H5N1

Philippines: Ghost towns around Taal as frightened thousands flee volcano

Via ABS-CBN News: Ghost towns around Taal as frightened thousands flee volcano. Excerpt:

TALISAY, Batangas -- An ashen beach and toppled trees were all that remained of a popular wedding venue a short boat ride from Taal, one of many areas transformed into ghost towns overnight as thousands fled the volcano's wrath. 

Roads were shrouded in thick gray smoke as evacuees, their heads wrapped in cloth, clambered onto pickup trucks. Markets and offices in city centers were shut with a "hazardous" eruption possible, according to authorities.  

Rains were expected in the ash-covered provinces of Batangas, Cavite, and Laguna, threatening to turn the debris into mud. A state of calamity was declared in Batangas, which will allow authorities there to tap emergency funds and freeze prices of basic goods. 

The ash clouds from Sunday's eruption prompted the overnight closure of Manila's main airport, where some 240 flights were canceled. It reopened at noon with ashfall seen to shift to Quezon province. 

"You could not sleep anymore, because every time you closed your eyes the house would shake," restaurant owner Lia Monteverde told AFP, describing the earthquakes that followed the eruption. 

"All of us didn't sleep at all. We just prepared to leave."  

At Balai Isabel, the popular wedding events venue, ash-covered the beachfront while tires of parked cars and SUVs were caked in mud.

Philippines: Ash blanket stalls travel, markets as thousands flee rumbling Taal

Via ABS-CBN News: Ash blanket stalls travel, markets as thousands flee rumbling Taal. Click or tap through for a video.

TAGAYTAY CITY -- (UPDATE) Gray ash from Taal Volcano blanketed large parts of Southern Luzon and Metro Manila on Monday, shutting the country's main airport overnight, prompting a health advisory, and forcing thousands to flee as authorities kept vigil for a possible hazardous eruption.  

The Ninoy Aquino International Airport reopened for departures at 10 a.m. and arrivals at 12 p.m., aviation authorities said as they managed a throng of passengers at the terminal. 

Relief workers trudged through ash-covered roads with their headlights on at dawn in Agoncillo, Batangas. In the capital, people lined up for face masks, some at 8 times the retail price as they cleaned ash-covered cars and roofs.  

Taal spewed lava on Monday, a day after it blew ash and steam into the air. Alert Level 4, the second-highest in a 5-step scale, was raised, meaning a "hazardous" eruption was possible in days. 

"Napakabilis ng pagbabago ng kanyang kundisyon (The condition is changing very rapidly)," said Phivolcs Director Renato Solidum. 

In a "worst case scenario," Solidum told DZMM that magma could come out of the volcano as it shoots ash and rocks into the air.

Located in the middle of a picturesque lake that straddles the tourist city of Tagaytay and a heritage town of the same name, Taal's last eruption was in 1977, Solidum earlier said.  

Inhaling ash could lead to cough and difficulty and breathing. It could also irritate the eyes, the Department of Health said. The public was also warned about the possibility of roofs caving in due to accumulated ash.

Bushfires: Being pregnant in a climate emergency was an existential challenge

Thanks to Dr. Alexandra Phelan to tweeting the link to this deeply disturbing report in The Guardian: Being pregnant in a climate emergency was an existential challenge. Miscarriage has brought a new grief. Excerpt:

On Boxing Day I had an article published about being pregnant in a climate emergency. It was about the conflicting and contradictory emotions many of us are forced to hold if we choose to take the leap of faith of bringing a child into the world in the midst of climate collapse.  

At the time I wrote that piece, the smoke came and went. Occasionally we caught snippets of blue sky.  

We could still hear birds then. See bees feeding on the summer flowers in our garden.  

Just six days later, the house surrounded by a dense glowing orange fog of smoke, my writing felt both prescient and dated. The birds were gone. Canberra, and the wildlife that lives in the national parks that encircle it, was suffocating. Climate collapse wasn’t a slow-moving force my child and I might gradually see impact our lives. It was here, now. Upon us and immediate.  

That was the day the smoke was the thickest. So thick it shut down the whole city, the airport closed, all roads in and out cut off with fire. It was the first day that felt like sunset from start to finish. A colour we’ve come to think of as “apocalypse orange”. 

When, even though no fire had crossed the borders of the Australian Capital Territory, Canberrans had their cars packed to evacuate. Where everyone clutched their iPhones flicking between the live fire reporting and the live air quality reporting. Back, and forth, back and forth … on and on, we livestreamed the end of the world.

That was also the day before I was due to have a pregnancy ultrasound. Sitting in my bedroom in the orange semi-light at midday I looked at the murky sight outside my window and wondered “What have I done?” At best, I was experiencing the type of prolonged and acute stress that means my baby was flooded with potentially life-altering cortisol hormones and had, despite my best efforts, no doubt been exposed to damaging levels of fine particulates. At the worst, had I created a person who would be born just to watch the world end?  

