Normally, HDL cholesterol removes LDL or “bad cholesterol” from the blood stream, decreasing the risk of heart disease. Therefore, high levels of HDL are beneficial, while low levels are risky.

Yet breathing vehicular emissions damages HDL cholesterol, making it actually contribute to clogging arteries instead of preventing them.

Image credit: www.TheEnvironmentalBlog.org

From the UCLA Newsroom:

In addition to changing HDL from “good” to “bad,” the inhalation of emissions activates other components of oxidation, the early cell and tissue damage that causes inflammation, leading to hardening of the arteries, according to the research team, which included scientists from UCLA and other institutions.

Another worrying finding of the study is that breathing clean, filtered air for a week following a two-week exposure to car exhaust is not enough to reverse the damage.

The results were obtained not on human subjects, but on laboratory mice, which may not sit well with many readers.

From the Houston Chronicle:

The mice were exposed to the pollutants several hours a day at a concentration similar to working in a mine. After these exposure[s], researchers found the protective qualities of good cholesterol had been adversely altered by the emissions.

Moreover, what results can we expect from this new knowledge about how smog is killing us? We already know that the more cars a city has the more people get sick and die as a result of particulate matter and gasses from vehicular engines. For example, as a result of the dramatic rise in cars in Asia, 2.1 million people died prematurely from pollution-related illnesses in 2010.

The advice offered by the researchers in lieu of these recent findings? Limit your exposure to pollutants.

Fair enough, but for most of us that’s easier said than done.

Hi and welcome back to The Fudge. I was just finishing up a delicious horseburger I purchased at Aldi. Don’t get me wrong, I like Tesco, but they just aren’t “horsey” enough for my equine-discerning palate. I need as close to 100% as possible and so far my best bet for that is Aldi and Findus. Imagine my delight when reading all about it in the Guardian. I felt like those Japanese school kids must have when they were served whale meat for lunch.

Truth be told, there’s not much else in the Guardian environment section at the moment. OK, that’s a bit of exaggeration, but it’s got like NINE articles on horse meat being discovered in British food. So what’s all the neighing and braying about? I guess this story works on many levels. Brits love horses, but they don’t love eating them like the French and Italians, who effin’ love a plate of mare. I guess a horse is too much of a companion animal to knock on the head, bleed dry, chop up and put in the oven like a big fat steer, squealing pig or even a cuddly baby lamb. You can ride them into battle, around a track for loads of cash or put a rich person on top and jump them over fences for a spectacle of olympic proportions.

What a scandal. Polish and Italian mafia gangs are being blamed for stuffing horse into frozen lasagne. There is evidence that they’ve put pork in there too, which could potentially enrage both Muslim and Jewish junk food epicures, but so far I haven’t heard of many complaints (though it’s happened before). God, what if there’s dog or cat meat in there too? Then we’ll really see the fur start to fly.

In classic passing-the-buck fashion, Aldi is blaming its French supplier Comigel, which is in turn blaming its Romanian horse – I mean beef – source. Findus is also blaming the French firm Spangero, which says it will sue its Romanian supplier. All I want to know is what the hell is going on in Romania?

Horse traffic in Romania, pic: photos.de.tibo (Flickr CC)

Apparently Romania exports a lot of horse meat to Italy and the Benelux countries and new restrictions on horses on Romania’s roads may have lead to a new, albeit temporary, supply of extra cheap meat. Poland also exports around 25,000 horses per year for slaughter.

Food horses are raised in Eastern EU countries because economic inequality makes it cheaper to do so. And the kind of deregulated capitalism that is more and more prominent in the EU these days also encourages lying, cheating and unsafe practices with the only real losers being those who buy and eat this muck that pretends to be food. Let’s face it, cheap food aimed at poor people the UK is processed and loaded with fat, salt, sugar, chemical additives and preservatives. It’s really bad for you and now there’s horse meat in it, which maybe isn’t worse than beef, but it’s not what it says on the package.

Welcome to the urban, industrialized global nightmare, where there are no options for eating healthily if you’re poor (compare with Cuba where tough economic times mean more reliance on fresh, homegrown food).

Foot massage by the blind, Sabah. Pic: Jeremy Eades (Wikimedia Commons)

As a holder of three diplomas in massage and former practitioner of both medical (sports injuries) and wellness massage, I still find the varying practices of this ancient art and therapy among different cultures to be a fascinating subject.

Malaysia is of course no exception. Since the origins of modern massage can be traced back to India and China, Malaysia – as a crossroads for these two cultures and home to a rich native culture of its own – is by no surprise a place where one can find both traditional massage and modern spa techniques. I also admire when they mix the two up a bit.

