their cars for the daily commute and into public transit is a challenge for many cities in North America. This article looks at the factors that have the most influence on that decision, which are similar to the results of a survey done by the Environmental Advisory Committee of the City of Ottawa a few years ago i.e. the provision of free or low cost parking or a company car by the employer is a major factor.

Key Quotes:

“is now recognized that many strategies employed to mitigate the effects of climate change (e.g., reducing private car use) can have major benefits for public health. Work-related commuting via private automobile is associated with substantial traffic congestion, air pollution, and reduced overall physical activity accumulation “

“Respondents who had an objectively-measured public transport stop proximal to their residence (<200 meters) or perceived public transport as being accessible were more likely to commute to work via mass transit. “

“those who perceived they have accessibility to car parking at their worksite or had a company car available were more likely to commute to work by private vehicle “

“also existed by worksite location, and this has been suggested to be a function of traffic density, public transport convenience, and cost of car parking “

“those who reported limited car availability were approximately six times more likely to walk or cycle to the worksite when compared with adults with unlimited vehicle access “

“significantly increased public transport engagement in participants achieving 101–210 minutes of walking per week but a reduction in those achieving more than 210 minutes of walking per week. “

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Sustainable Development and Community Vitality

Community Vitality: The Role of Community-Level Resilience Adaptation and Innovation in Sustainable Development (17 page pdf, Sustainability 2010, 2, 215-231)

- detailed cases can all be read Here

Key Quotes:

“Communities…can be said to have a level of community vitality that acts as a site of resilience, adaptation and innovation in the face of environmental challenges”

“analysis of thirty-five Canadian communities reveals the characteristics of community vitality emerging from sustainable development experiments and its relationship to resilience”

“it is at the community scale that the application of innovation, both technological and social occurs most effectively, and, when aggregated has the greatest impact in increasing sustainability at a broader scale”

“Planning orientated around car mobility rather than people has created infrastructure and places where chance social interactions are reduced, where people are isolated from the natural world and where streets and downtowns are increasingly empty places”

“Treating sustainable development as a process creates the need for an indefinite program of monitoring and adjustment.”

“Sustainable communities adapt and work within their environment rather than against it. A community that is vital, however, does more than adapt and mitigate, it anticipates, designs and redesigns as it adapts.”

“some degree of community vitality is necessary to stimulate the creativity, partnerships and trans-disciplinary relationships we have established are necessary for sustainable community development.”

“there is inherent uncertainty in the predicted outcomes of innovation. For example, expectations of the computer revolution were a significant reduction in the use of paper, when in fact the opposite has occurred”

“Diversity is also key to all three anticipated heuristics of community vitality—resilience, innovation and adaptation. Thus, it is keystone to both resilience and a community‘s ability to adapt”

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What’s Good For The Climate Is Good For Health!

The Royal College of Physicians in the UK just released this call for action:

WHAT’S GOOD FOR THE CLIMATE IS GOOD FOR HEALTH! (3 page MS Word doc),

- part of a global campaign by doctors and other health professionals for urgent government-led international action to protect health by limiting climate change

http://www.climateandhealth.org/pledge/

Key Quotes:

• Climate Change Is An Avoidable Threat To Health
• Low-Carbon Societies – The Next Great Health Advance
• Health Improvement Depends On Equity And Social Justice
• Health Needs Sustainable Development, Not  ‘Old Style’ Carbon-Emitting Economic Growth
• Delay Could Be Fatal

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Accountability of air quality management

Measuring public health accountability of air quality management (10 page pdf, Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health, March 2009)

Key Quotes:

“changes in ambient air quality are rarely linked to changes in public health”

“Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators (CESI) .. three components: air quality, fresh water quality, and greenhouse gas emissions”

“The air quality component of the CESI measures the April to September mean concentrations of ozone and fine particulate matter averaged over all monitors within a community and then population-weighted averaged over all communities.”

“The air health indicator (AHI) has been developed to monitor the trend over time in the percentage of daily mortalities resulting from exposure to air pollution”

“We observed statistically significant changes in exposure to both ozone and nitrogen dioxide over time…. Conversely, we observed much larger proportional changes in risk over time…. This phenomenon results from low predictive power of air pollution to explain mortality translated into high uncertainty in estimates for both risk and trend over time.”