Perhaps, I thought, I have made a terrible mistake.  

Sitting 600km away in Melbourne as I write this, where the sky is blue and people come and go about their daily life, it’s hard to convey the intensity of living in the middle of a long-running disaster. The world narrows. Your ability to think critically evaporates.  

New daily rituals emerge – wake up, check the fire warnings, check the air quality reading. Get out of bed, check the air purifier. Next, wash brown smoky water out of clothing or animals that have left the sanctuary of the house for any period of time. 

Then go about your day, trapped inside, always with one eye on the live stream. Your social life reduces to rushing from your car inside a friend’s house where you look at the live stream together while externalising your shared internal monolog of “We are not OK. The world is not OK.”  

That next day, at the ultrasound, there was no heartbeat.

Australia bushfires: Sydney air quality hits 1631

I can hardly believe the Oakdale Sydney South-west, Australia Air Pollution: Real-time Air Quality Index for 7:00 a.m. Tuesday, January 7:

"Hazardous" is defined as 300-500; this reading more than triples the theoretical worst. Long-term health consequences will be felt in southeast Australia for decades to come.

Australia: Governments must act on public health emergency from bushfire smoke, medical groups say

Via the Australia edition of The Guardian: Governments must act on public health emergency from bushfire smoke, medical groups say. Excerpt:

Some 22 groups representing health and medical professionals in Australia have issued a joint call to act on a “public health emergency” caused by smoke from the catastrophic bushfire season in New South Wales.  

In Sydney and others areas of NSW communities have been exposed to air pollution up to 11 times worse than “hazardous” levels. 

The group has produced a joint statement calling for political leadership while repeating a call for a national strategy to combat the health impacts of climate change.  

Dr Kate Charlesworth, a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, which signed the statement, said: “Climate-related health effects are having the most impact on our most vulnerable: babies, children, the elderly and people with pre-existing disease. There is no safe level of air pollution.”

“To protect health, we need to shift rapidly away from fossil fuels and towards cleaner, healthier and safer forms of energy.” 

Among the 22 groups that signed the statement are the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine, Public Health Association of Australia, Australian College of Nursing, Australian Association of Social Workers and Lung Foundation Australia. 

The statement says the federal and NSW governments must “prioritise action to help reduce the risks to people’s health arising from hazardous air pollution”.  

Fiona Armstrong, executive of the Climate and Health Alliance, said: “This is a public health emergency.” She added: “Climate change is going to get much worse and we will see more and more of these events.”  

Dr Lai Heng Foong, of Doctors for the Environment Australia, which has also signed the statement, said: “Pollution from bushfire smoke remains hazardous to people, in the short term and also the long-term.”  

Many of the groups that have signed the statement are also pushing for Australia to respond to the health impacts of climate change. 

Mark Brooke, CEO of Lung Foundation Australia, said a national strategy was needed. 

“Climate change and air quality significantly contribute to poor lung health, increased health and economic burden, disability and death,” he said. 

“If we want to prevent the worst air pollution from bushfire smoke, one of the best things our governments can do, aside from fuel reduction burns, is to set stronger and better standards for everyday air quality.”

Australia fires: Victoria issued code red bushfire warning amid thunderstorm asthma threat

Via The Guardian, a report by the Australian Associated Press: Australia fires: Victoria issued code red bushfire warning amid thunderstorm asthma threat. Excerpt:

Victoria is under a total fire ban on Thursday as temperatures top 40C in the state’s north, and thunderstorm asthma could also put lives at risk, while South Australian residents on the Yorke Peninsula brace for a wind change that could threaten homes and lives. 

Victorians facing code red bushfire conditions were told their houses were not built to withstand the conditions and they should get to major cities if they could.  

Temperatures were forecast to stay well over 40C in the state’s north, and strong northerly winds put the Mallee and the Northern Country districts on a code red alert.

Conditions would be milder in the rest of the state, but fire danger ratings were listed as severe or very high, while temperatures were close to all-time November highs, with Melbourne forecast at 39C on Thursday. 

A total fire ban was issued statewide, but the worst conditions were in the state’s north. 

Code red signals the worst possible bushfire conditions and the safest place to be was away from high-risk fire areas within those districts, the Country Fire Association advised. 

“Our community members should be prepared for fire, and know where to get information to make good decisions about your safety,” the emergency management commissioner, Andrew Crisp, said on Wednesday.  

“Given fires could start and move quickly, you won’t always receive a warning or be told what to do if a fire starts.”  

On Thursday, Crisp also warned that a southerly change expected to hit Victoria in the afternoon could potentially make conditions more difficult for firefighters and there was a chance dry lightning could spark fires. 

