Climate Medicine

Over the past three years my extracurricular research has focused more on the COVID-19 pandemic news and related news from the public health field and less on emerging climate change adaptation policy. I've been a habitual follower of the UCSF Grand Rounds COVID-19 Update (initially in the beginning of the pandemic a weekly update, changing to every two weeks and then every month). This month I tuned in for the COVID-19 Update and found instead an interesting lecture by Dr. Kari Nadeau on "Climate Medicine" (a new term for me):

The 30th Annual Alice Hamilton Lecture: Climate Medicine and Occupational and Environmental Health (59:16) - May 11, 2023

Dr. Kari Nadeau is the Chair of the Dept. of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health (though until recently she was on the faculty at Stanford) and a specialist in adult and pediatric allergy and asthma. She presented a jam-packed lecture on the many impacts of climate change on public health and what a medical practitioner can do in response.

First, in his intro the curator of Grand Rounds Dr. Bob Wachter, Chair of the Department of Medicine at UCSF, noted that UCSF's Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine was recently renamed the Division of Occupational, Environmental, and Climate Medicine.

Dr. Nadeau starts talking about climate change impacts on public health around 7:12 (after she gallops through the evidence that climate change is real).

I wish I could get a better version of this slide: 

"Global Climate Change: Pathways from greenhouse gas emissions to climate medicine"

Dr. Nadeau does a very thorough job reviewing all the major public health issues exacerbated by climate change including (in the order she mentions them):

•  Wildfires

She references an epidemiological paper on the connection between asthma and wildfire smoke in 2015 wildfire season, pointing to disproportionate impact on women, the elderly, and the low/middle income communities: Critical Review of Health Impacts of Wildfire Smoke Exposure (Reid, et al. Environ Health Persp, 2016).

I found a 45-slide PPT by Dr. Nadeau "Wildfires and Health" from 2019 from her time at Stanford that

focuses on the California case, landing with the summary line "There is no safe distance from a wildfire." (Download the PPT)

• Dust storms
• Pollens and molds (focusing on the Bay Area - the pollen season has increased by two weeks over the past 17 years and plants are producing more pollens)
• "Thunderstorm asthma" in Australia - something about how the electricity from the storms breaks the pollen into smaller parts, causing asthma in people who previously didn't have it
• Extreme heat
• Flooding, including toxins in water and fungal/bacterial overgrowth
• Waterborne and tickborne diseases  
• Air pollution (including wildfire smoke, dust)
• Drought, impacts on water and food supplies, plants becoming less nutritious 
• Infectious disease increase and biodiversity loss

Then she backs up and talks about secondary impacts a little.

• Displacement in climate change-related migration

She referenced a new online mapping tool - UNEP's Strata - that models potential displacement from climate change impacts. UNEP explains: "Strata is a geospatial data platform that supports practitioners and policymakers to identify and track environmental and climate stresses potentially driving threats to peace and security."

• Disproportionate impact on women/pregnant people and children

She referenced a new UNICEF report "The Climate Crisis is a Child Rights Crisis" (Aug. 2021).

This report introduces the Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI), "which uses data to generate new global evidence on how many children are currently exposed to climate and environmental hazards, shocks and stresses."

• Occupational health issues:
• Wildfire firefighters (10-yr shorter life span than average due to toxic exposure on the job, outside of risks from doing an emergency-related job)
• Farm workers (from heat stress- there are particular kinds of kidney disease associated with farm workers due to dehydration)
• Construction workers (with particular impacts in the U.S. on Hispanic people and people from Mexico, undoubtedly also true for farm workers)
• Workers doing flood clean-up

Then she took one more step back and looked at the "systems" view - concurrent stressors over a person's lifetime add up. I learned a new word here: "exposome" (the totality of internal and external exposures across the lifespan that affect human health). You have to think about climate change in the context of the exposome.

She then  (28:10) pivoted to talk about solutions, how doctors can support their patients and give them tools to protect themselves, like, what masks and filters can help against wildfire smoke.

She then (34:38)  introduced the topic of climate change x mental health.

She pointed to the article that shows positive returns to cognition from greenery from a study done in Melbourne: Associations of traffic-related air pollution and greenery with academic outcomes among primary schoolchildren (Claesen, et al. Environmental Research, 2021).

