For Bolivian Farmers, Quinoa Boom Is Both Boon and Bane

Can you kindly advise the course policy for review (Professor or T/A) of drafts before final submission of assignments? I’ve had classes in which it is mandatory, optional, or prohibited. Thank you.

‘Unprecedented’ heat in US, 7,000 records set or tied:

Since March 12, more than 7,000 high temperature records have been equalled or exceeded, Cullen said, citing figures from the US National Climatic Data Center.

The date of first leafing - the day when buds burst open - has moved forward from March 20, where it was during the 30-year period from 1951 to 1980, to March 17, where it has been for the period from 1981 to 2010.

This early wake-up call for plants and animals can have disastrous health consequences, especially for children, said Dr. Aaron Bernstein of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. Pollen counts are breaking records around the US, Bernstein said, noting that allergies cost the US economy between $6bn and $12bn annually.

Asthma, allergies to surge with climate change -

In a new position paper, a 13-member committee from the American Thoracic Society, which represents respiratory physicians, claims that rising global temperatures, spreading desertification and other climate-related problems will bring boosts around the world in the incidence of a range of illnesses, including infectious diseases.

The paper, written by doctors from Europe, Asia, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, traces the ongoing expansion and intensification of diseases around the world and looks at what they may imply as climate impacts strengthen.

“There are certain diseases caused by certain types of parasites or organisms whose range has expanded and that has been associated with increases in temperature,” said Dr. Kent Pinkerton, a co-author of the paper, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California-Davis School of Medicine, and director of the university’s Center for Health and the Environment.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/asthma-allergies-to-surge-with-climate-change-doctors
Related vid below…

Carbon footprint … meet the handprint.

Health Professionals Organize to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Worldwide:

A group of over 30 prominent and respected Deans of Schools of Medicine and Public Health have signed an open letter calling for nuclear weapons abolition. A related scholarly piece titled “A Prescription for Survival: Prevention of Nuclear War,” has been accepted for publication in the March 2012 issue of the prestigious American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

A major study on global impacts of limited nuclear war on agriculture, food supplies, and human nutrition or “Nuclear Famine” will be released within a few months indicating that potentially a billion people would be at risk of starvation from even a limited nuclear exchange in South Asia.

http://www.thelundreport.org/resource/health_professionals_organize_to_abolish_nuclear_weapons_worldwide

Related video of the health consesquences of the Fukushima meltdown on the Japanese people.

Environmental pollutant linked with overweight:

Levels of the environmental pollutant perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) that mothers had in their blood during pregnancy increased the risk of obesity in their daughters at 20 years of age. The findings come from a recent study of Danish women in which the Norwegian Institute of Public Health participated. The study indicates that factors such as environmental pollutants, in addition to diet and physical activity, play a role in the obesity epidemic seen today.

http://www.sciencecodex.com/environmental_pollutant_linked_with_overweight-86476

Ladies - The Air May Impact Your Mind:

Older women exposed to high levels of “particulate matter” [air pollution] over the long term experienced a greater decline in their cognitive functioning, which is how your brain process information. The reduction in cognitive functioning occurred over a four-year period, reported researchers from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Climate change and human health
Human-induced climate change – now deemed by international climate
science to be real, demonstrably underway, and apparently accelerating –
reflects the mounting pressures of human numbers and intensified economic
activity. The existence, and long-term prospect, of risks to human health
provides an important signal as to the profound nature of this extraordinary
phenomenon. This important “signal”, adequately documented and clarified
by health researchers, will reinforce the motivation of governments and their
constituencies to take rapid and radical mitigation actions.
The health risks arise variously from direct stresses (e.g. weather disasters
and heatwaves), altered ecological processes (e.g. changes in infectious
disease patterns, impaired food yields), resource conflict over depleted
resources (water, fertile land, fisheries, etc.) and population displacement.
Low-income and geographically vulnerable populations are at greatest risk.
The risks to health jeopardise the achievement of the Millennium
Development Goals. Those risks will increase over time, and afflict future
generations.
While nations strive to reduce emissions, health-protecting adaptive
strategies are needed, both for current risks and as part of longer-term
planning. Health sector adaptation initiatives should be part of a coordinated
multi-sectoral response that recognizes that protecting human health must
be a central goal of, and reason for, climate stabilization and sustainability.
Indeed, in the agenda-setting 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change, damage to “health and wellbeing” is one of the three categories of
adverse effects that the Convention is intended to address, along with
damage to the natural environment and economic development.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Z5gtjhWJ-3M

Harvard Thinks Green.