science – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

And Now, For Some 2020 Good Climate News

David Posnett — Thu, 31 Dec 2020 22:56:53 +0000

Get Ready to Make a New Year’s Climate Pledge

Looking for some good news on climate? Get ready to set some priorities and make some New Year’s Climate Resolutions.

Recently @GlobalEcoGuy Dr. Jon Foley reminded me (and 60k followers) about the big picture. Our actions, consumer choices, and habits matter.

I find clarity in Jon’s blogs about climate. I’m inspired by his prioritizing solutions including a Personal Action Guide. And I trust his science. It is Drawdown science, and Jon is the executive director.

Jon has clearly stated that to reach drawdown, where greenhouse gas emissions stop climbing and start to draw down, we have to do two things:

stop sending it up
start sinking it down

“It” being human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.

Look, maybe alot of us don’t know where to focus our efforts, he says, because we literally cannot see what we’re talking about. And then he give us a graph, three actually, in his Three Most Important Graphs in Climate Change

That’s my cue. That’s how I’m going to prioritize my actions and efforts — by using his graph, starting at the top, with a big focus on the first two, they are half the problem. So first Electricity Generation, then Food/Land Use. Third, fourth and fifth for me will be Industry, Transportation, Buildings.

And, from the news I’ve been reading this year, it looks like entrepreneurs and governments are jumping into action finally, finally, in ways that will redirect us all from an irreversible, irreparable, climate, wildlife and human life catastrophe.

Electricity Generation – good news

2020 State and Local Ballot Measures Advancing the Energy Transition (and The Biggie: We’re rejoining Paris!)
Here’s a roundup of the Top 11 11 Clean Energy Developments of 2020

My Electricity New Year’s Resolution
switch every bulb to LED – I think I did already, but I’m checking again.
stop sending it up— turn off, unplug, use less (dryer, anything electric)
we installed a solar on my mother’s roof, but ours too shady. We’d really like a roof-based wind power generator, maybe that will be invented soon.

Food/Land Use – good news

Why are we letting our food choices have such a big impact on this planet? Emitting 24% of greenhouse gases? The US is one of the most-polluting countries due to lifestyle and food choices.

The solution-by-solution path to reversing global warming, outlined in the book Drawdown lists food solutions as #3 and #4 out of 80. #3 is reducing food waste with 1/3 wasted from farm to fork and 70% of wasted by households at a cost of $1500 per family a year. If Americans reduced our food waste by 50% we would achieve Drawdown’s goals in the food sector. Hey, it saves money. Then #4 is eating a plant-rich diet and keeping our CAFO red meat to once a week. Hey, it’s much healthier. Much.

Good to see this trend is happening — products and markets want in on reducing food waste.

Supermarkets Moving Toward Zero Food Waste (and they are responsible for 10% of all U.S. food waste)
Two Good Yogurt Addresses Food Waste by Launching New Product Line Utilizing Verified Rescued Produce in Partnership with Full Harvest
Streamlined menus, clean-label food, and umami top the food prediction list for 2021.

My Food/Land Use New Year’s Resolution
reduce my food waste better than 50% – I’m going for zero (saving tons by making soups and stocks, and composting what’s left – nothing to the landfill!)
cooking more with nuts, pun intended, fish, shellfish, anything but CAFOs
buying local and reaping all the deliciously-ripe-in-season, and fresh-healthy-traceable advantages https://www.well.org/conscious-consumers/10-advantages-of-buying-local/
stop sending it up — lowering food miles, less plastic packaging, using what I buy, no food to landfills,
start sinking it down— with a back-yard compost, keeping an herb garden, planting native trees

Transportation – good news

With electric vehicles we’re starting to make some headway and when EV’s become cheaper than gas the transportation sector is going to make a dramatic shift.

Electric Cars Are Estimated to Be Cheaper Than Regular Cars by 2022

My Transportation New Year’s Resolution
make a 2 year plan that includes trading our VW in for an EV.
lower item miles on everything — from fish to Christmas gifts — make it all local. (OK, maybe NYS or within 500 miles)

Industry – good news

There are good news trends in the fashion industry. They have noticed that we have all noticed — they produce 10% of all humanity’s carbon emissions, are the second-largest consumer of the world’s water supply, and pollute the oceans with microplastics. The equivalent of one garbage truck full of clothes is burned or dumped in a landfill every second.

Fashion Regeneration: What It Is + 8 Brands Paving The Way Forward
Six alternatives to animal leather made from plants and food waste
The $380-billion trend turning fast fashion on its head While fast fashion is expected to continue to grow 20% in the next 10 years, secondhand fashion is poised to grow 185%.

My Industry New Year’s Resolution
Paul Hawken, founder of Drawdown, said that magic new purchase number is 6. In other words if we all limit our new purchases to 6 a year, we would reach drawdown in the Industry sector. My resolution – buy thrift, consignment, recycled, reused, no fast fashion that destroys the planet.
stop sending it up — recycle, give and get from thrift shops.
start sinking in down — be on the lookout for regenerative fashion — something that actually helps to regenerate the planet.

And I’ve saved the best of 2020 for last….