Read about massage in Malaysia in the following article for Travel Wire Asia: Massage in Malaysia – Traditions old and new.

This article was part of a publication for Tourism Malaysia. If you enjoyed this article and would like to find out more about travelling to Malaysia, please visit the Tourism Malaysia website.

photo by Esteban Maringolo (Flickr CC)

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is urging Venezuelans to stop buying foreign sugary sodas like Coke and Pepsi and switch to locally produced fruit juice.

According to the Associated Press, Venezuela currently imports most of its food and drinks, so Chávez’s advice is at the same time economic and health-related with an obvious political element. Besides advocating the state-produced grape juice Uvita, he has also promoted Venezuelan wine.

Though Chávez’s words are sure to anger some, especially Coke and Pepsi’s shareholders, every leader throughout the world should be discouraging the consumption of sugary sodas and promoting local, healthy drinks. Say what you want about the sugar content of grape juice, but it’s not like Coke, and the sugar is natural and not refined. Besides, grape juice is high in antioxidants and according to an article by the Mayo Clinic, may have the same heart benefits as red wine.

Meanwhile in the US, government attempts to discourage soda drinking, which are legislative rather than simply appealing to the public’s sensibilities as Chávez is doing, have been met by fierce opposition from the beverage industry.

From Reuters:

The focus on sugary drinks comes as two out of every three Americans is overweight or obese and policymakers take aim at sugary drinks, from New York City’s cup-size restriction to new efforts to impose drink taxes and cut sales in U.S. Schools.

New Yorkers for Beverage Choices are campaigning against New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to limit the consumption of sugary drinks in the city. The organization includes members of the beverage industry, as well as theater and restaurant owners associations. Read their press release here.

Also, check out this article in the Huffington Post by a real live doctor, which is not about legislating, but rather points out the economic and health-related benefits of laying off sugary soda.

photo by dogtooth77 (Flickr CC)

I’ve heard that bananas lighten your mood because they contain B6, which stimulates serotonin production. I’ve even read that coffee can fight depression.

Now daffodils can join the list of potential resources for battling the blues.

A certain species of South African daffodils (as well as a species of snowdrops) anyway. The daffodils and snowdrops (Crinum and Cyrtanthus) don’t actually treat the depression, but they do contain compounds which “trick the blood brain-barrier”, allowing drugs to be absorbed by the brain, according to scientists at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. The blood-brain barrier makes it very difficult for most chemicals to enter the brain.

One of the Copenhagen University researchers is quoted in the International Business Times:

In my research group, we have had a long-term focus on the body’s barrier tissue – and in recent years particularly the transport of drug compounds across the blood-brain barrier. More than 90 per cent of all potential drugs fail the test by not making it through the barrier, or being pumped out as soon as they do get in. Studies of natural therapies are a valuable source of inspiration, giving us knowledge that can also be used in other contexts,”

–Professor Birgen Broden

It’s early days yet and could be some time before the chemicals in the South African flowers are incorporated into any pharmacological treatment for depression or other mental disorders.

Read more on the story on PsychCentral.

cholesterol molecule, image by Sbrools (Wikimedia Commons)

A diet that encourages you to eat lots of meat, eggs and butter has been linked to cardio-vascular disease, by increasing blood cholesterol.

This may not sound surprising to those of us who were brought up with the conventional wisdom that saturated fats and red meat are bad for you, specifically bad for your heart. However, being brought up under conventional popular ideas of nutrition does not an expert make.

Neither does following faddish diets that let you eat these somewhat taboo foods at the expense of other, more conventional dishes.

The Atkins diet, popularized in the 1990s, paints carbohydrates as the main villain in terms of weight gain. Limiting their consumption, according to Dr. Atkins, promotes weight-loss. But some studies found that high consumption of animal fats and high-protein, low-carb diets put individuals at risk for heart disease.

A Swedish study supports previous findings that low-carb/high-fat diets like the Atkins diet have a “major impact” on the risk for heart disease and only promote weight loss in the short term.

Of course things are not always that simple, according to the leader of the study, who is quoted in the Telegraph:

The association between nutrition and health is complex. It involves specific food components, interactions among those food components, and interactions with genetic factors and individual needs.

–Prof Ingegerd Johansson, University of Gothenburg

Makes sense, right?

For another, more humorous, perspective, here’s David Mitchell:

Image courtesy of EthicalCommunity.com

You have to be nuts not to be eating nuts (pun intended)! Nuts are super-nutritious for you, easy to carry around, and delicious. With so many varieties of them, it’s hard to tell which ones are the cream-of-the-crop when it comes to nutritional punch.

