Stuart Staniford at Early Warning has conveniently posted a couple of maps from the paper (which would otherwise cost you $10 to get a peak at). First, today’s world.

Currently, the inland Amazon and northern India are pretty uncomfortable, with the eastern US, northern China, and much of Australia not far behind.

Right now, we are tracking above the worst case IPCC scenario (which, if you remember, does not include feedback loops such as the Arctic releasing methane).  If we don’t do anything about climate change, we could get to about two doublings by the end of the century (over pre-industrial levels of 280ppm of CO₂). With the caveat that there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding Earth’s climate sensitivity, what might that world look like ?

Most of the world’s major population centers will be uninhabitable outdoors – like, people would literally drop dead – during heat waves.

Of course, this says little about the Earth’s capability to support agriculture under such conditions. People would die of starvation long before they would be felled by heat stroke.

Caveat: note that the biggest difference is that states no longer have “no data”, so any data at all looks like a huge jump.

As Charles Hugh Smith points out, the explosion of obesity and related diseases has all occurred in the past 23 years since 1985. Eat junk, get sick.

We can’t successfully address “health care” without addressing the underlying cause. The “insurance reform” currently before congress will do nothing to address the crisis in health care or the financial crisis in paying for it.

Simply put, young people can’t afford to go into farming because of the unavailability of health care.

If we want people to commit to growing our food, we’re going to have to figure out a way to provide decent health care to everybody. Instead of wasting trillions bailing out bankers, we should be investing in the future of our food production system.

Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet, writes at Yes! Magazine that Belo, a city of 2.5 million people, once had 11% of its population living in absolute poverty, and almost 20% of its children going hungry. Then in 1993, a newly elected administration declared food a right of citizenship and created a city agency, which included assembling a 20-member council of citizen, labor, business, and church representatives, to advise in the design and implementation of a new food system.

The city offered local family farmers dozens of choice spots of public space on which to sell their produce. Local farmers’ profits grew, while at the same time farm income in the country as a whole was dropping by almost half – and poor people got access to fresh, healthy food.

In addition to the farmer-run stands, the city offers people the opportunity to bid on the right to use well-trafficked plots of city land for “ABC” markets (from the Portuguese acronym for “food at low prices”). 34 ABC markets now offer customers the opportunity to buy about twenty core, healthy items at a price set by the city, about two-thirds of the market price. Everything else the market owners can sell at the market price.

Another innovation involves three large, airy “People’s Restaurants” (Restaurante Popular), plus a few smaller venues, that daily serve 12,000 or more people using mostly locally grown food for the equivalent of less than 50 cents a meal.

Belo’s food security initiatives also include extensive community and school gardens as well as nutrition classes. Plus, money the federal government contributes toward school lunches, once spent on processed, corporate food, now buys whole food mostly from local growers.

Hello, local progressive city mayors and city council people? How about something similar here?

ProPublica studied Sublette County, Wyoming and six other contamination sites and found that water contamination in drilling areas around the country is far more prevalent than the EPA asserts. Tests on well water in Sublette County showed it contained benzene, a chemical believed to cause aplastic anemia and leukemia, in a concentration 1,500 times the level safe for people.

Hydraulic fracturing shoots vast amounts of water, sand and chemicals several miles underground to break apart rock and release natural gas. The process has been considered safe since a 2004 study (PDF) by the Environmental Protection Agency found that it posed no risk to drinking water. After that study, Congress even exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act. Today fracturing is used in nine out of 10 natural gas wells in the United States.

ProPublica’s investigation found that the 2004 EPA study was not as conclusive as it claimed to be. Close review showed that the body of the study contains damaging information that wasn’t mentioned in the conclusion. Rather, the study foreshadowed many of the problems now being reported across the country.

The contamination in Sublette County is significant because it is the first to be documented by a federal agency, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. But more than 1,000 other cases of contamination have been documented by courts and state and local governments in Colorado, New Mexico, Alabama, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The precise nature and concentrations of the chemicals used by industry are considered trade secrets. Not even the EPA knows exactly what’s in the drilling fluids. Of the 300-odd compounds that private researchers and the Bureau of Land Management suspect are being used, 65 are listed as hazardous by the federal government. Many of the rest are unstudied and unregulated.