Bee populations are rebounding, up 72% in Maine, and that matters to me, besides enjoying bees in my garden, they pollinate over 100 foods we eat, and, this just in, new research is finding Honeybee venom kills agressive breast cancer cells.

Two newborn whales were spotted off the Florida coast, giving a boost to the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale population, and while you may not be a whale-hugger like me, whales boost the phytoplankton population which uses 40% of the world’s CO2. We need to triple our whale populations!

The Ocean Cleanup’s efforts to remove plastic from the ocean have been launched and Garbage has never looked as cool as these Pacific Garbage Patch sunglasses designed by Yves Behar.

And 12 years in the effort, we’ve saved our enviornmental treasure Plum Island — historically Algonquin territory with 227 bird species counted, waters including rare seagrass meadows/fish nurseries and host to grey and harbor seals. Another step toward reversing our climate and wildlife catastrophe. East End take a bow.

May this inspire us all to start good climate lifestyle habits. What’s your Climate Pledge?

Happy 2021!

Friend of clean water, biodiversity, climate-friendly regenerative businesses and safe-guarding our shorelines? Read on…..

David Posnett — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 20:44:35 +0000

Dear Friend of the Shellfish Farmer,

If you are a friend of clean water, biodiversity, climate-friendly regenerative businesses, coastline protection, Earth and her oceans read on…..

Join us in support of our shellfish farmers, and support the inclusion of commercial seaweed (kelp) cultivation. A deadline is upon us for public comments on the Suffolk County Shellfish Aquaculture Lease Program — December 15, 2020.

Here’s information on the December 15th public meeting, and ways to comment via email or in writing.

Current Status

There is currently a 10-year review panel of the Suffolk County Aquaculture Lease Program (SCALP) being overseen by the SC Legislature’s Environment, Parks and Agriculture (EPA) committee, chaired by Legislator Kara Hahn with Legislator Al Krupski, Vice Chair.

The 10-year review process has been going on for many months, with several meetings involving different stakeholder groups including the lease-holders, commercial fisherman, yacht clubs etc., and that process has come to an end.

December 2020 Meetings Scheduled

The legislation incorporating the changes to the SCALP law that were the result of the 10-year review are expected, not guaranteed, to be introduced at the next General Meeting of the Legislature on 12/1/20. If it is introduced on that date, it will not be discussed or considered at the meeting, just introduced or what we refer to as “laid on the table” or LOT.

It will then be assigned to a committee, presumably EPA, where at their meeting on 12/7, it will be tabled for a public hearing at the next General Meeting on 12/15 – this is where you can offer public comments via ZOOM, via email or in writing.

Here is the link to the SCALP program – on the left sidebar is a link to the Ten Year Review Project under Sections: https://www.suffolkcountyny.gov/Departments/Economic-Development-and-Planning/Planning-and-Environment/Environmental-Planning-and-Aquaculture/Shellfish-Aquaculture-Lease-Program

Find agendas for meetings, reports, maps and public comments at https://www.scnylegislature.us/149/Meeting-Information

Public Comment

General letter in support of the Aquaculture Lease Program – send either to Legislator Kara Hahn, Chair: Kara.Hahn@suffolkcountyny.gov and Legislator Al Krupski, Vice Chair: al.Krupski@suffolkcountyny.gov Suffolk County Environment, Parks and Agriculture (EPA) committee or the Legislative Clerk at Clerk.Legislature@suffolkcountyny.gov with the request that it be distributed to all the legislators.

You can also sign and comment on this petition from the Long Island Oyster Growers Association, which highlights key facts:

https://www.change.org/p/suffolk-county-legislature-support-the-expansion-and-continuation-of-the-suffolk-county-shellfish-aquaculture-program

We support oyster and kelp farming

In sum, we support Suffolk County continuing the lease program for shellfish farming operations and we emphatically support the inclusion of commercial seaweed (kelp) cultivation.

Why include kelp?

-it’s a carbon sink, storing 20x more CO2 per acre than land forests.

–a super-faster grower, reducing excess nitrogen, and providing habit for hundreds marine species.

–a coastline safeguard, protecting coastlines from storm surges.

-a super-food, with fast-growing new market, being used for food. medicine, cosmetics, animal feed, biofuel, and even a new bio-plastic. You can buy from Atlantic Sea Farms, working with 2 dozen Maine lobstermen and fishermen.

-a valuable fertilizer, used on farms and in home gardens. Check out Soil and Seaweed: Farming Our Way to a Climate Solution.

-a big win-win-win for the East End — Stony Brook has done the research finding sugar kelp (Saccharina latissma) is able to grow using “commercial-style” techniques in all three of our estuaries. This is climate-friendly regenerative businesses generating $9.3 million in economic activity to Suffolk County.

There is alot of interest in kelp as a second crop among Long Island’s three dozen oyster farmers. Right now other states permit commercial growing and New York only allows kelp growing for experimental use. And a local market cannot start to develop as sugar kelp is presently not permitted for human consumption in our state.

Won’t you join us in support of our shellfish farmers, and support the inclusion of commercial seaweed (kelp) cultivation.

Thank you.

