Tag: climate change

Heatwave Safety

Post author By Hunter Marion
Post date September 13, 2023

Photo credit: Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

By Leila Waid.

September is kicking into high gear, which means the summer season has ended, and fall is just around the corner. While summer is usually known for warm, sunny days that are perfect for vacations, this summer was quite different for many individuals worldwide. Why? Because of the overwhelming heatwaves caused by climate change. According to NASA, new temperature highs were reached this season that the world had never seen before.

This extreme heat reflects on population health and our ability to cope. According to the CDC, between August 20-26 alone, 1,509 out of every 100,000 emergency room visits were due to heat stress in the Midwest. Specifically, the states with the highest heat-related ER visits were Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, and Nebraska. In 2022, a massive heat wave killed over 61,600 individuals in Europe. And a much higher proportion of those deaths were women (more than 35,000 deaths among women compared to 21,600 among men.) This staggering statistic showcases that women are more vulnerable to the effects of heat stress (due to different physiological functions – such as proportionately higher body fat). Thus, addressing heat waves is not only a climate change issue but also a gender equality issue.

How can we address climate change-induced heat in our communities? One excellent resource to use for a variety of climate change work is the EJScreen tool from the EPA. Although this does not focus specifically on heat, it provides a great overview of the US and various climate change issues. The mapping tool offers census-tract data on the most vulnerable populations and neighborhoods projected to be impacted by climate change. If you work in environmental justice, this is a great asset to pinpoint vulnerable populations and allocate resources efficiently. Even if you are not working in a climate-related capacity, this information is still beneficial to have on hand!

Another resource to utilize is the CDC’s Heat and Health Tracker. The agency also has a resource page on how to provide assistance to a wide variety of vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women and outdoor workers, during a heat wave.

You can also directly work to protect your communities from heat-induced illness and death by advocating for change at a local level. For example, ask your local government leaders about their emergency plans for heat waves or other climate-induced natural disaster events. And if they do not have any in place, advocate for change! Also, you can educate them about the benefits of Green Infrastructure and how it can make your communities more resilient to natural disasters, such as droughts from a heatwave. The EPA provides a Resource Guide for Green Infrastructure for a wide variety of weather scenarios.

Becoming familiar with these various tools is beneficial because, no matter what work you do in the environmental justice field, climate change will impact you and your communities in some form. One of the best ways to protect your communities is to be as prepared as possible when next summer rolls around!

Tags climate change, climate data, heatwave

Backyard Talk Homepage

We’re All Vulnerable to Climate Change

Post author By Hunter Marion
Post date July 26, 2023

Photo credit: *AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus*

By Leila Waid.

2023 has already brought many climate change-related natural disasters. From the wildfires in Canada that covered the U.S. in particulate pollution, to the record-breaking heat waves gripping many parts of the world, this year has shown how our lives will continue to be impacted. It is important to recognize that the climate change events we are experiencing today are already having a profound impact on our health.

The individuals most impacted by these events are those most vulnerable to death or illness. These include individuals with underlying health issues, such as cardiovascular disease, the elderly, and children under five-years-old. All these groups are at an increased risk of adverse health effects from the extreme heat and air pollution because of their impaired physiology. For example, elderly individuals cannot regulate their body temperature efficiently and face higher risk of heat stress. As for poor air quality associated with wildfire smoke, young children are at high risk because they breathe in more air in proportion to their body. When they breathe in PM 2.5 (particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter), it creates greater damage to their organs.

Other vulnerable groups that have been affected by this year’s climate change-related events include those who have higher levels of exposure to the natural elements. This category includes individuals who work in occupational fields that require a lot of time spent outside, such as agricultural and construction workers, and those who are house-insecure or unhoused. If individuals are forced to be outside during days of extreme heat or air pollution, they are going to be much more vulnerable in experiencing health effects.

Deaths associated with heat waves are also difficult to measure and are prone to underreporting because they are often not properly categorized. For example, if someone died of a heart attack but the underlying cause was heat stress, it might not officially be contributed to the heat wave on the death certificate. As a result, it is hard to quantify what the societal and public health impacts of the current heat waves are going to be or how many excess deaths they will cause. Most likely, the official number is going to be a drastic underestimate. The same is true for air pollution. The effects felt from Canada’s wildfires could be severe and chronic but not easily measured.