All public parks in the code red areas would be closed, and some schools and early childhood centres would be closed.  

“Homes are not built to withstand the types of fires we may see on a code red day and you don’t want to be caught travelling through areas on fire at the last minute if you wait and see,” the CFA chief officer Steve Warrington said. 

Along with possible bushfires, the National Asthma Council Australia forecast Thursday’s pollen count in Victoria as “extreme”. 

The alert coincided with the third anniversary of the epidemic thunderstorm asthma event, which claimed 10 lives on 21 November 2016.

Schools closed in New Delhi as air quality dips for third day

Via The Globe and Mail, an Associated Press report: Schools closed in New Delhi as air quality dips for third day. Excerpt:

Schools in India’s capital were shut on Thursday and remain closed on Friday after a thick haze of noxious air enveloped the city for a third consecutive day, and angry residents blamed authorities for holding an annual children’s race. 

Buildings and monuments were largely obscured by smog and an official health advisory urged people to avoid all physical activity outdoors.  

The air quality index exceeded 460, nine times the level recommended by the World Health Organization, according to the state-run Central Pollution Control Board. In some places, the index crossed the 500 level. 

Still, hundreds of children took part Thursday in the annual Run for Children race organized by a non-profit group called Prayas. 

Residents took to social media and blamed authorities for allowing the run after pictures were shared of children without protective masks.  

The event was organized to mark the birthday of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, which is celebrated as Children’s Day in India. 

“It was a symbolic event and children didn’t run beyond 200 metres,” organizer Amod Kanth said. 

Mr. Kanth said the organization had permission from the authorities and he was not directed to cancel the event. 

Many decried the rising pollution levels and said the government is not doing enough.  

New Delhi is one of the world’s most polluted cities, and winters have become a time of annual health woes when the city is covered in a toxic haze that obscures the sky and blocks sunlight.

Doctors in the city of 20 million people say many of their patients are complaining of ailments related to the filthy air. 

Air pollution in northern India, including New Delhi, peaks from smoke from agricultural fires in neighbouring Haryana and Punjab states, which mixes with the city’s vehicle emissions and construction dust.  

Authorities have resorted to emergency measures such as banning construction, reducing traffic and prohibiting the use of diesel generators. But the steps have had little effect because state governments have failed to co-operate in tackling pollution.

As of 9:00 p.m. Friday, local time, Delhi's AQI stations report numbers ranging from the high 200s (Very Unhealthy) to 639 (Hazardous). 

Krugman on the human cost of air pollution

Well, this is a first: blogging economist Paul Krugman on a major public health issue. Via The New York Times: Trump and His Party of Pollution. Excerpt:

Given what we’ve seen in the impeachment hearings so far, there is literally no crime, no abuse of power, that would induce Republicans to turn on President Trump. So if you’re waiting for some dramatic political turn, don’t hold your breath.  

On second thought, however, maybe you should hold your breath. For air quality has deteriorated significantly over the past few years — a deterioration that has already cost thousands of American lives. And if Trump remains in power, the air will get much worse, and the death toll rise dramatically, in the years ahead.  

The story so far: When I talk about air pollution, I don’t mean the greenhouse gases that are driving climate change, which pose a long-term existential threat. I’m talking instead about pollutants that have a much more immediate effect, especially “fine particulate matter,” small particles that make the air hazy and can penetrate deep into the respiratory tract. The health hazards of these particles have been documented by many studies.  

The good news until a few years ago was that thanks to environmental regulation the concentration of fine particulates was in fairly rapid decline. The bad news is that since 2016 this kind of pollution has been on the rise again, reversing around a fifth of the gains since 2009.

A study documenting this reversal suggests multiple causes, including wildfires (themselves caused in part by climate change), increased driving and reduced enforcement. The study also finds, using well-established results on the health effects of pollution, that even this seemingly small rise in particulates led to almost 10,000 extra deaths last year.  

To put this number in context, it may be helpful to remember that Trump began his presidency by talking about “American carnage,” portraying a nation awash in violent crime. In reality, crime was and is near historic lows. To the extent that anything was behind his rant, it lay in a modest (and temporary) uptick in homicides from around 14,000 in 2014 to 17,000 in 2016. 

The point is that the Trump-era death toll from worsening air is already several times as large as the “carnage” Trump decried. 

It seems crass to point this out, but the economic cost of rising pollution is also large; the study puts it at $89 billion a year. This is a pretty big number, even in an economy as large as America’s, and it means that economic growth under Trump, properly measured, has been significantly slower than standard numbers suggest.  

And things are poised to get much worse. The Trump administration is working on new rules that would effectively prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from making use of much of the scientific evidence on adverse health effects of pollution. This would cripple environmental regulation, almost surely leading to sharply worsening air and water quality over time.