“The AHI appears to be a more informative tool for measuring the change in air pollution attributable health risk over time as a means of addressing accountability for the impacts of programs to control air pollution. However, to be truly informative and advance the cause of accountability in air pollution reduction measures, the reasons for changes in the AHI, and conversely the lack of response in the AHI to changes in air pollution exposure levels must be examined”

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What Scientists Say and What the Public Hears

Communication Gap: The Disconnect Between What Scientists Say and What the Public Hears (4 pages pdf, Environ Health Perspect 117(12): doi:10.1289/ehp.117-a548)

Key Quotes:

“communication experts are calling for fundamental changes in how scientists interact with the media because debates over climate change, health, energy, and technology are simply too important to lose to misinformation”

Reworking the Angle

“move beyond the traditional “deficit model” that currently dominates science communication. The deficit model assumes that if nonspecialists only understood the scientific facts, they would see eye-to-eye with the experts.”

“You need to use metaphors and narratives that make the issue personally relevant”

Maintaining Credibility

“credibility lies in part on the notion that scientists make impartial judgments based on data.”

“As soon as scientists take up an advocacy role, regardless of the position or topic, they lose credibility as unbiased sources”

“Activism is a direct extension of what I was trained to do as a doctor..I feel an obligation to present data in ways that prevent dangerous exposures in the population”

Aiming for Clarity

“important to provide the public with a baseline context for understanding what’s meant by “risk”

“The way you portray something dictates the take-home messages people walk away with”

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Communicating Air Quality-Health Effects

Some considerations for the communication of results of air pollution health effects tracking (15 page pdf,  Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health, July 2009)

Key Quotes:

“This program should include frequent two-way communication, repeated and on-going evaluation of how well the audience understands the messages, and consideration of how to improve the delivery.”

“based on consideration of two air pollution constituents, ozone (O3) and particulate matter (PM2.5)”

“people learn in different ways: visual, verbal, reading, doing, interacting, among others. Older people rely more on effect (emotions, reactions, memory triggers), while younger people typically rely more on cognitive skills”

Air Pollution and Health: A European Information System  - APHEIS

“key issues that warrant consideration:

(1) goals of the communication;

(2) intended audience(s);

(3) types of information to be used and/or conveyed;

(4) scoping issues (e.g., geographic and temporal scale);

(5) health effect measures;

(6) major substantive messages (e.g., what people can and should do, general information, trends, regulatory violations, health alerts);

(7) vehicles through which to convey information;

(8) factors that affect the perception of and behavioral reaction to this information”

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Climate Scoreboard

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El Nino, Snowfall and Air Quality

It is often observed that the air quality for a month or season is better when there is above average precipitation which removes the pollutants from the lower atmosphere.  The converse would be true as well with low precipitation associated with poorer air quality.  The problem is that quantitative precipitation forecasts are difficult to get right for more than a few days in advance.  For month or season ahead projections, the best that can be done is an estimate of the anomaly – and even this is only of marginal accuracy.   On the positive side, during El Nino years, changes produced in the atmospheric circulation by prolonged sea surface temnperature anomalies also persist and these have quantitative impacts on regional temperature and precipitation over North America – and typically winter temperatures are above normal.  This year, a relatively strong El Nino is in progress and its impact on the coming winter weather can be estimated, however crudely.

The most recent measurements of sea surface temperatures for the last week of November  from NOAA is shown here (notice the band of above normal temperatures at the equator stretching form the dateline to Peru):

Reference:  El Niño/La Niña Home (Climate Prediction Center, NOAA)

A recent article  Trends in Twentieth-Century U.S. Extreme Snowfall Seasons (Journal of Climate, Dec, 2009), looks at the relationship between El Nino and extreme winter snowfall across the USA over the last century.

Key Quotes:

“In almost all regions of the United States, temperature during November–March is more highly correlated than precipitation to the occurrence of extreme snowfall years”

” El Niño events are strongly associated with an increase in low-extreme snowfall years over the United States as a whole, and in the northwest, northeast, and central regions. “

Going out on a limb,  one might expect to see warmer conditions than normal across North America this coming winter, along with extremely low snowfall in locations where the temperature anomalies are greatest- and as a result, poorer air quality can be expected in the same locations.

Let’s check back next spring and see how it turned out.

Meanwhile here is the latest outlook from Environment Canada:

Forecast predicts less snow in Canada this year (CTV news and video)

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Climate Change and Public Opinion

The 15th  Conference of the Parties, beginning next week in Copenhagen, aims to reach an agreement on global greenhouse gas emissions to succeed the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.  As  many greenhouse gas emissions and most health-hazardous pollutants have urban origins, the success or failure of the Copenhagen conference will have consequences for both the rate of climate change and pollution impacts in cities.

