injury
Why it's so dangerous to walk through floodwaters
Floodwaters might not immediately look dangerous, but they can put you at risk of injuries, diseases and exposure to hazardous materials.
Disasters make 14 million people homeless each year.
About 14 million people are being made homeless on average each year as a result of sudden disasters such as floods and storms, new figures show.
Eight of the ten countries with the highest levels of displacement and housing loss are in South and Southeast Asia
By Adela Suliman
LONDON, Oct 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - About 14 million people are being made homeless on average each year as a result of sudden disasters such as floods and storms, new figures show.
The risk of displacement could rise as populations swell and the impacts of climate change become more severe, said a report issued on Friday by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) and the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and tropical cyclones are the main disasters forecast to uproot large numbers of people, with countries in Asia, home to 60 percent of the world's population, hit particularly hard, according to modelling by the agencies.
Eight of the ten countries with the highest levels of displacement and housing loss are in South and Southeast Asia.
They include India, where an average of 2.3 million people are forced to leave their homes annually, and China with 1.3 million people uprooted each year, found the report, released on the International Day for Disaster Reduction.
The numbers exclude those evacuated ahead of a threat, and people displaced by drought or rising seas.
Russia and the United States also feature as countries where disasters could cause large-scale homelessness, unless significant progress is made on managing disaster risk, the study said.
"The findings underline the challenge we have to reduce the numbers of people affected by disasters," said Robert Glasser, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for disaster risk reduction.
"Apart from death or severe injury in a disaster event, there is no more crushing blow than the loss of the family home," he added in a statement.
The most devastating floods to hit South Asia in a decade killed more than 1,400 people this year, and focused attention on poor planning for disasters, as authorities struggled to assist millions of destitute survivors.
Refugees and people uprooted in their own countries are already at record-high numbers, said IDMC director Alexandra Bilak. The new model goes some way towards predicting the risk of disaster-related displacement, which is an "urgent, global priority", she noted.
It is also intended to help urban planners in hazard-prone towns and cities who must consider the safety and durability of built-up areas and the threats to millions living there. Justin Ginnetti, head of data and analysis at the IDMC, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation there was a strong correlation between the risk of being uprooted by a disaster and residing in a rapidly urbanising location.
With the poor often living on the outskirts of cities, on flood plains or along river banks, Ginnetti said better urban planning could make them less vulnerable.
He contrasted Japan and the Philippines, which have roughly the same number of people exposed to cyclones. Japan builds more robust housing and so faces far less displacement in a disaster than the Philippines, where homes are less able to withstand shocks, he said.
"We don't want people to think of disaster displacement as some kind of inevitable act of God - this is not (a) necessary outcome every time there's heavy rainfall," he said.
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Industry seeks legal cover with replacement rule.
As the Trump administration mulls whether to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, its legal foes are already plotting creative courtroom challenges against U.S. EPA and directly against utilities.
As the Trump administration mulls whether to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, its legal foes are already plotting creative courtroom challenges against U.S. EPA and directly against utilities.
If the agency drags its heels on replacing the rule, declares that it won't replace it at all or issues a narrower rule, lawsuits are certain. Among the tactics environmental lawyers are eyeing: bringing climate change "nuisance" claims under common law — where those suing would argue that they're harmed by emissions — and filing direct citizen lawsuits against EPA. Those prospects have industry worried and are part of the reason some are pushing for a replacement.
"If EPA is not acting like it is taking this issue in hand and moving forward aggressively against this singularly serious threat ... there will be more pressure for innovative remedies, innovative approaches," said Sean Donahue, an attorney representing environmentalists in the ongoing Clean Power Plan litigation. "A picture of abdication is going to inject a lot of energy into efforts to find other ways to get at these emissions," he said.
The Obama administration's Clean Power Plan required states to craft strategies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. On Tuesday, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt formally began the process to repeal the rule. EPA also said it's considering whether to issue a replacement rule. A replacement from the Trump administration is expected to forgo the broad approach that the Obama administration took and focus more narrowly on efficiency limits at specific power plants.
The prospect of being vulnerable to widespread common law and citizen lawsuits is extremely unattractive to industry, which could face steep legal costs and settlement fees. Having a replacement rule for the Clean Power Plan could help take some of the legal uncertainty off the table.
"I think that for several reasons, the vast majority of people in the business community believe that there should be a reasonable regulation instead of no regulation at all," said Jeff Holmstead, an attorney at Bracewell LLP. "Part of that is they think that that protects them against these nuisance suits, I think that's certainly part of it. They would also just like to have some regulatory certainty."
Looming over the legal debate is a 2011 Supreme Court decision.