What can you do to address climate-induced heat stress and air pollution in your neighborhood? At the local level, it’s important to advocate for what your community can do to increase adaptation technicities and strengthen community resilience against climate change. Examples of an adaptation technique could be fighting to create more green infrastructure, shaded areas, and cooling stations in urban areas. At the larger state and federal level, it is important to vote for politicians who make addressing climate change as part of their campaign, messaging, and actual policy work.

Tags 2023, air pollution, climate change, climate change events, Health Impacts, heat waves, particulate matter, smog, Wildfires

Backyard Talk Homepage

Climate Change Worsens Toxic Exposures

Post author By Hunter Marion
Post date April 26, 2023

Flooded neighborhood — Photo credit: AP/ Jason Dearen

By Leila Waid.

Climate change is one of the leading environmental challenges facing our world today. This will wreak havoc on all aspects of society and in some instances it already has from increasing droughts and wildfires to stronger storms and hurricanes. But one consequence of climate change that gets overlooked is its effects on toxic waste sites.

Toxic waste sites are those where the waste disposed is dangerous to human health. Waste is defined as being hazardous when it “may leach hazardous concentrations of toxic substances into the environment when disposed.” The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies such hazardous locations as a Superfund site. Currently, there are 1,336 active Superfund sites – meaning there is still toxic waste present at the site. There are also 38 proposed locations that could become a Superfund site.

These Superfund sites can be found in almost every state, excluding only North Dakota. The Northeast region of the country has the highest concentration of waste sites – with New Jersey coming in at number 1 with a total of 115 sites. On the West Coast, California has the most at 96 sites.

How can climate change impact all these different waste sites? One example is that flooding and heavy rain can free debris from coal operations that would then contaminate the groundwater in surrounding areas. That contamination can then further spread through storm surges or rising sea levels. After that has happened it becomes more difficult to track and clean the toxins.

Wildfires are another concern for toxic waste sites. For example, California has a Superfund site with extremely high levels of asbestos. A “worst-case” scenario for this site includes a scenario where the wildfire smoke carries off the asbestos to hundreds of miles away – impacting thousands of people in the vicinity who might inhale the toxin-contaminated smoke.

What can you do to act on this issue today? Contact your representative and let them know you support bill H.R. 1444, titled Preparing Superfund for Climate Change Act of 2023. The bill would require that clean-up efforts consider the impacts of climate change when deciding the proper clean-up techniques.

Tags climate change, exposure, flooding, Superfund, toxins

Toxic Tuesdays

Wildfires

Post author By Hunter Marion
Post date February 6, 2023

Toxic Tuesdays

CHEJ highlights several toxic chemicals and the communities fighting to keep their citizens safe from harm.

< Back to Toxic Tuesdays

Wildfires

With news of the massive wildfire outside California’s Yosemite Park covering over 18,000 acres of land in June 2022, we wanted to talk about the problems associated with forest fires and pollution. Wildfires are destructive in their own right but are not what one would typically consider a source of pollution. Fires serve many natural purposes – they clear dead organic materials from forests and return valuable nutrients to the soil for instance. But when they reach large proportions and burn uncontrollably, they can release a number of air pollutants that decrease air quality and can cause significant health problems in nearby communities.

A number of air pollutants can be released from wildfires. Heavy metals like lead, zinc, and manganese have been found in elevated levels in the air and in the soil after wildfires, especially in areas that contained man-made buildings and other structures. Nitrogen oxides, a widespread air pollutant that has national air quality standards for indoor air, can be released in significant quantities during a forest fire. These chemicals can cause several respiratory problems such as increased inflammation of the airways, cough and wheezing, and reduced lung function.

