Month: June 2023

Could Malaria be Coming Back to America?

Above, CBS News makes climate connection to recent malaria outbreak.

Vox:

In late May, Sarasota County, Florida, health officials confirmed they had identified a case of locally transmitted malaria. In mid-June, they confirmed the second. On June 23, Texas joined in: its state health department announced it had confirmed a case of local malaria transmission in Cameron County.

This is all highly unusual. The US hasn’t documented a locally acquired malaria case in 20 years.

Although about 2,000 people infected with malaria turn up in the US health care system every year, those cases are all linked to travel outside the US. Neither those involved in the Florida cases nor the Texas case had traveled. That means in both states, the infection was acquired within US borders. 

Experts say the three cases shouldn’t warrant panic about widespread malaria transmission in the US. But it does warrant asking some questions, and being wary of the threat of more local transmission. Mosquitoes can infect multiple people before a full-on outbreak is even identified — so more cases could be out there.

Even if this turns out not to be widespread, it’s a good reminder: Malaria could make a comeback in the US, and we — and our public health infrastructure — ought to be prepared. This is especially true as a changing climate and shifting weather patterns increasingly drive mosquito migration into new places worldwide, allowing malaria to settle in where it hasn’t before.

National Institute of Health:

Although malaria was eradicated from the United States in the early 1950s, it had once been a prevalent disease, especially prior to the 1880s.2 Through-out the nineteenth century, malaria affected most populated regions in the United States, significantly undermining the health of the population and the U.S. economy. Above all, malaria was one of the country’s leading causes of death. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 45.7 out of every 1,000 deaths resulted from malarial fevers in 1850. For infants, children under age five, and people in southern states—all of whom were at the highest risk of contracting malaria—the corresponding number was as high as that for current malaria-endemic countries.3Malaria also ravaged the troops of the Union Army, its fevers killing about 10,000 recruits during the U.S. Civil War.4

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It’s Clear: Gas Generation has Big Reliability Problem

Bloomberg:

In the 15 years since the American fracking boom unleashed a torrent of abundant, cheap and domestically available natural gas, the country has leaned into the fuel — and hard. Hundreds of new, state-of-the-art gas power plants have come online with tens of billions in Wall Street backing in what’s now the biggest gas-producing nation in the world. Given its reputation for low-cost, clean and stable generation, gas dethroned coal in 2016 as the US’s No. 1 source of electricity. This year, it will make up a record 41% of power production, more than solar, wind, hydro and coal combined.

The grid’s newfound reliance on natural gas was for more than a decade hailed as a breakthrough. It’s now one of its biggest vulnerabilities.

Although natural gas is often promoted as a “bridge fuel” to span the transition from coal power to renewable energy, the country’s vast network of gas plants, pipelines and the regulations that govern them was largely built without the realities of extreme weather in mind. Facilities aren’t uniformly winterized, and some rely on a single gas pipeline for supply. Many generators don’t have the ability to burn an alternate fuel or keep back-up gas on hand in case of emergencies. The US has the most sprawling and interconnected gas pipeline network in the world, stoking complacency that the fuel will always be there when needed. But increasingly it’s not, contributing to more than seven hours of power interruptions for US households on average in 2021, more than double the rate reported in 2013.

Because the American gas system operates with just-in-time delivery in mind, it’s hard to adapt when a climate calamity hits, especially in winter. Eventually, the country will utilize less natural gas amid the shift to renewables, but it relies heavily on the fuel in the meantime. And since even the newest gas plants are at risk of becoming obsolete once the transition to clean energy is complete, it’s hard to get the support to build more pipelines and the other key infrastructure that’s needed to shore things up.

That’s the takeaway from more than two dozen interviews with traders, regulators and power-plant operators, many of whom weren’t allowed to talk publicly because of $1.8 billion in pending fines for generators that failed this past winter on America’s biggest grid.

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Brutal Heat and Poisoned Air. Well, What Did You Think Climate Change Would Look Like?

Well, what did you think it was going to look like?
Like fucking Blade Runner, that’s what. Might as well enjoy the movie, it’s going to be a long one.

Climate Denier: “Climate change? We’ll just adapt.”
Earth: Adapt to this, you little monsters

The Politics of Dread: What Effect from Climate-Fueled Poisonous Haze in Heartland Battlegrounds?

Above, Fox Weather reporting on wildfire smoke extremes spreading over Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.
Sounds like a map of Battleground States to me.

Suspect political pros might notice.

Nature Communications, August 2022 – Americans experience a false social reality by underestimating popular climate policy support by nearly half :

“..80–90% of Americans underestimate the prevalence of support for major climate change mitigation policies and climate concern. While 66–80% Americans support these policies, Americans estimate the prevalence to only be between 37–43% on average.”

Bloomberg:

The first step in solving a problem is recognizing you have one. And indeed, most Americans say they know we’re facing a monumental climate threat. They just need to be convinced that other people tend to feel exactly the same way and that they have the power to do something about it. 

With every disaster-filled year, it becomes easier to convince people that the climate is turning against them. As we speak, tens of millions of Americans from Texas to Florida are suffering under relentless record heat and humidity. After years of being wracked by climate-fueled disasters from heat waves to hurricanes, solid majorities of voters in even reliably conservative Texas and Florida believe climate change is real and requires more action, according to recent polls.

The results are consistent with public opinion across the US, including in states that haven’t been quite as besieged by catastrophe. In the relatively cool swing state of Michigan, for example, a poll this spring by advocacy group Climate Power found that nearly two-thirds of registered voters agree that climate change is real and that something should be done about it. 

Recent events presumably reinforced those views. In the past few days, Michigan and neighboring states have been choking on smoke from record-smashing wildfires in Canada. The air quality in Detroit as of this writing is “very unhealthy,” according to the EPA.

Individual heat waves and wildfires aren’t necessarily caused by climate change, but a warming planet makes them more likely and more intense. These repercussions will only get worse as we burn more fossil fuels and spew more carbon into the atmosphere. 

The Sunbelt states most at risk of climate catastrophe have also been the country’s fastest-growing areas for the past several years. People have come seeking jobs, affordable lifestyles or maybe just an end to shoveling snow and having to talk to Democrats. Now natural disasters are making their lives more difficult and less affordable. Merely insuring a house in these states has become a challenge.

Continue reading “The Politics of Dread: What Effect from Climate-Fueled Poisonous Haze in Heartland Battlegrounds?”