Mary Morgan and Diane Shapiro

Oceans + Coastal Sinks Team

Drawdown East End

Local Solutions to Reverse Global Warming

DrawdownEastEnd.org

200,000 Deaths….and Counting

David Posnett — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 14:19:14 +0000

Letter to the Editor, The East Hampton Press, September 23

Grounded In Science

More than 200,000 Americans are dead from the coronavirus — a staggering number, with no end in sight — and, yet, for Donald Trump, this is little more than an inconvenient footnote to the “amazing” job he’s done fighting an “invisible enemy.”

How is it that the United States, with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, accounts for more than 20 percent of coronavirus deaths? That other countries have managed to subdue this invisible enemy, and are returning to some semblance of normalcy?

It’s because those countries have leaders who relied on the medical experts, were honest with their citizens, and helmed comprehensive national responses — while our president “took no responsibility at all” and left it to the states to employ a whack-a-mole strategy, resulting in an ongoing wave of infections and death.

If you’ve had enough of Donald Trump, then you’ve had enough of his ardent cheerleader, Lee Zeldin, as well.

Nancy Goroff, the Democratic candidate running against Zeldin, has spent more than 20 years at Stony Brook University in teaching and leadership positions (most recently as chairperson of the Chemistry Department). Electing Ms. Goroff to Congress will ensure that we have a representative who supports policies that are grounded in science and fact, not in the wishful thinking that got us here to begin with — because, no, Mr. President, the virus is not just going to disappear “like a miracle.”

Carol Deistler

East Hampton

Mosquito Samples and Birds Test Positive for West Nile Virus

David Posnett — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 15:28:27 +0000

https://www.cdc.gov/ncezid/dvbd/media/westnilevirus.html

In SEPTEMBER 2019 there were 2 cases of West Nile Virus requiring hospitalization on eastern Long Island as reported in the Riverhead Local:

“West Nile virus is transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected mosquito. It is estimated that 20% of those who become infected will develop clinically noticeable symptoms of West Nile virus disease. About one in five people who are infected develop a fever with other symptoms such as headache, body aches, joint pains, vomiting, diarrhea, or rash. Most people with this type of West Nile virus disease recover completely, but fatigue and weakness can last for weeks or months.”

Now this threatening disease is back, at least in mosquito samples and birds. As reported on the county’s website, Suffolk County Health Commissioner Dr. Gregson Pigott announced that 14 additional mosquito samples, all Culex pipiens-restuans, have tested positive for West Nile virus. The samples were collected on August 6 from Cold Spring Harbor (1), Northport (4), Copiague (1), West Islip (1), Brentwood (2), Bay Shore (3), Bohemia (1), and Farmingville (1). In addition, four birds tested positive for West Nile virus.

To date this season, 37 mosquito samples and six birds have tested positive for West Nile virus.

West Nile virus, first detected in birds and mosquito samples in Suffolk County in 1999 and again each year thereafter, is transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected mosquito.

Most people infected with West Nile virus will experience mild or no symptoms, but some can develop severe symptoms including high fever, headache, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, vision loss, numbness and paralysis. The symptoms may last several weeks, and neurological effects may be permanent. Individuals, especially those 50 years of age or older, or those with compromised immune systems, who are most at risk, are urged to take precautions to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.

“The confirmation of West Nile virus in mosquito samples indicates the presence of West Nile virus in the area,” said Dr. Pigott. “While there is no cause for undue concern, we advise residents to cooperate with us in our efforts to reduce exposure to West Nile virus and other mosquito-borne diseases.”

Dr. Pigott offers the following tips to avoid mosquito bites:

Minimize outdoor activities between dusk and dawn.
Wear shoes and socks, long pants and long-sleeved shirts when mosquitoes are active.
Use mosquito repellent, following label directions carefully.
Make sure all windows and doors have screens, and that all screens are in good repair.
Keep mosquitoes from laying eggs inside and outside of your home. Once a week, empty and scrub, turn over, cover, or throw out containers that hold water, such as vases, pet water bowls, flowerpot saucers, discarded tires, buckets, pool covers, birdbaths, trash cans and rain barrels.
Download a copy of Suffolk County’s informational brochure “Get the Buzz on Mosquito Protection,” available in English and Spanish, and share it with your community.

Dead birds may indicate the presence of West Nile virus in the area. To report dead birds, call the Bureau of Public Health Protection at 631-852-5999 from 9 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Residents are encouraged to take a photograph of any bird in question.

To report mosquito problems or stagnant pools of water, call the Department of Public Works’ Vector Control Division at 631-852-4270.

For further information on West Nile virus, visit the Department of Health Services’ website.

Nota bene:

Its good to see a local county health department trying to keep us safe, while their funding is cut, as opposed to the Republican administration and government, supported by sycophants like Rep Lee Zeldin.

We have been warned.

David Posnett — Fri, 04 Sep 2020 15:39:32 +0000

https://www.ft.com/content/27c9a6e8-ffb7-11e9-b7bc-f3fa4e77dd47

Rather than denial and political inertia from the Republican party now in power, what if we had acted immediately on what our science community understood and warned us about, the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic? The resulting health, economic, and social distortions could have been limited and we might now not be facing the terrible long lasting effects of that stubborn denialism.