She also pointed to a pilot study on biodiversity, the immune system, and microbiota done with children in Finland: Biodiversity intervention enhances immune regulation and health-associated commensal microbiota among daycare children (Roslund, et al. Science Advances, 2020). That study found that immunity was better in children exposed to more green space.

Continuing on with her focus on solutions, she mentioned the new trend of electrifying school buses.

She ended with the potential advocacy role of health care providers - they are seen as a trusted source of information by patients and should feel empowered to talk about the connection between health stressors and climate change when counseling patients.

Dr. Wachter and Dr. Nadeau ended with a little Q&A. She noted the importance of the work of the Governor's Office in California to electrify vehicles in the state and other bright spots on the horizon.

Climate Change Resources for Intro to Sociology

On November 30th, 2020, I talked about climate change as a guest in a friend's Introduction to Sociology class at Foothill College (on Zoom). I answered his questions and then tried to address his student's questions.

What got you started?

One of my friend's first questions was about what got me started working on climate change. The first thing that hit me hard and got me thinking about climate change as a NOW problem not a SOMEDAY problem was -- back in 2004 -- hearing about how reindeer herders in Siberia were sinking into the thawing permafrost, losing their traditional pastures and migration routes. Something that seemed eternal, permafrost, was being lost, and with it a whole culture. I wrote more about this topic -- thawing permafrost's impacts on indigenous communities -- in a recent blog post: "From Beneath Us It Devours." (I include a good list of sources on the topic at the bottom of that blog post.)

But the thing that really kicked me into gear was attending a talk in November 2008 where I heard the journalist Isabel Hilton talk about the implications of the loss of the Himalayan Glacier in terms of the whole system of trade winds and ocean currents, and also geopolitical security, since China, India, and Pakistan all rely on that glacier for water. This Asia Society article about the event quotes Ms. Hilton: "I think what’s in store as the glaciers retreat, as the water diminishes, is potentially one of the first climate-change wars of the 21st century."

I remember there was silence in the room after she finished speaking. A hand went up in the back. "What can we do?" She answered: "Work on adaptation." I had no idea what she meant, but I wrote down the word "adaptation" and the next day started researching ways to focus my Master's thesis on whatever it was. 

Read "Regional Cooperation at the Third Pole: The Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau and Climate Change" (2009), featuring Ms. Hilton's interviews with experts on the condition of the glacier and its importance to the region.

This Science X (Phys.org) item from August 2020, "Two-thirds of glacier ice in the Himalayas will be lost by 2100 if climate targets aren't met," is a nice summary of the current state of research and projections for the condition of the Himalayan Glacier.

What can I do?

Now, not everybody can focus their career on climate change adaptation. And while the real game-changing solutions will need to be institutional and widespread, individuals of all walks of life can play a role in the solutions. You can educate yourself on how climate change affects whatever field you end up in -- climate change is an "everything" problem, it touches on all our systems. You can be the health care professional who knows about climate change impacts like heat and smoke on the health of vulnerable populations. If you are a landscape architect you can learn about the benefits of drought-friendly native plants and innovative water management in a hotter, dryer climate. You can be a source of good information for your colleagues and loved ones.

You can learn about how to prepare for climate impacts that are happening now, adapting to climate change, and also learn about how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in your community and the world, reducing the impact of climate change on future generations.

I talked about the list of recommended solutions from Project Drawdown's list of recommendations for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These recommendations come from a 2017 book edited by Paul Hawken "Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming." You can see a quick list of the top ten solutions on Wikipedia or go to the Project Drawdown website here and sort by GHG emission reduction amounts. 

The top three solutions are reducing food waste, health and education (focusing on the education of girls and family planning), and shifting to plant-rich diets.

1. Reducing food waste - This can be a part of increasing food security for all. I talked about how increasing food security improves community resilience to all shocks and also has returns to children's attendance in school. If you are hungry, how can you learn?

2. Educating girls and providing family planning (curbing population growth and empowering girls and women) - I talked about how girls and women are disproportionately impacted by food preparation and water gathering needs. Improving their opportunities for education will help free them to help their communities plan for climate change and other problems. We need all hands on deck!