Perhaps the most serious health threats from forest fire pollution comes in the form of particulate matter pollution. Particulate matter is a mix of very tiny solid and liquid particles suspended in air. These particles range in size but can be so small that they can enter a person’s lungs and remain lodged deep inside them. The health effects associated with this form of pollution are similar to those of nitrogen oxides. Short term effects such as eye, nose, throat, and lung irritation; coughing; sneezing; runny nose; and shortness of breath are common. In the long-term, severe effects like chronic bronchitis, reduced lung function and increased mortality from lung cancer and heart disease have been observed.

The drought currently being experienced by California and much of the continental US is fueling fires like the one outside Yosemite, and we can only expect more in the future. Climate change driven by human activity is creating these drought conditions and in turn making wildfires like this one much more common occurrences. The pollution created by these fires in turn will affect those that cannot afford to move to avoid it, who more often than not are low-income and minority communities. We need to be conscious that the emission of greenhouse gasses by industry is not just a problem that will affect us and our children in the future, but is something that is killing people now.

Learn about more toxics

Benzidine

Pyrethrins are a class of naturally occurring compounds derived from chrysanthemum flowers. They have been

Pyrethrins

Pyrethrins are a class of naturally occurring compounds derived from chrysanthemum flowers. They have been

Hydraulic Fracturing

Hydraulic fracturing (commonly known as fracking) is a technique that uses pressurized liquid to fracture

Carbon Disulfide

Carbon disulfide is a colorless liquid chemical that readily evaporates at room temperature. It occurs

Tags climate change, environmental disaster

Toxic Tuesdays

Flooding

Post author By Hunter Marion
Post date February 6, 2023

Toxic Tuesdays

CHEJ highlights several toxic chemicals and the communities fighting to keep their citizens safe from harm.

< Back to Toxic Tuesdays

Flooding

Massive flooding in the state of Kentucky in late July 2022 claimed the lives of 38 people – yet another example of extreme weather events driven by the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels. We touched upon this broad issue in a previous Toxic Tuesday about the wildfires that scorched the state of California not long ago. This edition will analyze the problem of massive flooding from the perspective of toxics.

The flooding in Kentucky on its own has had devastating consequences in the region – personal property was lost or damaged, access to clean water was scarce, and poor sanitary conditions lead to a rise in diseases in the affected population. However, another major problem to the region’s health was not talked about much or even quantified; the problem of potential leaks, spills, or accidental releases of chemicals from facilities that handle or house these chemicals.

CHEJ tried to quantify this problem in the eastern part of Kentucky. This effort, lead by our intern Hunter Marion, utilized EPA’s EJ Screen database to look at the 17 counties in eastern Kentucky that were hit the hardest. Within these counties, we wanted to determine if there was an unusually large number of chemical facilities that could be susceptible to flooding, and how close they were to the population centers. We defined these facilities as:

Facilities that are required by law to have Risk Management Plans (RMPs) to guard against chemical leaks or spills due to extreme weather events
Hazardous waste facilities (including hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal facilities)
Underground storage tank facilities
Wastewater discharge facilities

Our analysis could not yield a definite number of chemical facilities or their exact distance from the populated areas. However, we were able to use the EJ screen to place each of the 17 affected counties into a percentile of the overall US population with regards to proximity to chemical facilities. This will become clearer with an example.

In the chart above, the population of Bell County (far right) is in the 84th percentile in terms of proximity to an RMP facility. This means that, on average, a person living in Bell County is closer to an RMP facility than 84% of the US population. To put it in another way, only 16% of the US population live closer to an RMP facility than a resident of Bell County, on average.

Similar conclusions can be drawn from the following charts:

We can see across the board that a few counties continuously rank high among proximity to chemical facilities as we have defined them. Bell County is the largest offender with its average resident being closer to hazardous waste facilities than 79% of the rest of the US, closer to underground storage tanks than 64% of the rest of the US, and closer to wastewater discharging facilities than 98% of the US. Clay, Knott, and Harlan counties follow closely.

These relatively high numbers mean that residents in eastern Kentucky where flooding was at its most damaging are comparatively closer to facilities that can spill, leak, or accidentally release dangerous chemicals than the average person in the US. This should alert authorities to do something, given that the area is prone to flooding.