Well, it may be that Covid-19 is an unfortunately dark, albeit resolvable, prequel to the vastly more all encompassing and dangerous “monster in the garden”—global warming. It’s that dangerous and just that close.We have understood and been warned by scientists of global warming for over a century. We understand the long term consequences: the advancing irreversible tipping points, melting polar regions which cool our planet, desertification of global farmlands, dying coral reefs, ocean pollution, acidification and ‘’hot zones” which toxify its organic life— impairing its CO2 uptake and oxygen generation.

We’ve been warned of rain forest destruction, loss of permafrost ecosystems, methane spikes, rising sea levels, ubiquitous record high global temperatures, year round multiple mega-hurricane systems, fires in the Arctic, fire tornadoes, fires everywhere, evaporating fresh water supplies, drought, famine, war…

We have been warned of this global climate emergency.Lacking a collective carbon conscience and oblivious to long term consequences we continue, blindly, pumping heat trapping gasses into the atmosphere, rapidly drawing down our allowable carbon emissions budget which at this rate will be dangerously overdrawn in less that 15 years. By then we may have lost control with tipping points falling like dominoes unfolding into the unimaginable horror of a planetary “hothouse” with all the anticipated dystopia.

Like the pandemic warning this year we have been warned of the years still to come. The time is calling for radical dependence on science. We have the knowledge and technologies to meaningfully overcome the climate challenges which actually can ultimately improve our lives. We have the science but not the will for what is demanded of us now to literally save the very life sustaining capacities of our planet.

Facing a global climate emergency, with high risks and little time, we need science, expertise and wise, brave leadership. Our voices in government must soon be guided by alert visionary science making smart science-based decisions.

Let’s fire Lee Zeldin(R) whose dismal environmental record earns him a dreadful 13% positive lifetime enviro-score from The League of Conservation Voters and elect Nancy Goroff, PHD, who will represent CD1 consciously and undertake the heavy lifting of crafting the complex actionable policies needed to meet the enormous climate challenges we can no longer reasonably push aside. We’ve been warned.

James Ewing, Water Mill NY

Pandemic: How did Trump’s America Screw up?

David Posnett — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 21:33:55 +0000

http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/05/america-leads-world-covid-19-deaths/

The United States has just 4% of the world’s population but over 25% of its confirmed COVID‑19 cases and deaths. With arguably the most advanced healthcare research and top hospitals and doctors, it seems difficult to fathom. What the hell went wrong?

Two friends (neither of them are Trump apologists) could not convincingly list the major ways in which this country and its leader, Trump, screwed up. So I asked others:

One friend came up with this list of 14 points regarding Trump’s failures:

He didn’t follow the procedures laid out in the pandemic plan the Obama administration left for him.
He had too many exceptions to the China travel ban.
He didn’t implement a European travel ban and that was where most of the NY cases that spread across the country came from.
He didn’t invoke the war powers act to manufacture PPE or ventilators or tests, which forced states to bid against each other and foreign governments, drove up prices and resulted in unnecessary shortages.
He has prioritized financial aid to large companies over aid to states and localities.
He stockpiled supplies at the federal level, bidding against states, without a cogent plan for distributing them to the states as needed and reportedly sending them to whomever spoke to or flattered him or Kushner.
He didn’t mandate masks and repeatedly said and demonstrated that they aren’t important, instead holding rallies, and time and again appearing in televised press conferences with others in a manner that flouts social distancing and mask wearing.
He didn’t allow scientists to speak at his televised daily briefings and instead spread misinformation about the severity of the pandemic and “how well” we’re doing.
He minimized the importance of and sought to reduce testing and tracking.
He implicitly and explicitly threatened scientists who tried to level with the public by expressing or implying by leak or tweet the vulnerability of their positions to his whims (Fauci) or by exiling them to travel for information sessions (Birx) which has most likely restricted the flow of accurate information to the public.
He recommended hydroxychloroquine and suggested treatment by light and cleansers such Clorox.
He pressured the FDA to authorize the use of convalescent blood plasma, skipping trials and full analysis of data.
He recommended schools and the economy open universally instead of setting federal standards for the number of cases or other criteria required to do so. (And I believe he has threatened to reduce or eliminate federal aid to school districts that don’t fully offer in-person school regardless of their numbers.)
He calls it the China flu, endangering Asian Americans.

Here is another list largely based on an excellent article by Ed Yong in the Atlantic.