3. Shifting to a plant-rich diet - I recollected hearing David Suzuki talk about Meatless Mondays as a strategy that could have a significant positive impact on the planet. It sends the market a signal that we need less meat, which can have cascading positive effects, reducing GHG emissions and water usage. 

Check out the Meatless Mondays movement, which is being stewarded in part by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Join its Meatless Monday Global community.

This recommendation must include a caveat that some communities cannot easily make this transition, with some living in places where plant-based food is flown in from afar, so it is relatively expensive and poor quality. In some cases, meat-based diets are critical to a community's cultural practices, such as with the indigenous marine mammal hunters who live on the Bering and Chukchi Seas. Due to sea ice loss these hunters may need to change how they provide for their communities (see this 2017 study on that question), but any change in diet should be led by community members, not outsiders telling them to switch to a plant-rich diet.

What else can I do? 

Vote

I can't find the quote now, but I recall seeing on Twitter that someone asked the famous climate scientist Jim (James) Hansen what the most important thing people can do to fight climate change, and he said "vote."

It may have been that many scientists have been saying it. Catherine Flowers (Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice) says it in this Aug. 2020 Guardian article in response to the question "what is the most important political action individuals can take?" To the same question another famous climate scientist, Michael Mann, author of the "hockey stick" graph, responds: 

We need politicians who will support climate-friendly policies. And we need to get rid of those who won’t. Voting is one critical way to do that, and if you live in the US, it’s absolutely critical that you vote on climate in the upcoming general election – from president all the way down to dogcatcher.

In the Nov. 2020 U.S. presidential election we ended up with the more climate-policy-friendly candidate, but the U.S. Senate remains elusive. If we don't have the power to move climate change legislation through the U.S. Senate, everything will stagnate for another four years, and we can't afford any delay. If you want to help do "get out the vote" work in Georgia, here are two ways to do it:

Vote Forward has a letter writing campaign with a Dec. 7 send date and they need 153,000 more letters to be written.

Move On and Resistance Labs are doing text and phone banking.

Resilience Hubs

You can participate in the "resilience hub" movement without being a climate expert. Resilience hubs bring together local government and local nongovernmental organizations to prepare a community respond to natural disasters and other shocks. The movement has spread around the world partly facilitated by the Urban Sustainability Directors Network and other organizations, like UN Habitat Urban Resilience Programme, Mercy Corps (which established resilience hubs in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria), and the Thriving Resilient Communities Collaboratory which created a resource-rich community guide (2014).

The Hawaiian island/city/county of Oahu is creating a Resilience Hub Action Plan as part of its 2019 Resilience Strategy, stipulating: "Resilience Hubs should be defined by each neighborhood or local community for their own needs and goals, however many are focused on providing the following during a disaster: 1) Emergency shelter during a disaster; 2) A central community gathering/information site and distribution center post-disaster; 3) Renewable energy and energy storage/supply even if the grid is down; 4) Water and food stores; and, 5) Medical supplies" (p. 60). 

Northampton, Massachusetts, is currently planning to create a "Community & Resilience Hub" to support its residents "who face chronic and acute stress due to natural and human-caused disasters, climate change, and social and economic challenges."

The Greater Manchester Resilience Hub is a very specific example of a resilience hub created to respond to the 2017 Manchester Arena attack. It has since created a Covid-19 services program.

For Californians, the NorCal Resilience Network has a resilience hub initiative with a leadership training program (deadline for applications for the spring 2021 training is Dec. 20, 2020).

Doughnut Economics

Right now our global economy is based on a linear growth model of economics, where we need to consume and produce more and more and more to be rated as a healthy economy. We can all benefit from questioning this old model of infinite growth, and start thinking about another way to define economic success.

Kate Raworth is a British economist who conceived of something called Doughnut Economics, based on a doughnut-shaped diagram modeling sustainable economic growth, where the outside circle is the planetary boundaries, and the hole in the center is the boundary of human well-being. The hole is where people fall when their basic needs are not being met. The idea is that we need to grow economically into the center without exceeding the boundaries of Earth's limits. Hear more about how the Doughnut can work in a real-world context in a Dec. 1, 2020, interview with Kate Raworth (40 min., a bonus episode of the "Explore the Circular Economy Show" by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation). In this interview she talks about how her model of growth fits within the concept of the circular economy (where materials are designed, created, and distributed with their full lifecycle in mind), and how she worked with leaders in Amsterdam to create a vision for the city based on Doughnut Economics (for more on that, see "Amsterdam to embrace 'doughnut' model to mend post-coronavirus economy" from April 8, 2020).