We did the research, and we picked out the 5 “core” nuts that you should be eating daily to give you that daily punch you need for maximum energy at minimum cost.

Raw Almonds
Want to have “wolverine” like energy? Take about 40 raw almonds a day. Avoid the salted kind.

Brazil Nuts
Brazil nuts cover your daily selenium (a powerful antioxidant) requirements by 7 fold. No, literally! One ounce of brazil nuts will cover your track by 777%. Are you feeling lucky?

Cashews
Asides from being able to use cashews for stir fry dishes and other delicious meals, cashews are heart-friendly. Low fat content, and the fat that is contained is of extreme health benefit to the heart.

Walnuts
Also super good for the heart and circulation.

Hazelnuts
Good as a source for Vitamin and generally good for the heart and muscles.

Original post by Ethicalcommunity.com

photo credit: James Gathany/CDC (public domain)

It’s coming some time and maybe…

The Asian tiger mosquito originates in hot and muggy South East Asia. But international trade, tourism and (increasingly) climate change will enable the tropical disease-carrying insect to establish itself in northern Europe, including the UK.

Reports last September from the US told of how the smaller, but more aggressive Asian tiger mosquito was causing problems in the states of California, Texas, Florida and Hawaii; and cities including Memphis, New Orleans and Washington DC.

In Europe, the Asian tiger has already encroached upon parts of Italy, Spain, southern France, the Balkans and even The Netherlands. Italy experienced an outbreak of chikungunya fever, brought back by a tourist who visited India. Dengue cases have also been documented in Germany and France. As the climate changes, these outbreaks are predicted to become more frequent.

From the Independent:

Computer simulations of how the climate in Europe has changed over the past half-century and of how it is likely to change in the coming decades suggest that conditions across wider areas of northern Europe will become more favourable for the mosquito, says a study by scientists from Liverpool University and the Government’s Health Protection Agency.

Those countries whose climates are becoming wetter and hotter are the ones at risk, while areas becoming drier, like southern Spain, are turning less hospitable to the Asian tiger mosquito.

But it’s already established a foothold in Europe.

From an AFP article:

As of last December, the mosquito was present in more than 15 countries, from southern Spain to parts of Greece and Turkey, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

I’ll make sure I pack a good repellent on my next holiday.

photo by Steve and Sara Emry (Flickr CC)

As people start to get hip as to what a scam bottled water is, the bottled water industry is getting worried.

Bottled water wastes energy, pollutes and rips you off. What’s more, it is often less healthy than tap water.

Microbiologist Dr Sonish Azam of Ccrest Laboratories is quoted in an article in the Telegraph from May of 2010:

Heterotrophic bacteria counts in some of the bottles were found to be in revolting figures of one hundred times more than the permitted limit. Bottled water is not expected to be free from microorganisms but the [level] observed in this study is surprisingly very high.

As more people realize how useless bottled water is (outside of places with non potable water, etc.) this superfluous and harmful business should decline. And so the big water sellers are bringing out the big guns by hiring Pegasus PR, a powerful sleazy PR agency that also works for big pharma.

And yet sales continue to rise. In 2010, more than 2bn litres were consumed in the UK – 33 litres per person, a figure projected to rise to 40 litres by 2020. More than 40bn litres were sold last year in the US, in plastic bottles it took 17m barrels of oil to manufacture; the industry there is worth $22 billion a year and sales are increasing at a rate of 5.4 per cent annually.

–The Ecologist

In the meantime US universities like Harvard have banned bottled water on campus. Is this a proxy war of the ‘water wars’ fought predominantly in wealthy countries instead of developing ones? No, as it’s also being fought in poor nations. As access to bottled water grows, governments have less impetus to provide clean running water. And make no mistake, bottled water companies are no friends of the people.

From an opinion piece on OregonLive.com:

Water bottling companies have a proven business model. They come into areas that have a limited natural resource — water — with promises of jobs and prosperity. They privatize the resource so that it is no longer freely available to the locals, deplete it until there is no more profit to be had, then close up shop and move on to another community.

For more on this story, read this piece in The Ecologist and for more info on bottled water, please go here to watch Annie Leonard’s Story of Bottled Water.

Image by Parksy1964 (source: Flickr)

The key to a green future is doing a little at a time, and considering all the options

At this point we’re past the stage where energy saving and renewables are talked about as something futuristic and unobtainable or something for sandal wearers and lentil-eaters. Solar panels are appearing on many suburban homes, wind turbines a common site on farms and new commercial buildings and wind-farms, heat pumps and tidal power generators and a smorgasbord of clever new technologies are popping up all over the UK, Europe and beyond.