Summary. The richest country in the world still lacks sufficient testing to accurately count its sick citizens and to initiate effective contact tracing. Chronic underfunding of public health neutered the nation’s ability to prevent the pathogen’s spread.
We should have seen this coming. In recent decades, epidemics of SARS, MERS, Ebola, H1N1 flu, Zika, and monkeypox showed the havoc that new and reemergent pathogens could wreak. Health experts, business leaders, and even middle schoolers ran simulated exercises to game out the spread of new diseases. Back in 2018 Ed Young warned us in the Atlantic about the fragility of the nation’s health-care system and our poor state of preparation for a pandemic. COVID‑19 is merely a harbinger of worse plagues to come. The U.S. cannot prepare for these inevitable crises if it returns to normal, as many of us ache to do.
Isolationism. Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has withdrawn from several international partnerships and antagonized its allies. It has a seat on the WHO’s executive board, but left that position empty, only filling it this May, when the pandemic was in full swing. Since 2017, Trump has pulled more than 30 staffers out of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s office in China, who could have warned about the spreading coronavirus. Last July, he defunded an American epidemiologist embedded within China’s CDC. America First was America oblivious.
Trump’s dismissal of expertise and evidence. He filled his administration with inexperienced newcomers, while depicting career civil servants as part of a “deep state.” In 2018, he dismantled an office that had been assembled specifically to prepare for nascent pandemics. American intelligence agencies warned about the coronavirus threat in January, but Trump habitually disregards intelligence briefings. The secretary of health and human services, Alex Azar, offered similar counsel, and was ignored.
Early missteps. “By early February, we should have triggered a series of actions, precisely zero of which were taken.” Trump could have spent those crucial early weeks mass-producing tests to detect the virus, asking companies to manufacture protective equipment and ventilators. Instead, he focused on the border. Travel bans are woefully inefficient at restricting either travel or viruses. They prompt people to seek indirect routes via third-party countries, or to deliberately hide their symptoms. They are often porous: Trump’s included numerous exceptions,
Misleading the public. Genetic evidence shows that the specific viruses that triggered the first big outbreaks, in Washington State, didn’t land until mid-February. The country could have used the time between January and mid-February to prepare. Instead, Trump, assured Americans that “the coronavirus is very much under control,” and “like a miracle, it will disappear.” On February 26, Trump asserted that cases were “going to be down to close to zero.” Over the next two months, at least 1 million Americans were infected.
Testing debacle. The CDC developed and distributed its own diagnostic tests in late January. These proved useless because of a faulty chemical component. Tests were in such short supply, and the criteria for getting them were so laughably stringent, that by the end of February, tens of thousands of Americans had likely been infected but only hundreds had been tested. Private labs were strangled by FDA bureaucracy. It’s hard to overstate how thoroughly the testing debacle incapacitated the U.S. People with debilitating symptoms couldn’t find out what was wrong with them. Health officials couldn’t cut off chains of transmission by identifying people who were sick and asking them to isolate themselves.
Superspreader events at indoor gatherings. The odds of catching the virus from an infected person are roughly 19 times higher indoors than in open air. Among crowds clustered in prolonged proximity, the coronavirus ran rampant in the conference rooms of a Boston hotel, the cabins of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, and a church hall in Washington State where a choir practiced for just a few hours. The hardest hit were prisons and nursing homes: as of mid-June, nursing homes accounted for 40 percent of coronavirus deaths. That includes both residents and staff. Before the pandemic, three in four nursing homes were understaffed, and four in five had recently been cited for failures in infection control. A Seattle nursing home was one of the first COVID‑19 hot spots, but similar facilities weren’t provided with tests and personal protective equipment. Rather than girding these facilities against the pandemic, the Department of Health and Human Services paused nursing-home inspections in March, passing the buck to the states.
No priority for the public healthcare system. “Especially in the beginning, we catered our entire [COVID‑19] response to the 20 percent of people who required hospitalization, rather than preventing transmission in the community.” The latter is the job of the public-health system, which prevents sickness in populations instead of merely treating it in individuals. That system pairs uneasily with a national temperament that views health as a matter of personal responsibility rather than a collective good. “As public health did its job, it became a target” of budget cuts, says Lori Freeman, the CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. Today, the U.S. spends just 2.5 percent of its gigantic health-care budget on public health. Underfunded health departments are also struggling to deal with opioid addiction, climbing obesity rates, contaminated water, and easily preventable diseases. Since the last recession, in 2009, chronically strapped local health departments have lost 55,000 jobs—a quarter of their workforce.
Pandemic preparedness. The US profit-driven healthcare system has scant incentive to invest in spare beds, stockpiled supplies, peacetime drills, and layered contingency plans—the essence of pandemic preparedness. America’s hospitals have been pruned and stretched by market forces to run close to full capacity, with little ability to adapt in a crisis.