If you want to see this model brought to California, you can sign up for a meeting on Dec. 10, 2020, 5:30 PM, a virtual meet-up hosted by the Doughnut Economics Action Lab.

Raworth 2017, WEF, Meet the Doughnut

Talk to your loved ones about climate change

One student asked about how to talk to her climate skeptic loved ones about climate change. This is a great question! I talked about how there are many different kinds of climate denialists, and it's worth understanding that some communities have a reasonable distrust of scientists (see the infamous Tuskegee Experiment). It's important to approach your loved ones who doubt the climate science with compassion whenever possible.

One excellent, compassionate communicator of climate science is Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and also someone who identifies as a person of faith, specifically an evangelical Christian. But most of all, she is Canadian -- you can enjoy her "oots" and "aboots" in her excellent series of short videos addressing common questions you might hear from skeptics: Global Weirding.

I also highly recommend listening to Dr. Hayhoe explain the ten things climate change and coronavirus in common (a 30-min. lecture from the 2020 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting) in her lovely Canadian lilt.

In that lecture she cites these as the most sustainable solutions to climate change: energy efficiency (citing an ACEEE 2019 report by Ungar and Nadel), clean energy, electrifying what we can while creating carbon-neutral fuels for what we can't, and drawing carbon down into the soil and biosphere.

Two other great resources for helping you respond to loved ones who are climate skeptics:

Skeptical Science - it's got a "Web 1.0" look about it but it has great information, including an exhaustive list of climate change denial arguments hyperlinked to articles that will help you respond.

A free online course edX course “Making Sense of Climate Science Denial” (DENIAL101X), run out of the University of Queensland. I took it and it was extremely helpful in breaking down the phenomenon of science denial in general, and climate science denial in particular.

What is the most certain evidence of climate change?

One of the students looking for help preparing to talk to her climate change skeptic loved ones asked me what is the most certain evidence of climate change. The science of greenhouse gas leading to global warming is documented back to the 19th century, but if you are arguing with a skeptic that might be too fuzzy, since it is possible to attribute some of the warming to things other than greenhouse gas emissions. But sea level rise? That is really concrete, and for my friend's students, mostly living in the San Francisco Bay Area, it's well-documented specifically on their doorstep thanks to the...

Fort Point tidal gauge! 

USGS 1999

See this graph in its original context, a 1999 USGS fact sheet: "El Niño Sea-Level Rise Wreaks Havoc in California’s San Francisco Bay Region." 

Here is a NOAA graph of San Francisco's relative sea level that I think might combine Fort Point data with another gauge or gauges, extending from 1850 to 2020.

This is, as far as I know, the longest-running tidal gauge anywhere in the world, or at least on the west coast of the American continent, and it shows that water levels in San Francisco Bay have risen about seven inches since 1900. A tidal gauge at the Battery in New York City has shown a similar trend, with a similarly long data set.

This clear rise in sea level is caused by a combination of land ice melt and thermal expansion driven by the warming of the Earth by the blanket of greenhouse gases we've thrown over it. At a certain point the argument over the cause will be moot. Hopefully we won't still be arguing causes when SFO and OAK are under water.

Other impacts weighing on our collective minds?

We talked about various climate change impacts in our discussion, and I don't want to spend too much time on them, but here are some resources on some of the topics we touched on.

Heat

Check out Sol Hsiang's research on how heat can contribute to increased conflict in this other Scientific American piece from Jan. 1, 2014, "Feeling Hot Can Fuel Rage."

Smoke

In the San Francisco Bay Area, while sea level rise can grab the headlines, I am more worried about the health impacts of heat and wildfire smoke, since most Bay Area homes lack air conditioning. Well, as bad as it has been in the SF Bay Area, it's worse in Fresno. This Nov. 26, 2020, NYT piece "Wildfire Smoke Is Poisoning California’s Kids. Some Pay a Higher Price." discusses the disproportionate impact of smoke on children in the Central Valley.

