Looks to be closed permanently. Unfortunate, or I would go there tomorrow. Looks like a 15 minute drive from my place.
Dirty air biggest external threat of all to human health, study finds Air pollution is more dangerous to the health of the average person on planet Earth than smoking or alcohol, with the threat worsening in its global epicenter South Asia even as China quickly improves, a benchmark study showed Tuesday. Yet the level of funding set aside to confront the challenge is a fraction of the amount earmarked for fighting infectious diseases, said the research from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC). Its annual Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) report showed that fine particulate air pollution -- which comes from vehicle and industrial emissions, wildfires and more -- remains the "greatest external threat to public health." If the world were to permanently reduce these pollutants to meet the World Health Organization's (WHO) guideline limit, the average person would add 2.3 years onto his or her life expectancy, according to the data, which has a 2021 cutoff. That adds up to 17.8 billion life years saveD, the researchers point out. Fine particulate matter is linked to lung disease, heart disease, strokes and cancer. Tobacco use, by comparison, reduces global life expectancy by 2.2 years while child and maternal malnutrition is responsible for a reduction of 1.6 years. "The impact of (fine particulate air pollution) on global life expectancy is comparable to that of smoking, more than 3 times that of alcohol use and unsafe water, more than 5 times that of transport injuries like car crashes, and more than 7 times that of HIV/AIDS," the report says. Asia and Africa bear the greatest burden yet have some of the weakest infrastructure to deliver citizens timely, accurate data. They also receive tiny slices of an already small global philanthropic pie. For example, the entire continent of Africa receives less than $300,000 to tackle air pollution. "There is a profound disconnect with where air pollution is the worst and where we, collectively and globally, are deploying resources to fix the problem," Christa Hasenkopf, director of air quality programs at EPIC, told Agence France-Presse. While there is an international financing partnership called the Global Fund that disburses $4 billion annually on HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, there is no equivalent for air pollution. "Yet, air pollution shaves off more years from the average person's life in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Cameroon than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other health threats," the report said. Globally, South Asia is the region impacted most. Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan are, in order, the top four most polluted countries in terms of annualized, population-weighted averages of fine particulate matter, which are detected by satellites and defined as particles with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less (PM2.5). Air pollution concentrations are then fed into the AQLI metric, which calculates their impact on life expectancy based on peer-reviewed methods. Residents of Bangladesh, where average PM2.5 levels were 74 micrograms per cubic meter, would gain 6.8 years of life if this were brought to WHO guidelines of 5 micrograms per cubic meter. India's capital Delhi, meanwhile, is the "most polluted megacity in the world" with annual average particulate pollution of 126.5 micrograms per cubic meter. China, on the other hand, "has had remarkable progress in terms of its war on air pollution" thst began in 2014, said Hasenkopf. Its air pollution dropped 42.3 percent between 2013 and 2021. If the improvements are sustained, the average Chinese citizen will be able to live 2.2 years longer. In the United States, legislative actions like the Clean Air Act helped reduce pollution by 64.9 percent since 1970, helping Americans gain 1.4 years of life expectancy. But the growing threat of wildfires -- linked to hotter temperatures and drier conditions due to climate change -- are causing pollution spikes from the western United States to Latin America and Southeast Asia. For example, California's historic wildfire season of 2021 saw Plumas County receive an average concentration of fine particulate matter more than five times over the WHO guideline. North America's story of air pollution improvements in recent decades is similar to Europe, but there remain stark differences between western and eastern Europe, with Bosnia the continent's most polluted country.
...agreed! But the timing of my reply more had to do with Tampa originally being in Hurricane Idalias projected path
Crazy. I certainly never saw anything like that while either I or my children were in school, but I don't doubt it exists. Sad that it does, I wish it didn't, and I don't think materials that push corporate agendas should be part of any educational curriculum.
Amazon driver 'in very serious condition' after rattlesnake bite in Florida The unidentified driver was placing a package at the entrance of a residence in Palm City, Florida, when she was bitten, authorities said. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/amazon-driver-serious-condition-rattlesnake-bite-rcna107271 A woman delivering packages for Amazon was seriously injured when a rattlesnake bit her at a residence in Palm City, Florida, authorities said. "The snake bite victim was transported to the hospital where she is in very serious condition," the Martin County Sheriff's Office said in a statement on Tuesday. An eastern diamondback rattlesnake was coiled up near the front door of the location and struck as the driver as she put the package down on Monday, the office said. An eastern diamondback rattlesnake bit an Amazon delivery driver, in Palm City, Fla., on Monday.Martin County Sheriff's Office via Facebook The worker, who was not identified, was bitten in the back of the leg, just above the knee, it said. "She immediately became ill," the sheriff's office said. She called 911, and dispatchers used her cellphone's GPS coordinates to find her, the sheriff's office said.
Taking the 'fossil fuels' out of fuel cells. Revolutionary new technology. I hope stuff like this takes off.
World carbon dioxide emissions increase again, driven by China, India and aviation BY SETH BORENSTEIN Updated 4:02 PM PST, December 4, 2023 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The world this year pumped 1.1% more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air than last year because of increased pollution from China and India, a team of scientists reported. The increase was reported early Tuesday at international climate talks, where global officials are trying to cut emissions by 43% by 2030. Instead, carbon pollution keeps rising, with 36.8 billion metric tons poured into the air in 2023, twice the annual amount of 40 years ago, according to Global Carbon Project, a group of international scientists who produce the gold standard of emissions counting. “It now looks inevitable we will overshoot the 1.5 (degree Celsius, 2.7 degree Fahrenheit) target of the Paris Agreement, and leaders meeting at COP28 will have to agree rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2 (degree Celsius, 3.6 degree Fahrenheit) target alive,’’ study lead author Pierre Friedlingstein of the University of Exeter said. Read more...