We don’t know exactly how this will play out, but it seems safe to say that if Trump stays in office, a lot more Americans will die as a result of his anti-environmental policies than the total number who are murdered, let alone murdered by the immigrants Trump loves to portray as a menacing, dark-skinned horde.

Indonesian forest fires raise concerns about health

Via The Lancet: Indonesian forest fires raise concerns about health. Excerpt:

Aldo Triwibowo, a reporter from Borneo, has been darting in and out of smoke from Indonesia's forest fires for much of the year. He often inhales bottled oxygen so that he can keep covering the story. But when he noticed that his 2-year-old daughter had started coughing, he became scared. Her symptoms were just like those of another child exposed to the smoke who he had heard about, who had later died. 

His wife Hedwig was also gasping for breath. After he rushed his family to one of the local so-called oxygen rooms, hastily organised air-conditioned rooms with bottled oxygen on hand in hospitals and clinics around the city of Palangkaraya, the nurse found that Hedwig's blood oxygen concentration was low. 

“From the morning, smoke came into our house and it didn't go out again”, Triwibowo told The Lancet. “She [Hedwig] complained that she was having difficulty breathing. It got worse.” 

After a brief stay in the oxygen room and a short dose of antibiotics for both mother and child, Triwibowo sent his family far away from the smoke, to their home town on the distant island of Flores. Triwibowo was in a better position than most. Many people in Central Kalimantan province, one of the worst affected by this year's fires, are farmers or labourers on palm oil plantations, for whom moving away is not affordable. 

Indonesia has forest fires every year, typically during the dry season between June and October. The worst in recent decades was in 2015, but the fires this year are still larger than usual, blanketing large parts of Borneo and Sumatra in thick clouds of foul-smelling smoke for weeks. Across Indonesia, more than 850 000 hectares (2·1 million acres) of forest had burned as of the end of September this year, according to figures from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. 

In Borneo, the worst-hit area, the Indonesian Government has tried water bombing, cloud seeding with salt, and mobilising the army and police to halt the fires. The only thing that finally worked was a change in the weather: the beginning of the rainy season in October started to dampen fires that had burned in dried out peat beds for weeks. In Sumatra, many fires have continued burning and, last month, children in the city of Palembang were sent home from school. The smoke has drifted to Singapore and Malaysia, where it is euphemistically referred to as haze. Both countries have issued daily health warnings about the levels of the smoke, urging those who might be affected to stay indoors when it is at its worst. 

In Palangkaraya, people had been seeking safety in the oxygen rooms for months, increasing their blood oxygen concentrations by inhaling bottled oxygen. Face masks to keep out soot ran out. Cases of pneumonia, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease peaked, and local doctors say that some people have died from the fires.

Delhi residents engulfed in pollution blame authorities for inaction

Via The Guardian: Delhi residents engulfed in pollution blame authorities for inaction. Excerpt:

It was meant to be a ceremony to bring good health and prosperity. But the thousands of women who gathered in the waters of Delhi’s Yamuna River on the city’s most polluted day in three years, to mark the ancient Hindu festival of Chhath Puja, instead had to immerse themselves in the thick toxic waste, while inhaling air so thick with smog that it went off the pollution charts. 

Sunita Devi, 42, was among those who offered prayers as she stood in the toxic foam of the Yamuna, so thick and frothy from industrial and domestic pollution it made the water resemble a putrid bubble bath. The irony that this was a ritual meant to give thanks to the sun god for sustaining life on earth was not lost on her. 

“I stood for an hour in the water to offer prayers but it was very oily, dirty and had a bad smell,” said Devi. “According to the ritual we are supposed to bathe in the water but I could not bring myself to do it fully, though my friends took a full dip even with the smell. My legs were itching after a while and I had to go home and take a bath.” 

Living in the world’s most polluted city has taken a toll on almost every one of its 20 million citizens, especially since the Hindu festival of Diwali, which prompted a severe deterioration in air quality. As the air pollution levels reached catastrophic levels – almost 10 times above the healthy limit on the weekend – a public health emergency was declared and has remained in place for the past five days. The streets have emptied, schools remained closed and many did not go in to work on Monday morning as the air quality index remained stubbornly in the category of “severe”.

Monday also saw the temporary introduction of a scheme, which ran previously in 2016, where cars with odd and even number plates can only drive on alternate days, which authorities say will take 1.2m cars off Delhi’s roads each day. However, most in the city were highly sceptical about the plan, which will only be in place for two weeks. 

“They did this scheme twice before and it is pointless,” said Amit, a driver. “I am not supposed to be taking my car out today but I am just taking the back roads and short cuts to avoid the traffic officers. All the other drivers I know are doing the same. Yes pollution is a terrible problem, I have had an awful chest infection for the past two days because of it, but this temporary scheme is not going to change anything. We need real action from the government.”