 A lot of health professionals are looking into the concerning intersection of wildfire smoke exposure and Covid-19 vulnerability, too. This Oct. 27, 2020, piece in Pulmonology Advisor tackles that question: "The Potential Effects of Wildfire Smoke on COVID-19 Risk and Severity." Bottom line: staying indoors helps avoid both risks.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District website has resources for SF Bay Area folks concerned about wildfire smoke, including an article on wildfire smoke and Covid-19. 

It truly was awful during the smoke events this past summer - every day I had to ask myself - do I have a sore throat from smoke or from Covid?

Viruses and permafrost

Check out this Scientific American piece from Nov. 20, 2020, "Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up." The known threats are anthrax and smallpox becoming reanimated after the remains of those who died of those diseases thaw. But -- we don't really know what viruses will be reanimated.

P.S. What's going on with the Venezuelan oil tanker about to spill?

A student asked about an oil tanker sitting in the water off Venezuela, apparently about to capsize. I didn't know anything about this tanker, but poking the internet the tanker in question appears to be the Nabarima, which has been moored in the Gulf of Paria, off the east coast of Venezuela and west coast of Trinidad and Tobago. It is in a state of disrepair, and is carrying about about 1.3 million barrels of crude oil that is jointly owned by the Venezuelan state oil company (PDVSA) and an Italian oil company (Eni). U.S. sanctions on Venezuela are stopping the tanker from off-loading its oil. 

In mid-October 2020 it appeared to be tilting about 25 degrees. In late October efforts to correct the tilt appeared to have helped, and experts from Trinidad and Tobago visited the tanker to confirm the condition. They said it has “absolutely no tilt” and that the vessel was “totally horizontal” per Reuters reporting on Oct. 22, 2020. 

The environmental group Fishermen and Friends of the Sea are still concerned that the ship is in disrepair and poses a great risk to the Caribbean.

In the Heat of the Moment (the re-post)

The following was published Dec. 2, 2014, on the WWF ClimatePrep blog (climateprep.org) -- which now appears to have gone defunct. You can still see the original on Archive.org. See my blog post about the writing of this article here.
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Photo by Kim Seng © Creative Commons

Many of us are versed in the primary hazards of climate change – from the cost of disasters in lives and resources to the disappearance of low-lying island nations. Something we hear about less often is the direct influence of climate on human behavior, and the implications for the future under climate change.

Climate change and civil conflict

Academics have only been putting the climate change-conflict link to close examination for about five years. Solomon Hsiang (UC Berkeley), Marshall Burke (Stanford), and Edward (Ted) Miguel (UC Berkeley) are pioneers in this field. Last year they unveiled the results of an analysis of 60 studies using 45 data sets from all regions of the world showing a correlation between heat, rain, and conflict. Last month they released a refinement of this study. In their working paper “Climate and Conflict” (summary here) they show significant increases in both interpersonal and intergroup conflicts (e.g., fist fights and wars) with greater heat and more extreme rainfall.

Some of the background studies cited by these researchers include a 2011 study that shows major league baseball pitchers are more likely to retaliate for their teammates being hit by the rival pitcher when it’s hotter. In their talk “Quantifying the Impact of Climate on Human Conflict” at UC Berkeley in April 2013, Miguel and Burke described fascinating experimental psychology studies showing that police are more likely to shoot at a simulated intruder in higher temperature rooms, and people are faster to lean on their horns behind a car stopped at a green light on hotter days.

Climate change and crime

In February of this year a journal article by Matthew Ranson described a correlation between crime and weather and speculated on the potential impact of climate change on crime. The author looked at 2,997 U.S. counties’ monthly crime and weather data over 30 years. He looked at FBI statistics for murder, manslaughter, rape, aggravated and simple assault, robbery, burglary, larceny, and vehicle theft. He states bluntly, “[a]cross a variety of offenses, higher temperatures cause more crime.” His rich data set appears to have established a strong link between heat and violent crime. Specifically, he shows a linear relationship between heat and violent crime and a nonlinear relationship with non-violent crime (property crime, e.g., burglary): he doesn’t see heat affecting property crime in any consistent way. Heat specifically exacerbates violence.