But what, as a normal everyday consumer can you or I do to make significant inroads to our personal carbon footprint?

The low hanging fruit

If you’re reading this blog then I think it’s probably safe to assume that you’re at least aware of the simple stuff: energy saving light bulbs (80% less electricity); recycling cans, tins, bottles and cardboard (1 tonne CO₂ / house / year) and using public transport, walking or cycling instead of the car where practical (over 2 tonnes / person / year). Plus turning down your thermostat, switching off appliances (not standby) can easily save 10% of your heating and electricity bills. These steps are reasonably easy to take, and can have a dramatic effect on your personal energy usage and carbon footprint. The 10:10 campaign advocated these simple steps as a great way to start lowering your energy usage and personal emissions substantially within 12 months.

The next steps

As the name suggests, the low hanging fruit should be easily available for everyone. Indeed many are now viewed either economically or socially as the norm and have widespread support from governments, energy suppliers and public opinion.

For those wishing to take their commitment to the environment further, there are additional steps available.

Energy efficient home insulation is a fantastic way to save a surprising amount of energy in your home. The Energy Saving Trust has some detailed figures on exactly how much can be saved. Even the really dirt cheap initiatives such as draft proofing and fitting jackets to hot water pipes and tanks (no more than £100 – 120) can start paying you back in 2 years or less. Bigger jobs such as cavity wall insulation and loft insulation can payback up to £150 each per year in lower electricity and gas bills.

Both home insulation and more recently solar photovoltaic (PV) panels have benefited from government and local authority grants to enable homeowners to make the leap with much less outlay from their wallets. This has also led to a much larger network of certified installers so you can be assured that the job is being done by professionals. Solar panels are now available for free from many installers, who will also maintain the panels. In return they take the government backed feed-in-tariff rates, and you can benefit from the bill savings of around £120 – 150 per year. Or buy your panels outright and expect returns of 8-10% of their price each year for a guaranteed 25 years.

If you’d rather support solar and other renewable electricity elsewhere rather than on your own roof, you can now also choose to switch to a green electricity tariff. Many suppliers, including all the big utilities companies are now offering this, although do check that your money will be going towards new investment in renewables rather than buying up existing capacity.

Still not enough for you?

If you’ve made it this far, you’re clearly committed to seriously reducing your carbon footprint and energy use. Given the levels of expert knowledge and relative difficulty in making these changes as well as the costs involved, these are definitely for the highly motivated.

Wind turbines don’t get as much coverage as their solar panel compatriots.

Create your own checklist

The examples here should give you a good start, but to really personalise your carbon beating efforts you should create your own list – use the items here as a starting point and then add your own, setting a score for the difficulty and cost of making the change, and the benefit of the change on your overall energy consumption and carbon footprint. To get the total score subtract the difficulty from the benefit. You can then use your checklist to inform your green decision making – start by considering the items with the highest score, and work your way down from there. Good luck!

By Qudimat (EthicalCommunity.com)

Between the years 2004 and 2005, the world saw an extra 10,000 metric tons of fair-trade coffee being produced. The UK alone consumes around 150,000 metric tons per year.

Image courtesy of EthicalCommunity.com

Since the inception of fair-trade coffee, less farmland was cultivated for illicit drugs, fewer children were put to work, and more kids were sent to college.

The benefits of fair-trade are unmistakable. The biggest mindset change for a consumer is to recognize the effects of fair-trade are indeed positive with each purchase that they make.

Main Points:

1. Fair-trade coffee raises standards
2. The special fair-trade blends and their respective regions
3. Impact of fair-trade

Setting the Standards

When consumers are consuming a cup of coffee, they aren’t just raising their energy levels. They are also raising the standards for quality of life in more ways than one can count. Let’s take a look at two:

Fair Labor

Image courtesy of EthicalCommunity.com

Coffee growers on fair-trade farms are guaranteed through the cooperatives that they become a part of safe working conditions, wages above the minimum, as well as the removal of the need for child labour through prohibition.

Community Development

Image courtesy of EthicalCommunity.com

The extra revenue coffee growers earn through the fair-trade initiative is invested into their communities to develop schools, scholarship programs, and healthcare services.

Notable blends and regions

Fair-trade coffees will differ in quality. Since growers are paid higher wages and are given premiums in line with rising market demands, there is a higher incentive to produce better coffee. In this article, we’ll take a look at three different fair-trade coffees grown from three different regions.

The Grumpy Mule (Ethiopia) 

Image courtesy of EthicalCommunity.com

The Grumpy Mule is an organic blend that is fair-trade and Ethiopian. It is deliciously delicate, light, and refreshing. This is a blend that will work great in filters and percolators. The coffee is produced by the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (OCFCU), which stretches across the southern and southwestern parts of Ethiopia.