Face masks and PPE fiasco. About half of the world’s face masks, are made in China, some of them in Hubei province. When that region became the pandemic epicenter, the mask supply shriveled just as global demand spiked. The Trump administration turned to the Strategic National Stockpile, only to find that the 100 million respirators and masks that had been dispersed during the 2009 flu pandemic were never replaced. Just 13 million respirators were left. In April, four in five frontline nurses said they didn’t have enough protective equipment. Some solicited donations from the public, or navigated back-alley deals and internet scams. In April, four in five frontline nurses said they didn’t have enough protective equipment. Some solicited donations from the public, or navigated a morass of back-alley deals and internet scams. The federal government could have mitigated those problems by buying supplies at economies of scale and distributing them according to need. Instead, in March, Trump told America’s governors to “try getting it yourselves.” As usual, health care was a matter of capitalism and connections. In New York, rich hospitals bought their way out of their protective-equipment shortfall, while neighbors in poorer, more diverse parts of the city rationed their supplies.
Delayed action led to more deaths. Trump finally declared a national emergency on March 13, and before governors and mayors subsequently issued formal stay-at-home orders, or closed schools, shops, and restaurants. A study showed that the U.S. could have averted 36,000 COVID‑19 deaths if leaders had enacted social-distancing measures just a week earlier.
Delayed action led to economic disaster. The indiscriminate lockdown was necessary only because America’s leaders wasted months of prep time. Deploying this blunt policy instrument came at enormous cost. Unemployment rose to 14.7 percent, the highest level since record-keeping began, in 1948. More than 26 million people lost their jobs, a catastrophe in a country that ties health care to employment.
The social safety net. The dismantling of America’s social safety net left Black people with less income and higher unemployment. They make up a disproportionate share of the low-paid “essential workers” who were expected to staff grocery stores and warehouses, clean buildings, and deliver mail while the pandemic raged around them. Earning hourly wages without paid sick leave, they couldn’t afford to miss shifts even when symptomatic. They faced risky commutes on crowded public transportation.
Distribution of information. Distribution of accurate information is an important defense against an epidemic’s spread. The largely unregulated, social-media-based communications infrastructure almost ensures that misinformation will proliferate fast. In fact, an infodemic of falsehoods spread alongside the actual virus. For example, in March, a small and severely flawed French study suggested that the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine could treat COVID‑19. Published in a minor journal, it likely would have been ignored a decade ago. But in 2020, it wended its way to Donald Trump via a chain of credulity that included Fox News, Elon Musk, and Dr. Oz. Trump spent months touting the drug as a miracle cure despite mounting evidence to the contrary, causing shortages for people who actually needed it to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
Lack of leadership in a pandemic. During a pandemic, leaders must rally the public, tell the truth, and speak clearly and consistently. Instead, Trump repeatedly contradicted public-health experts, his scientific advisers, and himself. He said that “nobody ever thought a thing like [the pandemic] could happen” and also that he “felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” No one should be shocked that a liar who has made almost 20,000 false or misleading claims during his presidency would lie about whether the U.S. had the pandemic under control; that a racist who gave birth to birtherism would do little to stop a virus that was disproportionately killing Black people; that a xenophobe who presided over the creation of new immigrant-detention centers would order meatpacking plants with a substantial immigrant workforce to remain open; that a cruel man devoid of empathy would fail to calm fearful citizens; that a narcissist who cannot stand to be upstaged would refuse to tap the deep well of experts at his disposal; that a scion of nepotism would hand control of a shadow coronavirus task force to his unqualified son-in-law; that an armchair polymath would claim to have a “natural ability” at medicine and display it by wondering out loud about the curative potential of injecting disinfectant; that an egotist incapable of admitting failure would try to distract from his greatest one by blaming China, defunding the WHO, and promoting miracle drugs; or that a president who has been shielded by his party from any shred of accountability would say, when asked about the lack of testing, “I don’t take any responsibility at all.” A pandemic demands the coordinated efforts of dozens of agencies. “In the best circumstances, it’s hard to make the bureaucracy move quickly,” per Ron Klain. “It moves if the president stands on a table and says, ‘Move quickly.’ But it really doesn’t move if he’s sitting at his desk saying it’s not a big deal.”
Trump has corrupted the CDC. On February 25, the agency’s respiratory-disease chief, Nancy Messonnier, shocked people by raising the possibility of school closures and saying that “disruption to everyday life might be severe.” Trump was reportedly enraged. In response, he seems to have benched the entire agency. The CDC led the way in every recent domestic disease outbreak and has been the inspiration and template for public-health agencies around the world. But during the three months when some 2 million Americans contracted COVID‑19 and the death toll topped 100,000, the agency didn’t hold a single press conference. Its detailed guidelines on reopening the country were shelved for a month while the White House released its own uselessly vague plan.
Trump never rallied the country. Despite declaring himself a “wartime president,” he merely presided over a culture war, turning public health into yet another politicized cage match. Abetted by supporters in the conservative media, he framed measures that protect against the virus, from masks to social distancing, as liberal and anti-American. Armed anti-lockdown protesters demonstrated at government buildings while Trump egged them on, urging them to “LIBERATE” Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia. Several public-health officials left their jobs over harassment and threats.