Measuring vulnerability to climate-related violence

Some analysts are trying to map out the world’s general vulnerability to climate-related violence. On Oct. 29, 2014, the 2015 “Climate Change and Environmental Risk Atlas” was released, naming 32 “extreme risk” countries where climate change might increase violence. Bangladesh was named most at risk. The author of the report, UK-based Maplecroft Global Risk Analytics, has produced this atlas annually since 2008. In 2011, its report included results of an analysis of 42 factors using the Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI), intended to help corporations and governments identify vulnerabilities in their operations, supply chains, and investments. (Note: it is not to be confused with the tool of the same name launched by the Nature Conservancy in 2009 to evaluate wild species’ vulnerability.) Maplecroft’s tool incorporates social, economic, and environmental factors to assess vulnerability both at a national level and down to a resolution of 22km², looking 30 years out (as described in the 2014 Risk Atlas).

Over recent years other indices of vulnerability have been created (check out an annotated list of indices of climate change vulnerability from WeAdapt.org). Other institutions have taken other approaches to identifying climate-driven violence risks.

The Pentagon and the Institute of Peace agree: climate change is bad for peace

As reported by James West in Mother Jones, the U.S. Department of Defense (in its 20-page Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap released Oct. 13, 2014) and the U.S. Institute of Peace (in a 2011 report on Nigeria) are both worrying about weak governments, already fostering terrorism, being further weakened by impacts from climate change. While lacking adaptation policy recommendations, both institutions clearly and concisely describe the “threat-multiplier” facet of climate change.

What can we do?

People developing climate impact response plans in the security, defense, and risk management fields should take into account the results of recent studies linking climate change and conflict. Extreme climate events can be tracked and direct and immediate security fallout projected. Also, the still under-researched indirect and long-term impacts of climate on conflict—such as a heat wave destroying a farming community’s livelihood, driving the community’s young men to migrate, potentially inflaming territorial and sectarian violence— can also be projected and anticipated by security and defense forces.

A very readable 2007 journal article by Barnett and Adger discusses the underlying causes of conflict and how climate change could drive conflict. They propose a basic 3-prong research regime of identifying livelihoods vulnerable to climate hazards, examining the consequences of damage to these livelihoods, and understanding the role of institutions in managing climate hazards so that they do not become security problems (e.g., by protecting livelihoods).

Who else should pay attention to climate’s link to conflict?

Those working on economic, social and international development policy, human rights organizations, and those working in the capacity of a negotiator should anticipate the impact of extreme heat and other climate stressors on their constituents, both individuals and communities. People working in the field of restorative justice and other disciplines focused on reducing violence and criminalization of historically disadvantaged communities should also track the effect of climate stressors on their project outcomes, and adapt programs accordingly. Those working for non-violent solutions within urban conflict zones might ramp up their mediation efforts in particularly hot summers.

You also can watch your own behavior in response to climate-induced stress. On the next hot day you might take a second to breathe before honking at a car stopped at a green light… you might just be behind an experimental psychologist with a stopwatch.

In the Heat of the Moment

Check out my newest post at the WWF Climate Prep blog: In the Heat of the Moment, discussing recently released evidence on the connection between heat and violence, and implications for society and security under climate change.

Shout out to UC Berkeley professors Sol Hsiang - now teaching at my alma mater the Goldman School of Public Policy - and CEGA's Ted Miguel for their great research on these topics!

CEGA is the Center for Effective Global Action, which focuses on using quantitative impact evaluation methods to improve results of poverty alleviation programs in the international development field. When I was at GSPP I took a student-led course on impact evaluation, taught by students working at CEGA, and the problems we addressed were along the lines of how to ethically roll out an experimental vaccination or disease testing program. It's great to see those big brains being bent to the task of assessing possible disparate climate change impacts on CEGA's constituency-- the world's poorest communities.