Participating political leaders, representing citizens in dozens of countries, need to appreciate the opinions and preferences of their constituents. A poll conducted by Harris-Decima  for a debate in Toronto surveyed public opinions from Canada and  six developed countries and reached some interesting conclusions, some of which are quoted below.

2009 Climate Change Debate Surveys (Part I of II)   A Harris Interactive / Financial Times study conducted for the Munk Debates

Key Quotes:

“..collected data from 6 countries, including: U.S., France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and Spain, resulting in a sample size of over 6,000 adults.”

“Part one of the study compares and contrasts Canadians’ views on climate change with the citizens of seven other advanced demoracies. It also looks at Canadians’ views about United Nations Summit on climate change taking place in  Copenhagen from December 7 to18, 2009.”

“How big a threat does climate change pose to the world?  Ninety‐five percent of adults across the five largest countries in Europe, 89% of American adults, and 93% of Canadian adults see climate change as at least some threat to the world”

“How much of a priority should signing a new treaty be at the climate change conference in Copenhagen?  Europeans feel the most strongly about this (75% saying ‘top’ or ‘one of the top’), followed by Canadians (62%) and Americans (53%)”

“The US should make the most emissions cuts.  Canadians are split between agreeing (42%) and not having an opinion (42%).  In Britain it is just over half agree with this assertion, whereas in the US 2 in 5 are neutral and 1 in 3 disagree with it”

“Do you believe [your country] needs to reduce the amount of oil and natural gas that it imports from foreign energy sources?     Americans agree with this most strongly (83%), followed by Canadians (65%), and then Europeans (57%).”

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Climate Change Health Indicators for USA

Environmental Health Indicators of Climate Change for the United States: Findings from the State Environmental Health Indicator Collaborative (9 page pdf Environmental Health Perspectives- Nov 2009)

Key Quotes:

“best indicators of environmental changes due to climate change are quantity of greenhouse gas emissions, air quality (in particular ozone), air mass stagnation events (such as those caused by temperature inversions), temperature and humidity, pollen loads, ragweed occurrence, drought incidence, drinking water scarcity, and occurrence of wildfires and harmful algal blooms.”

“GHGEs (Greenhouse Gas Emissions) are important indicators because they increase climate change and affect public health through direct effects such as heat waves, and through indirect effects such as increased growth of plant biomass that affects allergic airway disease. Air mass stagnation events, which increase O3 production and will increase in frequency as weather conditions favorable to heat waves increase”

“The latest research indicates that O3 concentrations are estimated to increase 5–10% in the United States between now and the 2050s (and possibly 2.5–5% by 2030) because of climate change”

“Accounting for climate change and O3 precursor emissions and population growth, Knowlton et al. (2004) estimated a median 4.5% increase in O3-related acute mortality across 31 New York metropolitan area counties by the 2050s”

“some segments of the population may be especially vulnerable to certain effects of climate change. These groups include children; the elderly; pregnant and nursing women; those with disabilities and preexisting conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and obesity; people living in poverty or social isolation or without access to transportation; and those living within 5 km of a coast that is highly vulnerable to sea level rise, or in a 100- or 500-year flood zone”

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The Greenhouse Effect (1896)

On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground (22 page pdf)

“Arrhenius’s paper is the first to quantify the contribution of carbon dioxide to the greenhouse effect and to speculate about whether variations in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide have contributed to long-term variations in climate”

Arrhenius estimated that if the combustion of fossil fuels were to result in a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels, global temperatures could rise 5 deg. C,  just a little more than recent estimates over 100 years after his research was published.

Svante Arrhenius was the first Swede to win the  Nobel prize in chemistry in 1903.

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Copenhagen Agenda for Sustainable Cities

Copenhagen Agenda for Sustainable Cities (16 page pdf)

Credits:
The Danish foundation Realdania have asked the Scandinavian think tank Monday Morning to create the Copenhagen Agenda for Sustainable Cities initiative.

Key Quotes:

“Almost 80% of all CO2 emissions are generated from urban activities, which make cities the biggest contributors to global warming.”

“We have become used to thinking and acting fragmentally: rather than consulting health experts, geographers and anthropologists, city officials have focused on the technical design of buildings and urban areas. This has resulted in the construction of cities that fail to meet the most basic needs necessary to secure future liveability.”

Excerpt- summary of 10 Principles:

“REDISCOVER THE CITY. We need a radical change of mindset: A city is much more than a consumption exhaust. It must become a self-sustaining organism – complementary to nature, rather than hostile opposition.
REDEFINE CITY VALUE. A sustainable city depends on the attitude and behaviour of each urban individual and user. We must encourage a sense of citizenship and individual responsibility towards sustainable values rather than plain consumerism.
INVOLVE EVERYDAY EXPERTS. Sustainable cities are participatory cities. We must encourage user-driven self-governance. Through new partnerships between city users, a common understanding of the sustainable city must be developed and initiatives agreed upon.