Trump’s Science Denialism

David Posnett — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 19:32:34 +0000

“People don’t seem to understand that public health is a critical element of national security,” said Randall Larsen, a retired Air Force colonel.

“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead”. —THOMAS PAINE

In just over three years the Trump administration has decisively diminished the influence of science in its priorities and policies.

Throughout his time in office Mr.Trump has proposed sweeping budget cuts at a variety of science based federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation among others.

In 2017, he cut Health and Human Services (HHS) funding, which oversees the Center for Disease Control (CDC), by 18%, Already considered “woefully” underfunded by many, CDC funding has been cut every successive year.

.—In 2018 he shut down the National Security Council’s Pandemic Preparedness & Global Health Security Office which was charged with preparing for when, not if, another pandemic would hit the nation. The elimination of this office, along with Trump’s proposed budget cuts for the CDC, suggests that he saw the fact based pandemic threats not worth his attention.

He shut down the National Guideline Clearinghouse (NCG) which informed the nations health care system on current medical advances along with science based practice guidelines.

In 2019 he ignored a joint HHS/FEMA/DHS exercise termed “Crimson Contagion Simulation”

which anticipated gross health care infrastructure preparedness problems, shortages of medical supplies, overwhelmed hospitals, and economic deterioration.

Three months before Covid-19 went global Trump ended the Pandemic Early Warning System (PREDICT).

in January and February, alone He was warned over a dozen times by researchers of a potential global pandemic and ensuing national security threat.

He calls the Pandemic the “Democrat’s new hoax…It is what it is…It’ll just go away…We’re in great shape…Don’t believe what you see…!”

Meanwhile Trump abruptly dismissed Nancy Messonie MD, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, for declaring the immanent dangers of Covid-19 and then demoted Dr. Rick Bright, one of the nation’s leading vaccine specialists, from the National Institute of Health. Their critical messaging, heralding science for the common good, clashed with Trump’s myopic political and economic priorities.

Our country is sorely reeling from this administration’s astounding and dangerous ignorance and incompetence.

To date over 175000 Americans, have fallen to Covid-19 largely due to failed, if not absent, leadership.

Last April Trump announced defunding the World Health Organization. We still have no national testing plan, no protective equipment distribution plan.

Trump’s science denialism reflects on this entire Republican party. All GOP candidates supporting this ruinous administration are accountable and should be definitively removed from office.

We need more Science and expertise in Government:
Vote Nancy Goroff PHD to replace Lee Zeldin (R).

James Ewing, Water Mill, NY

Complete Lee Zeldin Environmental Voting Record

David Posnett — Wed, 08 Jul 2020 20:00:03 +0000

Lee Zeldin’s League of Conservation Voters (LCV) score for 2019 was 28%. This seems like an improvement from his scores from prior years, which hovered around 10%, but to put things in perspective: The average Member of Congress score in 2019 was 56%, twice Zeldin’s, and true friends of the environment routinely score in the 90’s or even 100%.

Zeldin’s lifetime score, covering all 3 of his terms in Congress, remains a dismal 13%.

Since our last update, in August 2019, Zeldin voted 5 times to preserve or expand the rights of fossil fuel interests to explore and drill: Off the Gulf Coast of Florida, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, near Chaco Canyon National Park, near the Grand Canyon, and in 200,000 acres of Colorado Wilderness. He also voted to permit seismic air gun blasting (for oil and gas exploration) that harms marine mammals.

Also since our last update, Zeldin voted against closing a loophole in the Clean Water Act that allows companies to discharge unlimited amounts of toxic PFAS (also known as “forever chemicals”) into our nation’s waterways, and Zeldin voted in favor of the Trump North American trade deal that completely failed to address climate change.

On the other hand, since our last update and sometimes in seemingly contradictory fashion, Zeldin voted to ban oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, to impose a moratorium on seismic blasting off the Atlantic Coast, to ban all trade in shark fins and to increase some regulation of PFAS in drinking water and consumer products.

Full details can be found in the linked Complete Lee Zeldin Environmental Voting Record Spreadsheet. https://www.facebook.com/notes/lets-visit-lee-zeldin/complete-lee-zeldin-environmental-voting-record/1703500749943694/

By Marc Rauch and Suzi Kondic, see post on Facebook

And here is the prior post from 2017:

Complete Lee Zeldin Environmental Voting Record

Zeldin’s Anti-Vaxxer Donor

David Posnett — Mon, 11 May 2020 20:40:05 +0000

Zeldin’s Anti-Vaxxer Donor Joins Reopen Protests, Opposes Any Future COVID-19 Vaccine

Does Lee Zeldin agree with risking New Yorkers lives?

As Governor Cuomo prepares a statewide plan to reopen safely, Lee Zeldin donor and staunch anti-vaccine advocate Rita Palma joined calls to press Governor Cuomo to end the state’s stay-at-home order early. This comes as COVID continues to ravage New York and especially Long Island where the death toll now exceeds 3,000 with over 70,000 positive cases and rising.

Zeldin’s donor not only attended the dangerous, unpopular protests, but she expressed her total opposition to any future COVID-19 vaccine. In a recent feature, the New York Times pointed out that Palma’s anti-public health rhetoric “could further harm the country’s response to the pandemic.”

Zeldin received $2,000 in contributions from Palma last year alone. And it’s clear why: Zeldin voted against supporting efforts to fight vaccine misinformation last year. And he has not disowned the anti-vaccination movement nor the protests to reopen the state against the advice of health experts.

“While Long Islanders grapple with the ongoing public health and economic crisis, Lee Zeldin’s donor was busy ignoring social distancing guidelines and encouraging New Yorkers to take dangerous public health risks,” said DCCC Spokesperson Christine Bennett. “Given the Congressman’s vote against fighting vaccine misinformation, constituents deserve to know where Zeldin stands on risking New Yorkers lives.”

For Immediate Release: May 11, 2020. Christine Bennett.