Percol (Colombia)

Image courtesy of EthicalCommunity.com

Described as “unmistakably Columbian”, this certified fair-trade coffee has a tantalizing aroma with a hint of nuts. Its flavours are smooth, full-bodied, and attractive with citrus notes on the finish.

Central Perc Coffee (Costa Rica) 

Central Perc is a Canadian company based in British Columbia that specializes in door-to-door delivery of certified fair-trade coffees just days after roasting. They also only deal in certified organic coffees. Coffee is one of the most chemically treated crops in the world, and the case for organic coffee is therefore ever so more important.

Each coffee-growing country or region has a distinctive flavor that can be used to discern its origin. Much like describing wine, there are many words used to describe coffee flavors. These include full bodied, herbal, spicy, mellow, and snappy are just the tip of the iceberg.

For Central Perc’s Costa Rica coffee, the flavor can be described as light, snappy with soft nutty tones.

Impact Case Studies

There are several well-documented research that exemplifies the positive effect fair-trade has had compared to conventional coffee-growing markets.

In 2002, University of Sussex researcher Loraine Ronchi observed that fair-trade strengthened producer organizations and had accomplished the goal of improving producer returns.

In 2006, researchers Beccheti and Constantino compared a control group of fair-trade farmers and Meru herbs farmers. They observed that over the same time period, fair-trade farmers were better able to diversify production, reduce child mortality, greater crop prices, as well as improve the monthly household food consumption.

At its core, fair-trade coffee represents a strategy for eliminating poverty and encouraging sustainable development. When consumption measures at 100,000 metric tons, the potential for social impact that fair-trade represents is awesome.

Original post by EthicalCommunity.com

photo by Energy for All 2030

Just as the UN published figures that global access to clean water has improved, already surpassing their goals set for 2015, a new OECD report predicts that air pollution is set to become the leading environmental cause of premature death.

So the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, whose raison d’être is economic growth, is warning that industrialization, which has worked hand in glove with economic growth and market-based economics, is killing more and more people by polluting the air.

Previous UN figures showed that as the Global population increases, more urbanization occurs and the proportion of urban inhabitants without access to clean water and proper sanitation goes up.

Now according to the UN and the WHO:

[…] 89% of the world’s population, or 6.1 billion people, had access to safe water sources at the end of 2010 – 1% more than the goal of 88% set by world leaders at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, the report said. (source: The Independent)

So is it just for urban inhabitants that safe water conditions are decreasing? The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that ‘two-thirds of the world’s population could be facing shortages’ within the next 15 years.

So… two UN studies don’t quite square up regarding global access to clean water.

And it’s not just coal-mad China and India who are going to feel the effects of air pollution. The developed world will also see more deaths due to poor air quality and an aging population.

Both developed and developing countries will be hit, and by 2050, there could be 3.6 million premature deaths a year from exposure to particulate matter, most of them in China and India. But rich countries will suffer worse effects from exposure to ground-level ozone, because of their ageing populations – older people are more susceptible.

–Guardian

The OECD report detailed threats from climate change, biodiversity loss, water and the health impacts of pollution. The projected results ­– based on how things are going in terms of economic development, energy regulations and policies, and even so-called green energy projects like biofuels, which strain biodiversity and water usage – don’t look good.

Read more in the Guardian.

image by Jennifer Snyder (iwantamonkey on Flickr CC)

The wealthy countries of the West are exporting processed, unhealthy foods to the developing world – and with dire consequences.

The shift towards unhealthy diets – heavy in processed foods, fat, sugar and salt – is not simply a result of an increase in wealth among growing middle classes in the developing world, but a concerted effort by large international corporations to inundate markets with unhealthy, non-locally sourced food.

A UN report authored by Olivier de Schutter reveals how this spells economic death for local farmers.

The real culprit is globalization, facilitated by international trade agreements.

Schutter also cites the example of Mexico which once had a diet described by nutritionists as near perfect but, now has the second highest rates of obesity in the world after the US. The signing of a free trade agreement with the US and Canada saw a massive increase in direct foreign investment in the country’s food processing sector in the 1990s and 2000s making junk food and soft drinks available to a larger number of people.

–The Ecologist

So more maladies like heart disease and diabetes for the developing world, without the advanced health care systems to deal with such increases of obesity-linked diseases.

This is a clear example of how the common, accepted example of economic growth does not actually increase quality of life and in some, extremely important ways, diminishes it.

From a piece I wrote back in 2009 on how traditional, natural, local diets are healthier than the new globalization-fueled diet and (somewhat ironically) how during times of economic hardship healthy diets are more prominent in the developing world, in contrast to what happens in wealthy countries.