In the 2011 case American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, a state-led coalition sued six power companies, arguing it was hurt by the companies' emissions contributing to climate change. But the justices ruled that the Clean Air Act pre-empted such federal common law claims. Because the court had previously ruled that EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the ruling was seen to preclude common law claims brought under federal law.
The question being pondered now: What if EPA doesn't actually act to limit greenhouse gas emissions?
"At the time AEP was decided, it looked like EPA was actually going to move forward with fulfilling its statutory duty," Donahue said. "And so it is certainly a significant change in the game to see EPA pulling back from fulfilling its statutory duty, and I think we'll have to see what happens."
Multiple legal experts, though, said they see an uphill battle for climate change claims brought under common law, even in the absence of any EPA limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
That's because, in the 2011 opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that displacement occurred when Congress passed the Clean Air Act. "The Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency action the Act authorizes, we hold, displace the claims the plaintiffs seek to pursue," the opinion says.
"It's the legislation that displaces or pre-empts, not regulation," said Michael Burger, executive director of Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
Eric Glitzenstein, partner at Meyer Glitzenstein & Eubanks LLP, a D.C. law firm that was involved in AEP, was not optimistic about using federal nuisance cases either, citing the Supreme Court's broad ruling in the 2011 decision. "I have a hard time seeing how one would get around that," said Glitzenstein, who represented Defenders of Wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity and the National Wildlife Federation in an amicus brief in AEP.
According to Tom Lorenzen, an attorney at Crowell & Moring LLP who's represented utilities in the litigation opposing the Clean Power Plan, "displacement continues to hold whether there's a replacement rule or not because EPA has the authority to regulate under [the Clean Air Act]."
However, he added, "I think there's less incentive for environmental groups and others to try to bring these suits if the federal government is regulating."
Judges 'may take it into their own hands'
But experts note that the "displacement" in AEP extends only to federal common law and not to claims brought under state law.
"There's nothing the Trump administration can do to shield power companies and coal companies from liability under state law, so they can't get that kind of shield," said David Doniger, director of the Climate & Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
As the Trump administration works to kill the Clean Power Plan, cities and counties in California are already turning to state common law.
Since July, three California cities and two counties have sued companies for damages related to climate change under state public nuisance law. The lawsuits claim that the companies — which include BP PLC, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC — have intensified climate change and exacerbated costly sea-level rise.
"We're going to ensure that those responsible for the problem are held to account," Dennis Herrera, San Francisco's city attorney, said last month (Climatewire, Sept. 21).
David Bookbinder, counsel at the libertarian Niskanen Center and former climate attorney at the Sierra Club, said that judges have dealt with claims of injuries to people and property for centuries. While climate change cases are more complex, they may be more likely to succeed the longer Congress and EPA punt on regulating industrial emissions.
"The longer the delay, the more likely it is that judges, be they state or federal judges, will be receptive to the idea that they are the only ones who can do anything," he said.
He added: "The judges don't want to do this. They would far prefer that either Congress dealt with it or EPA dealt with it. But they may take it into their own hands."
Still, state common law claims on climate change are a relatively untested legal area. Up to now, courts have expressly declined to address such claims, Burger said.
If the state lawsuits fail, it could increase the impetus for filing federal common law claims as a "tool of last resort," Burger predicted.
"It seems perfectly plausible that a city, a state, an environmental organization would say, well, what are we going to do?" he said. "The courts are blocking state common law avenues, the federal government is not doing anything, courts aren't forcing them to do anything — we have to go back to the idea that there's a right that's being infringed on here."
Some conservatives are dismissing concerns about both federal and state nuisance cases.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative nonprofit, pointed to the decision in AEP when representatives met with White House officials last month.
In a handout given to administration officials, the foundation noted it was difficult at both the state and federal level to prove injury from greenhouse gases from specific sources or categories of sources since they are emitted worldwide, from "virtually every nook and cranny of the developed and developing world."
"Even in the event that a legally defensible scientific case could be made that total global anthropogenic emissions are significantly contributing to climate change, allocating responsibility among emitters everywhere will be an impracticable task for federal courts to undertake," the group wrote.
Citizen suits
If EPA declines to replace the Clean Power Plan or slow-walks a new rule, the agency will also likely face direct legal challenges from supporters of climate action, lawsuits known as citizen suits. States, environmentalists and health groups could file citizen suits that challenge the Trump administration's unreasonable delay or failure to act.
It wouldn't be the first time on this issue. In fact, the Clean Power Plan came about after a yearslong legal tug of war ultimately won by states that wanted EPA to crack down on climate-warming emissions.
After the 2007 Supreme Court decision finding EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases, the Sierra Club and Our Children's Earth Foundation then filed a citizen suit pushing EPA to craft power plant emissions standards. EPA responded by issuing a rule that set new performance standards for power plants but did not address carbon dioxide.