Strikingly and boldly, it calls for Health Impact Assessments, either singly or as part of an Environmental Impact Statement, Environmental Assessment or other environmental review, to be included as part of the review process for land use and zoning applications.

The entire text of the letter is below the fold.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on your department’s “Big Look: Choices for Oregon’s Future” draft report (Report). Oregon’s Public Health Division is charged with “protecting and promoting the health of the people of Oregon” within the Department of Human Services’ (DHS) mission to help people become independent, healthy and safe. The Big Look report holds promise for furthering that mission and we greatly appreciate your commitment to solicit feedback to build a shared vision of Oregon’s future.

Toward that end, we offer the following comments on the May 30, 2008 draft report for your consideration. In addition to some broader statements, this letter provides more specific comment on individual sections of the draft report.

Overall, we encourage the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) and the Big Look Task Force (Task Force) to identify and address the very real connections between land use and human health. Such recognition can begin by re-stating the overarching principles to specifically include protecting and promoting human and community health. Ensuring people are aware of the adverse human health impacts from unplanned or poorly planned land development can protect both the land and the people of our state.

Assuring Oregon landscapes support healthy people and communities can be a powerful motivating factor for intelligent land use decision-making. To assist in this regard, Health Impact Assessments, either singly or as part of an Environmental Impact Statement, Environmental Assessment or other environmental review, are increasingly recognized as a critical diagnostic and policy tool to identify and evaluate development options. DHS is moving into this arena, and is committed to collaborating with its local public health partners to support sustainable land use decisions and statewide programs that protect and promote health.

Specific comments regarding proposed recommendations follow:

Introduction

Chronic diseases are killing and crippling Oregonians at high and increasing rates. These diseases are recognized by medical and public health experts as linked to environmental conditions that can be improved by thoughtful planning

Resource Lands and Rural Areas

Reliably safe and clean drinking water is an essential resource for Oregonians, and thus should be mentioned in this section. Some current land development and land use practices threaten the quality and reliability of drinking water supplies. Key surface waters and groundwater recharge areas should be a top priority for protection, in order to land development principles to be effective at meeting the needs of Oregonians in all parts of the state in the future.

Protecting Oregon’s drinking water sources is essential. DHS, in partnership with the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), has assessed risks to drinking water from nearby land uses, and we urge local governments to use these published risk assessments as a key factor in considering approval of land use and zoning applications.

Growth Management
Current Problems

Growth management policies can have powerful and long-lasting impacts on human health. Transportation decisions, for example, can determine whether there are practical alternatives to a single-occupancy vehicle commute, and walking, biking, and public transit all have both direct and indirect positive health impacts. In contrast, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, asthma and other health conditions are linked to sedentary lifestyles and traffic-exacerbated air pollution.

Preliminary Recommendations

Incorporate public health considerations into all aspects of growth management, including planning, zoning, design review, safety and other code review, etc.

Climate Change

Climatic disruptions will cause or contribute to significant challenges to protecting the public’s health. Just two examples: 1) drinking water; and 2) increasing toxicity of environmental hazards.

Drinking Water

Sixty percent of Oregonians rely on surface water as the sole or primary drinking water source, and floods, slides and wildfires can/do impair those water bodies (suspended solids, broken infrastructure, turbidity, etc) and require emergency response. Public Health anticipates the frequency, duration, and severity of such impairments will grow and will affect other parts of the state as well.

The other 40% of Oregonians dependent on reliably safe groundwater supplies for drinking water are also at risk. One scenario example: as topsoil becomes dryer and less productive, farmers understandably apply more fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides to maximize yield. Such chemicals, however, migrate to aquifers and combine with other contaminants to unknown/unstudied effect. At the same time, the aquifers are already and increasingly stressed from over-use, resulting in previously unheard of concentrations of contamination.

Increasing toxicity of and exposures to environmental hazards

Climatic changes may exacerbate already-present environmental hazards, from toxic algae to everyday chemicals. Regarding the former, data point to increasing frequency, duration and toxicity of algal blooms, affecting drinking water sources, recreational uses and food fish habitat.