In developing countries, the situation is largely reversed. Food markets are less industrialized and more regional, consisting essentially of local produce, with imported and processed foods considered luxuries. In difficult economic times, inhabitants of these countries tend to entrench themselves all the more in traditional models of agriculture, diet and nutrition, which are also intrinsically more environmentally friendly than mass importation and industrialized agriculture. And barring famines and food shortages, those populations often eat more healthily than their counterparts in developed nations. Diets may be less exotic, contain less meat and certainly fewer processed ingredients, but they consist of tried and true foods from local sources, often even homegrown. Selections are also less diverse, because production is localized and imports tend to be fewer and less affordable – contributing to generally healthier lifestyles.

While economic globalization, which favors wealthy Western countries and rich multinational corporations, may enrich certain giant agribusinesses, it is quite literally killing people in the developing world.

Read more in The Ecologist.

See also: Are environmental chemicals making you fat?

While the cumulative effects of rising global temperatures have already caused dramatic changes to our planet, those changes often seem distant and it’s hard to put faces to them. But as climate change becomes more disruptive to daily life around the world, it’s more likely than not that the faces of that disruption will be those of women.

With the world celebrating International Women’s Day on Thursday, it’s a good time to reflect on just how vulnerable women are to the effects of climate change.

If you’re surprised to hear that gender makes a difference, you shouldn’t be. After all, we’ve long known that some groups are particularly threatened by climate change; the world’s most impoverished people are the best example. Millions of the poorest people live in regions that will be increasingly struck by rising sea level, extreme storms, droughts and famines. Women make up a shocking 70 percent of people living in poverty around the world.

Image courtesy of ClimateCentral.org - Credit: Oxfam America

The gender imbalance of climate change is about more than just numbers, though.  During natural disasters and extreme storms — of which many are increasingly linked to our carbon-loaded atmosphere — women often lack the physical strength needed to pull themselves to high ground or to run for safe cover. If this physical barrier isn’t enough, women are usually responsible for children and relatives and in extreme conditions, they have the added burden of moving everyone out of harm’s way.

It’s this universal role as caregiver — one that we would rarely change if given the chance — that increases women’s vulnerability to our changing climate. With motherhood comes the responsibility of providing food, water, shelter, protection and transportation for children. In a warmer world, these are increasingly challenging tasks.

The World Health Organization estimates that of the nearly 150,000 people already perishing around the world each year because of climate change, nearly 90% are children. And the threats for children, and thus for women, are continuing to mount. More frequent and longer droughts will lead to food shortages for millions, and particularly those in poverty. Similarly, extreme storms and rising sea levels threaten drinking water supplies for millions worldwide. For women, this means traveling further and working even harder to provide for the basic needs of their families and communities.

These climate-related pressures aren’t unique to poor women living in developing countries. Here in the United States, the same social dynamics apply and women are overwhelmingly responsible for caregiving. Here, too, the changing climate is a growing liability to our families’ health.

For example, rising temperatures are severely reducing air quality, particularly in America’s biggest cities, and this triggers health problems for millions of people with asthma. Heat waves, which are already more common in North America, take a particular toll on children and the elderly. In many parts of the country, earlier and longer spring seasons exacerbate allergies. And in all these examples, women disproportionately carry the weight of protecting their children and providing care when family members are sick.

Knowing all the ways in which they are likely to feel the negative impacts of climate change, it’s no wonder that women — whether they are mothers are not — are more concerned about climate change than men.

On the plus side, this gender divide presents opportunity. Empowering and educating women worldwide gives them the resources to continue to provide for their families, even in the face of dramatic environmental changes. In places like Africa, where women are acutely aware of how crop yields and water supplies are changing, they may also be more likely to adopt local adaptation measures. In the U.S., women have the ability to rally together over their growing concerns, which can drive more substantial policy initiatives.

“What we learn from talking about women’s vulnerabilities is that we all have vulnerabilities,” said Kim Knowlton, a scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “No one is immune to climate change.”

Which is, of course, true. Women may be among the most vulnerable, but climate change won’t discriminate in its severity. But looking at the risks through the lens of different groups, including women, gives us all a better sense of how personal the threat really is — and hopefully how each of us can lend to its solution.

photo by Elliott Brown (ell brown on Flickr CC)

Last year the UK government asked supermarkets to stop putting ‘sell-by’ dates on perishable food items to discourage food waste.

Instead, foods that are potentially dangerous after a certain date must have a ‘use by’ date, while those that pose no danger, but may go down in quality simply have a ‘best before’ date on their labels.