New York then filed a separate lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that prompted a 2007 settlement allowing EPA to take another stab at power plant standards, this time incorporating greenhouse gases. After years of additional legal wrangling and another Supreme Court decision affirming EPA's authority, the Obama administration issued the Clean Power Plan.
"It's almost certain that if EPA moves forward with the repeal and doesn't do anything on the replacement or moves so slowly on the replacement that in effect nothing will happen, I would expect that there would be a lawsuit filed against EPA of the same sort arguing that EPA is thereby violating a nondiscretionary duty," said Richard Revesz, director of New York University's Institute for Policy Integrity.
Some conservative lawyers have pushed back on just how firm that duty is. They have argued that the Clean Air Act simply does not give EPA the tools to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, or that the agency's determination that such emissions endanger public health is not specific enough to compel regulation for the power sector.
Environmental lawyers largely shrug off those arguments, pointing to EPA's 2009 endangerment finding for greenhouse gases and Supreme Court cases that have affirmed the agency's authority.
"If he does nothing at all, we can bring various kinds of litigation to force him to act," NRDC's Doniger said. "The D.C. Circuit itself has indicated that he has an obligation to act, and at least some of the judges there are looking at their wristwatches."
Doniger was referring to a recent concurrence from two D.C. Circuit judges who agreed that litigation over the Obama rule should be put on hold but cautioned that EPA has a legal duty to act on climate change.
"Combined with this court's abeyance, the stay has the effect of relieving EPA of its obligation to comply with that statutory duty for the indefinite future," Judges David Tatel and Patricia Millett wrote in August. "Questions regarding the continuing scope and effect of the Supreme Court's stay, however, must be addressed to that Court."
Revesz said that the uncertainty provides a good reason for the D.C. Circuit to decide whether the Obama rule is legal. The court has put litigation over the rule on hold as the Trump administration decides what to do with the rule.
"The fact that this litigation is likely to be coming up down the road actually provides a pretty strong argument for the D.C. Circuit to decide the pending challenge to the Clean Power Plan now as opposed to waiting for this whole process to unfold," Revesz said.
He added: "If the D.C. Circuit, for example, upheld the Clean Power Plan, a lot of these things would get resolved. There'd be no federal common law actions. We would know that the repeal is illegal, and there would be a fair amount of certainty and less litigation."
Reporters Niina Heikkinen and Robin Bravender contributed.
Twitter: @apeterka Email: areilly@eenews.net
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'Katrina brain': The invisible long-term toll of megastorms.
Long after a big hurricane blows through, its effects hammer the mental-health system.
Bryan Tamowski for POLITICO
The Agenda
AGENDA 2020
'Katrina brain': The invisible long-term toll of megastorms
Long after a big hurricane blows through, its effects hammer the mental-health system.
By CHRISTINE VESTAL 10/12/2017 05:10 AM EDT
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NEW ORLEANS — Brandi Wagner thought she had survived Hurricane Katrina. She hung tough while the storm’s 170-mph winds pummeled her home, and powered through two months of sleeping in a sweltering camper outside the city with her boyfriend’s mother. It was later, after the storm waters had receded and Wagner went back to New Orleans to rebuild her home and her life that she fell apart.
“I didn’t think it was the storm at first. I didn’t really know what was happening to me,” Wagner, now 48, recalls. “We could see the waterline on houses, and rooftop signs with ‘please help us,’ and that big X where dead bodies were found. I started sobbing and couldn’t stop. I was crying all the time, just really losing it.”
Twelve years later, Wagner is disabled and unable to work because of the depression and anxiety she developed in the wake of the 2005 storm. She’s also in treatment for an opioid addiction that developed after she started popping prescription painkillers and drinking heavily to blunt the day-to-day reality of recovering from Katrina.
More than 1,800 people died in Katrina from drowning and other immediate injuries. But public health officials say that, in the aftermath of an extreme weather event like a hurricane, the toll of long-term psychological injuries builds in the months and years that follow, outpacing more immediate injuries and swamping the health care system long after emergency workers go home and shelters shut down.
That’s the rough reality that will soon confront regions affected by this year’s string of destructive hurricanes. As flood waters recede from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria and Nate, and survivors work to rebuild communities in Texas, Florida and the Caribbean, mental health experts warn that the hidden psychological toll will mount over time, expressed in heightened rates of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, domestic violence, divorce, murder and suicide.
Brandi Wagner's home in Lafitte, La., left, and the nearby bayou, Bayou Barataria, right. Below, sandbags line the street across from Wagner's home as Hurricane Nate approached earlier this month. | Bryan Tamowski for POLITICO
Renée Funk, who manages hurricane response teams for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says it has become clear since Katrina that mental illness and substance abuse aren’t just secondary problems—they are the primary long-term effect of natural disasters.