See previous posts on anti-vaxxers:

https://resistancesuffolk.blog/2020/01/05/anti-science-movements/

https://resistancesuffolk.blog/2020/01/18/debunking-anti-vaxxers/

Coronavirus Kills Men More than Women. Why?

David Posnett — Wed, 15 Apr 2020 02:36:49 +0000

In Italy, men made up nearly 60 percent of people with confirmed cases of the coronavirus and more than 70 percent of those who died of COVID-19. In China men and women were infected in roughly equal numbers, but the death rate among men was 2.8 percent, compared with 1.7 percent among women. The same applies to South Korea and numerous other countries. In New York City, men are dying at nearly twice the rate of women. As of recently, men made up 59 percent of overall hospitalizations in New York City and 62 percent of fatalities. In 13 states with sufficient death numbers for analysis, men died more frequently than women.

Men were also disproportionately affected by SARS and MERS, caused by related, but different coronaviruses. For SARS, in Hong Kong in 2003, the case-fatality ratio was 13.2 % for women and 22.3 % for men. Also, 32% of men with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) died, compared with 25.8% of women.

The question is: Why?

At first, risk factors were blamed. For instance, smoking rates among men exceed those among women in much of the world. 2% of Chinese women smoke, compared with more than 50% of Chinese men.

Chinese men also have higher rates of Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure than Chinese women, both of which increase the risk of complications following infection with the coronavirus causing COVID-19 (SARS Cov2). Rates of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are almost twice as high among Chinese men as among women.

Women are more proactive about seeking health care than men. Since the start of the outbreak, public health officials have emphasized the importance of washing hands to prevent infection. But studies have found that men — even health care workers — are less likely to wash their hands or to use soap than women. While these 2 considerations might affect the number of diagnoses made and perhaps the rate of hospitalization, they are unlikely to affect mortality in my view.

Moreover, rates of smoking in the US are quite similar comparing men to women (unlike in China): in 2015, 16.7 percent of adult males and 13.6 percent of adult females smoked cigarettes in US. Yet the death rate from COVID-19 is clearly much higher among US men compared to US women.

Let’s consider biological differences. Women have more robust immune systems, some scientists have noted, which helps to fight off infections, although it does make them more prone to autoimmune disorders.

When it comes to mounting an immune response against infections, men are apparently the weaker sex. “This is a pattern we’ve seen with many viral infections of the respiratory tract — men can have worse outcomes,” says Sabra Klein PhD, a scientist who studies sex differences in viral infections and vaccination responses at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Says Dr. Klein: “We’ve seen this with other viruses. Women fight them off better. Women also produce stronger immune responses after vaccinations, and have enhanced memory immune responses.”

SARS, influenza, Ebola and HIV viruses all affect men and women differently.

Here are some tantalizing findings:

A recent research paper from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, using plasma of 331 confirmed coronavirus patients, found that in the most severe cases, women had higher levels of antibodies than men.
For almost all infectious diseases, women are able to mount a stronger immune response then men. Women with acute HIV infections have 40 percent less viral genetic material in their blood than men. Women are less susceptible to the viruses that cause hepatitis B and C. Men infected with coxsackie virus (which can infect the heart) are twice as likely to die of the disease than women.
Female birds show higher antibody responses to infection than males, especially during mating season. The immune cells that eat up microbes and cellular debris are less active in male lizards than in their female counterparts.
Some 60 genes involved in immune function are located on the X chromosome (according to Dr. Sabra Klein). Genetic females have two of these molecules — one from their mother, one from their father — whereas genetic males have only one. When there are two copies of a gene, one copy is often turned off. But as many as a quarter of X-linked genes can escape this inactivation, giving women a “double dosage” of the genetic instructions needed to fight disease.
One such gene codes for a protein called “toll-like receptor 7,” This receptor recognizes strands of viral RNA (the Coronavirus is an RNA virus)
Generally, female immune cells respond faster and more powerfully to viral attacks, producing higher amounts of interferons — proteins that stop viruses from replicating — as well as antibodies that neutralize the virus
Testosterone, has been shown to tamp down inflammation. Estrogen, meanwhile, can bind to immune cells and activate the production of disease-fighting molecules.
A recent study demonstrates a direct role for estrogen signaling in limiting influenza virus replication in nasal epithelial cells derived from humans
ACE2 is a receptor for SARS Cov2. It allows the virus to gain access and infect cells. ACE2 is regulated differently in men and in women.
Experiments published in 2017, in which mice were exposed to the SARS virus (SARS Cov), showed that male mice developed SARS at lower viral exposures, had a lower immune response and were slower to clear the virus from their bodies. They suffered more lung damage and died at higher rates – see the graph below! When researchers blocked estrogen in the infected female mice or removed their ovaries, they were more likely to die, but blocking testosterone in male mice made no difference, indicating that estrogen may play a protective role.

Solid squares are female mice; open squares are male mice. 12 days after infection, 80% of female mice and only 10% of male mice were still alive. 5000 PFU is the dose of virus used to infect each mouse (PFU = Plaque Forming Unit)

Despite all of this, the coronavirus vaccine trials underway in the U.S. aren’t really considering sex yet, according to Dr. Klein. If past experience holds up, vaccines will be more effective in women than in men!