Regarding the latter, studies indicate that some plant & animal species may be more vulnerable to heat-related harm if the subjects have been previously exposed to certain chemicals. Similarly, in some lab experiments certain chemicals exhibit toxicity at lower doses of exposure in lower temperature settings.

Governance

Because Oregon’s public health system is founded on statutory partnership with local Public Health Departments, we are familiar with the locally-led governance model of Oregon’s land use laws. At both the local and the state levels, however, there is a dangerous disconnect between land use planning and development on one hand and population-based health on the other that can be remedied by recognizing and utilizing the specialized expertise Public Health provides.

At the local level, planning, zoning, building and development oversight is often the purview of cities, while public health authority and responsibility reside at the county level. Even when counties are the local authority for land use, there is only occasional (and generally after the fact) involvement with Public Health. We thus urge that city/county (or county/county) connections be made a necessary part of land development and use decisions, in order to ensure public health issues get the benefit of public health professionals.

At the state level, we recognize that none of the 19 statewide land use Goals specifies or even includes human health protection. While we do not recommend amending or adding to the Goals, we do urge DLCD and LCDC to recognize this omission and commit to providing guidance, support and other technical assistance to local governments to rectify the situation.

Biology dictates that human health simply cannot be sustained in an unhealthy environment, and the use of our land – in urban, suburban, exurban, rural and frontier settings alike – is one of the most powerful determinants of our environmental health. Government’s dedication to provide for the common welfare, and proper stewardship of tax dollars, thus require us to consistently and meaningfully incorporate public health protection into land use oversight.

Economic Prosperity

For both obvious and covert reasons, poverty may be the single most powerful risk factor for healthy communities, and DHS applauds the task force for highlighting this key issue. At the same time, we know that, from a population-based perspective, it is impossible to sustain healthy people in an unhealthy environment. Recognizing the inextricable connection between healthy people and healthy communities is thus essential to provide for and nurture sustainable economic prosperity.

Conclusion

Thank you requesting and considering these comments as you continue to refine and improve Oregon’s land use oversight. We encourage continued partnership with Public Health at both the state and local levels, and look forward to working together as DLCD finalizes its “Big Look.”

Sincerely,
/s
Mel Kohn, MD, MPH
Public Health Director
/s
Katherine Bradley, PhD, RN
Administrator
Office of Family Health
/s
Gail Shibley
Administrator
Office Environmental Public Health

click to view image

Here’s a quote from the report:

“The risk is far higher . . . in South Seattle areas next to highways, the study found. Those places can be expected to produce as many as 3,600 cancer cases per million people exposed over a 70-year lifetime.

Eric de Place at The Daily Score points out how high this rate is . . .

“For context, when the risk exceeds 1 per million, environmental agencies have typically acted to reduce the risk. So 3,600 is a scary figure.”

. . . and notes that, while this particular study was just for south Seattle, the findings likely apply elsewhere as well.

The harm from air pollution isn’t limited to cancer. Pollution also causes outbreaks of asthma, bronchitis and other lung diseases and contributes to heart attacks and strokes.

A draft of the report is available here.

They identify severe health effects linked to global warming to include the following:

• More illness and death resulting from heat waves.
• Worsening air pollution causes more respiratory and cardiovascular disease.
• Vector-borne disease infections will rise.
• Changing food production and security may cause hunger.
• More severe and frequent wildfires will threaten more people.
• Flooding linked to rising sea levels will displace millions.

Oh, and by the way – the U.S. spends ‘way more per capita on health care than any other developed country – a disparity that is not explained by a higher disease burden. The research shows that the U.S. population is not significantly sicker than the other countries studied.

While the other nations improved dramatically between the two study periods—1997–98 and 2002–03—the U.S. improved only slightly on the measure.

In 1997–98, the U.S. ranked 15th out of the 19 countries on this measure—ahead of only Finland, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Ireland—with a rate of 114.7 deaths per 100,000 people. By 2002–03, the U.S. fell to last place, with 109.7 per 100,000. In the leading countries, mortality rates per 100,000 people were 64.8 in France, 71.2 in Japan, and 71.3 in Australia.

“Amenable mortality” is a measure of the rate of deaths from certain causes before age 75 that are potentially preventable with timely and effective health care. The concept of amenable mortality was developed in the 1970s to assess the quality and performance of health systems and to track changes over time.