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Update: WWF's ClimatePrep blog apparently went defunct in 2018 and may not be revived.  I'm updating this blog's links to ClimatePrep to snapshots on Archive.org (where available). Some articles look OK there, some not so OK. For a readable version with images intact, see my ClimatePrep articles as reconstructed on this blog:

• Head in the Clouds: The Dream of Harvesting Water from Fog
June 08, 2017

• Story Maps: A Rising Star of Climate Change Communication
April 10, 2017

• The Sea Level Rise Solution that is as Charismatic as Mud
February 17, 2017

• The Internet of Water - October 31, 2016

• Sea Level Rise Seen with New Eyes: the OWLs of San Mateo
August 30, 2016

• California: The Rebeavering
May 22, 2015

• Government Folly in the Face of Climate Change
March 19, 2015

• In the Heat of the Moment
December 02, 2014

• California’s Adaptation Clarion Call
September 02, 2014

• Farmland in Flux
July 8, 2014

• Honest Conversations: Climate Change and Uncertainty
December 12, 2013

News from the Human Rights/Climate Change Nexus: +Heat = +Native Cultural Losses, +Conflict

The Dec. 18, 2013, Al-Jazeera article "How climate change destroys human rights" by Jon Letman offers an interesting sampler plate of five recent studies and organizing efforts to illustrate the human rights/climate change nexus.

ARCTIC LOSS, NATIVE CULTURAL LOSSES

The Letman article was brought to my attention by a friend and former colleague, now at Tebtebba, because another friend and former colleague, Rodion Syulandziga from the Russian indigenous rights network RAIPON, contributed to it. (Click here for info on RAIPON in English, from the Arctic Council's website.)

Rodion points out to Letman that "[i]ncreasingly unpredictable weather and unreliable sea ice directly impacts animal migration, which affects subsistence hunting for traditional food sources like reindeer and sea mammals. Warmer temperatures ... also hasten the introduction of plant and animal diseases as southern species of fish and birds move north." And, "[i]n addition to a warming Arctic, Russia’s indigenous peoples also face the rush to exploit vast energy and mineral resources. Oil, gas, coal, nickel, iron ore, platinum and other minerals draw multi-national corporations to Russia’s most remote regions where highly restricted access makes monitoring health and safety practices, damage and pollution mitigation and other conditions difficult or impossible."

Rodion also touches on how RAIPON is being subjected to increasing threats from the Russian government. In 2012-2013 this involved using technicalities of the law to suspend the group's activities during a critical period of time (when a national RAIPON gathering was supposed to happen), ordering the arrest of a staff member on specious grounds when he was abroad at a conference, and using political pressure to increase the influence of Kremlin-friendly indigenous representatives in the organization. Indigenous communities whose cultures are predicated on the existence of permafrost and sea ice are existentially threatened by climate change, and in Russia, also by the government's repression of civil society.

MORE HEAT, MORE CONFLICT

I see another familiar reference in this article-- a link to a study of how heat correlates with aggression in Kenya, led by Solomon Hsiang, now a professor at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy, my alma mater. He did the study with Ted Miguel of the UC Berkeley-based Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), which analyzes the impact of development projects, and Marshall Burke, also at UC Berkeley (in Ag and Resource Economics). The study supports the idea demonstrated in other studies "that climatic events which produce temporary warming are associated with a temporary increase in violent intergroup conflict..." (p. 2). Sol Hsiang has a fascinating body of work on the social implications of climate threats.

• See his personal website's list of publications
• See his list of publications and press coverage of his research at GSPP's website

Some highlights of Sol's work:

• Click here for a six and a half-minute interview where he summarizes some of his findings on heat's correlation with aggression for the PBS Newshour from August 2013.

• Read Climate, conflict, and social stability:what does the evidence say? - a compelling meta-analysis of 50 studies published in 2013 with M. Burke, which finds a possible "causal association between climatological changes and various conflict outcomes..." 

Other studies/articles referenced in the Letman article:

• The projected timing of climate departure from recent variability (Mora et al., October 2013, Nature) - showing how parts of the tropics may experience unprecedented climates within the next 10 years, and how, if GHG emissions aren't brought under control, the "average" place on Earth will experience a radically different climate within the next 35 years.
• A 2012 Human Rights Watch publication on the health impacts of Bangladesh's tanneries, in part authored by Richard Pearshouse, an HRW researcher interviewed by Letman; and a 2009 article on Bangladesh's climate refugees (L. Friedman, Scientific American)