BREAK DOWN SILOS. Sustainable city planning is inherently multidisciplinary. Therefore, old administrative structures should be abandoned in favour of innovative, cross-sector cooperation.

REDISTRIBUTE URBAN DECISION-MAKING. Environmental changes do not respect city borders. Vertical cooperation between local, national and international public institutions is crucial to sustainable city planning.

DE-DESIGN URBAN PLANNING. City planning should be people centred, rather than design centred. A city is a constantly evolving organism, and city planning must take a broader perspective than the design of individual buildings.

PROMOTE CORPORATE URBAN RESPONSIBILITY. Sustainable cities and successful commerce are interdependent. Companies must be considered stakeholders and invited to participate in city planning and assume responsibility for urban sustainability.

GO GLOBAL. Climate change is a global challenge. Global cooperation on the development of environmental technologies is essential, and a joint effort to solve the massive problems of the developing world’s cities is urgently required.

EMBRACE CHAOS, CRISIS AND CHANGE. A sustainable city must be adaptable to unexpected change. The ability to both fight current and future climate change is crucial. Flexible governance and an innovative mindset to overcome crisis is vital.

ENCOURAGE PASSION IN URBAN LEADERSHIP. More will be expected of urban leaders of the future. They must be able to manage the complex interconnection of new institutions and partnerships. A mix of business management, political leadership and creativity is demanded from the future generation
of urban leaders.”

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Students on Ice Expeditions

Students on Ice Expeditions

- an example of a successful climate change outreach program, aimed at showing youth the regions that will be and are being affected most by the accumulated emissions of carbon fuel

- sustainable cities need citizens who embrace sustainability

- over the last ten years, over 1,200 students from 40 countries have taken  expeditions by ship to the Arctic and Antarctica. Later, many achieved advanced degrees in environmental studies or associated sciences- three became Rhodes scholars.  Among the specialists who accompanied the students as educators and mentors have been  8 astronauts.

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World Car Free Day- Sept 22

World Carfree Day 2009

Over 100,000 million people in more than 1500 cities worldwide  celebrate a move away from car culture

Carfree Cities

- proposes a delightful solution  to the vexing problem of urban automobiles.

Car-Free Day Montreal: A Measurable Difference

“Attracting in the upwards of 50,000 people in 2007, In Town, Without My Car! turns downtown Montreal into one of the largest car-free zones in North America … for a day. A sustainable mobility initiative that debuted in downtown Montreal in 2003, En ville, sans ma voiture! changes the downtown landscape dramatically for a few hours, from reducing noise levels by 8 decibels (a 34% decline in perceived noise by the human ear) to nitric oxide — a common car exhaust pollutant and lung irritant — levels dropping as much as 70%.

Assessing Sustainability

Tools for Measuring Progress towards Sustainable Neighborhood Environments

This recent paper from the Journal “Sustainability” examines six assessment tools based on triple bottom line principles (social/economic/environment) to identify where improvements are needed in planning new communities

“Abstract: Various assessment tools are available to assist designers, developers and regulatory bodies to reduce the negative impacts of contemporary multi-housing subdivision projects in industrialized countries. These tools vary considerably in what and how they measure and how the measurement results are presented and interpreted. This paper is largely a desktop study of subdivision assessment tools developed in Australasia, Great Britain and the United States of America. The paper identified a variety of themes and sub-themes that support assessment tools at both the project design phase and the project operational phase. These themes and sub-themes revolve around one or more of the three pillars of sustainability—namely the environmental, economical and social pillars. The paper firstly compares the themes and sub-themes of the assessment tools and then relates those themes to a set of sustainability targets produced for a proposed inner suburban housing subdivision in Perth, Western Australia.”

Refresh of Environmental Strategy for Ottawa

Refresh of the City’s Environmental Strategy

- proposed plan of action to refresh and update the City of Ottawa’s Environmental Strategy which includes initiatives for cleaner air and greenhouse gas reductions

POLLUTION POLL

Air Pollution and Health — a Presentation from C. Arden Pope

Air Pollution and Health (video) — a Presentation from C. Arden Pope

Source: video.google.com

Air Pollution and Health — a Presentation from C. Arden Pope – 1:03:59 – Mar 31, 2007Ideal Living Media – ideallivingmedia.com