Of course it is obscene when a supermarket, or even an individual, throws out perfectly edible food because it’s past its sell-by date (not past its use by or even best before date) when there are people in need of food in the same very neighborhood.

According to a piece in The Ecologist, one London café, run by volunteers, uses only food donated by a local Sainsbury’s supermarket. All unsellable, but perfectly good – and good on Sainsbury’s and those who run the café.

Now this may seem like the perfect use for food past its use by date, but there is another plan being launched, with the help of the very same Sainsbury’s supermarket chain, Lord Rothschild and none other than Prince Charles. The plan is to build 40 anaerobic digestion plants that would produce electricity from organic waste. Basically, that means power from old food.

Read more about that on Citywire.

Sounds like a fine, green project, but as The Ecologist argues, the best use for edible, if old-ish, food is to feed people who can’t afford to eat well. Now if it’s inedible, go ahead, compost, generate power, fill your boots.

More on the issue of food poverty and supermarket waste from Bristol 24-7:

Project director for FareShare South West, Jacqui Reeves, said some three million tonnes of food is thrown away in the UK each year, adding that if just 1% of this food was given to her charity, it could provide for up to 70million meals a year. Currently, the charity provides 8.6m meals.

Bit of a no-brainer, isn’t it? But giving away extra, unsellable food is not a big money maker. On the other hand it’s not a money loser either – and just think of the positive brand image it might give a big, greedy corporation.

photo by Adrian Nier (Flickr CC)

Where to file this: in the ‘so obvious we didn’t need a study to confirm it’ category, or in the ‘wait a second, rich people don’t need to steal and cheat, it’s poor people who are pushed into this kind of behavior’ section?

Bit of both, maybe?

The study suggests that the rich don’t feel that they need to depend on others, so they have no problem burning them. If you think you’ll never need any help from anyone else, why should you help, or even care, about them?

Scott Wiltermuth, a social status researcher at USC’s Marshall School of Business who wasn’t involved in the study, concurs.

He is quoted in the Los Angeles Times:

There is a strong notion that when people don’t have much, they’re really looking out for themselves and they might act unethically. But actually, it’s the upper-class people that are less likely to see that people around them need help — and therefore act unethically.

Personally, I think you need to be unethical to get rich in the first place. At least it sure helps a lot. But the UC Berkeley study concentrates on the reverse: the higher your social status, the worse a person you are.

This research is only the latest from Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, which ‘studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society.’

Previous research found that poor people are more altruistic and compassionate than the wealthy.

From GGSC’s The Poor Give More article:

Whereas lower-class individuals may give more of their resources away, upper-class individuals may tend to preserve and hold onto their wealth. This differential pattern of giving versus saving among upper- and lower-class people could serve to exacerbate economic inequality in society.

Research also showed that even in tough economic times, those with less share more.

Kind of destroys Ayn Rand’s ‘virtue of selfishness’ theory, doesn’t it?

Sleeping Venus by Giorgione (public domain)

I’ve been noticing lately that most nights I tend to sleep for 4 hours and then lie awake for a while, maybe up to two hours, before falling asleep again. I don’t think I’ve always done this, and have been dismissing it as a consequence of getting older.

But a couple of articles from last week have got me thinking that it’s a natural, normal thing to do.

As someone who has wrestled with sleep issues for most of my life, I tend to read any sleep or insomnia-related article I stumble upon, even this one on an expensive, but perhaps effective, ‘sleep school’.

Interestingly, historical and psychological research suggests that humans used to sleep twice during the night, with a roughly 2-hour middle-of-the-night break in between. They’d hit the proverbial hay, snooze for 4 hours, get up, talk, have sex or pray (take your pick) before once again entering the Land of Nod for a further 4 hours.

During this waking period people were quite active. They often got up, went to the toilet or smoked tobacco and some even visited neighbours. Most people stayed in bed, read, wrote and often prayed. Countless prayer manuals from the late 15th Century offered special prayers for the hours in between sleeps.

–BBC News

The idea is that before artificial light, much of humanity regularly experienced up to 14 hours of darkness every night. What to do if you can’t afford candles? Sleep 14 hours a night? No, they slept twice, hence the break.

Funny how our society complete forgot about this long-practiced habit, but psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted experiments in the 1990s that support that this is our natural sleep pattern.

I’m going to start visiting my neighbors at 4 in the morning and see how they like it. If they complain I’ll just show them the research and say I’m getting in touch with my roots. I suggest you all do the same.

Read more on this topic on BBC News and in this comment piece in the Guardian.

photo by MillyNeT (Flickr CC)

A court in Lyon, France found American biotech firm Monsanto guilty of poisoning a farmer who inhaled fumes from its Lasso weed killer back in 2004.

Monsanto was made famous in the 1970s for being sued by American Vietnam War veterans who were poisoned by the defoliant Agent Orange. They are also being sued by some 300,000 plaintiffs because they patent genetically modified seeds that don’t proliferate, forcing farmers to buy more every year.

Lasso has been banned in Canada and the UK since the 80s and is now banned in France. One year after cereal farmer Paul François accidentally inhaled the toxic weed killer, significant traces of a poisonous chemical called monochlorobenzene were found in his system. What’s more is that Monsanto didn’t even mention that Lasso contains monochlorobenzene on the herbicide’s main labels.

From the Independent:

Mr François accidentally inhaled fumes from a Lasso sprayer in April 2004 and was forced to give up his farm in Charente, western France, after suffering neurological and muscular problems, including fainting fits, memory-loss, headaches and stammering.

Monsanto of course denies that there is sufficient evidence that Lasso caused François’ problems and will appeal the verdict.

The decision was a landmark ruling for France, a country with some of the worst chemical herbicide, fertilizer and pesticide pollution in Europe. France is currently in the middle of a 10-year process with the aim of cutting its pesticide use by 50%.

Working on a farm is no picnic. And farmers who are poisoned by agricultural chemicals are usually left in the cold.

Tim Lang, a professor of Food Policy at London’s City University, is quoted in a France 24 report:

Illnesses are frequently blamed on the farmer or worker for not following regulations. Agriculture is consistently one of the most dangerous fields to work in.

And I bet you thought it was a cushy, glamorous profession like a coctail waitress or professional blogger.

photo by mytvdinner (Flickr CC)

In general, conservatives don’t like social welfare programs. They do claim, however, to value freedom of choice, so long as it has nothing to do with social welfare programs – those are gifts from taxpayers to welfare queens and they have strings attached.

So it’s no surprise that Florida Republican state senator Ronda Storms thinks federal food stamps should only be used for healthy foods – but maybe she’s right. A bit of good old-fashioned social engineering is what welfare is all about or at least what it should be about.

I mean why should the poor be encouraged (by advertising) and facilitated (by the government) to buy food that kills them, especially when Florida is cutting Medicaid, education funding and state jobs? Sounds like a recipe to keep the poor poor, make a bit of money off of them, and then kill them.

Of course they shouldn’t be cutting jobs, education and healthcare benefits either. Not if they want social and economic mobility to increase and crime and health problems to decrease. Opposition to the Republican state senator’s bill is coming from both Democrats and (of course) junk food producers and sellers, who make money killing people.

Strange bedfellows or just different issues colliding?

And there are other issues of course, like the shaming of the poor and the fact that everyone deserves to enjoy a nice sweet snack, regardless of their income. But come on; let’s be more practical than sensitive. Health is more important than hurt feelings and indulgence, which can be dealt with in other ways than food stamps perhaps.

Come on, Florida. Get creative!

Read more in the Los Angeles Times.

Image by bekkli (source: Morguefile)

Urban Forestry is a growing trend in cities looking to actively clean their air and water while making streets aesthetically pleasing for pedestrians, bike riders, and drivers as well. While I could list any number of benefits trees in urban areas have been shown to produce, there was one advantage that I didn’t expect to see: safer, more eco friendly carsdriving through cities.

Now, you might be wondering how trees help to slow drivers down and create an atmosphere where greener cars and greener driving habits prevail. It’s quite simple; trees help create a natural, visual wall that drivers are constantly aware of. Imagine, for a moment, that you are driving down a deserted highway with nothing but flat land in every direction. An open road, if you will. Even if you’re generally a safe driver who abides by all the rules of the road, it’s easy to rationalize that driving 5 MPH above the posted 65 MPH speed limit, on a highway with no one in sight, won’t hurt anyone and will only get you to your destination faster. So you speed up to 70 MPH, turn up your radio a notch, and get comfortable for the rest of the ride.

Without any trees lining the streets of a city, there is very little differentiation between the sidewalk and the road ahead of you, minus a curb or street light. This is the thought process behind tree-lined roads, a product of the Urban Forestry movement. Not only do trees that line sidewalks and streets make a safer pedestrian environment, but that same “wall” of trees helps to slow drivers down and reduce emissions, a win-win situation for all. Not to mention that instead of speeding up quickly in these pedestrian-friendly areas, drivers could be saving money on gas by accelerating slowly.

Next time you drive through your city, take a look at the trees around you. You might not have realized the effect they’ve had on your driving habits.

Earthgarage – Greener Car. Fatter Wallet.