“People have trouble coping with the new normal after a storm,” Funk said. “Many have lost everything, including their jobs. Some may have lost loved ones, and now they have to rebuild their lives. They’re faced with a lot of barriers, including mental illness itself,” she said.
In New Orleans, doctors are still treating the psychological devastation of Katrina. More than 7,000 patients receive care for mental and behavioral health conditions just from the Jefferson Parish Human Services Authority, a state-run mental health clinic in Marrero, just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. At least 90 percent of the patients lived through Katrina and many still suffer from storm-related disorders, according to medical director and chief psychiatrist Thomas Hauth, who adds that he and most of his fellow clinicians also suffer from some level of long-term anxiety from the storm.
“Every year about this time, I start checking the National Weather Service at least three times a day,” he said.
These long-term mental health effects of extreme weather are a hidden public health epidemic, one that is expected to strain the U.S. health care system as the intensity and frequency of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, wildfires, earthquakes and other natural disasters increase in coming decades because of global warming and other planetary shifts.
With climatologists promising more extreme weather across the country, mental and behavioral health systems need to start preparing and expanding dramatically or demand for treatment of the long-term psychological effects of future natural disasters will vastly outstrip the supply of practitioners, said Georges Benjamin, director of the American Public Health Association.
Dr. Thomas Hauth, a psychiatrist, in his office at the Jefferson Parish Human Services Authority in Marrero, La., where he treats residents still suffering from anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental disorders caused or exacerbated by Hurricane Katrina. Hauth and his colleagues also report post-storm anxiety and other conditions. | Bryan Tamowski for POLITICO
“On a blue sky day, our mental health resources are stretched,” said Carol North, researcher and professor of psychiatry at University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas. “There’s a lot we don’t know yet, but common sense tells us that more disasters and worse disasters will lead to worse psychological effects.”
”Katrina brain”
For climate change believers, this year’s string of record-breaking Atlantic hurricanes was just a warm-up for what scientists predict will be more frequent extreme weather events in the future.
When an entire city experiences a significant trauma at the same time, as New Orleans did during Katrina and Houston did during Harvey, it can push a lot of people over the edge, said Eric Kramer, another doctor who worked in the Jefferson Parish clinic: “Some people can rely on their inner strength and resilience to get through it, but others can’t.”
In the aftermath of Katrina, many survivors struggled with short-term memory loss and cognitive impairment, a syndrome dubbed “Katrina brain,” according to a report by Ken Sakauye, a University of Tennessee professor of psychiatry who was at Louisiana State University at the time.
Even though more than half the population of New Orleans had evacuated, psychiatric helpline calls increased 61 percent in the months after Katrina, compared with the same period before the storm, death notices increased 25 percent, and the city’s murder rate rose 37 percent, Sakauye wrote.
A year after Katrina, psychiatrist James Barbee reported that many of his patients in New Orleans had deteriorated from post-Katrina anxiety to more serious cases of depression and anxiety. "People are just wearing down," Barbee said. "There was an initial spirit about bouncing back and recovering, but it's diminished over time, as weeks have become months.”
In a longitudinal study comparing the mental health of low-income single moms in New Orleans before and after Katrina, one in five participants reported elevated anxiety and depression that had not returned to pre-storm levels four years later, said Jean Rhodes, study co-author and professor of psychiatry at University of Massachusetts Boston.
Hurricane Katrina killed 1,800 people in 2005, and left behind massive property damage. But publiGetty Imagesc health officials are learning that the longest-lasting damage of several storms is psychological. | Getty Images
For a smaller percentage of people in the study, particularly people with no access to treatment, symptoms of anxiety developed into more serious, chronic conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, the researchers found.
These aren’t cheap conditions to treat. One study cited by the CDC estimated the cost of treating even the short-term effects of anxiety disorders at more than $42 billion annually; double-digit regional leaps in rates of anxiety could cause serious financial strain to patients, employers, insurers and the government.
Vicarious reactions
Some damage can take place outside the storm-hit region. Even for people who have never experienced the raging winds, floods and prolonged power outages of a hurricane, this season’s repeated images of people struggling against the storms on television and other news and social media created unprecedented levels of anxiety and depression nationwide, said Washington, D.C., psychiatrist and environmental activist Lise Van Susteren.
“There is a vicarious reaction. When we see people flooded out of their homes, pets lost, belongings rotting in the streets, and people scared out of their wits, we experience an empathic identification with the victims,” she said.
Brandi Wagner pulls out the medications she must take on a daily basis to control a range of storm-related disorders including anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and an addiction to opioids. | Bryan Tamowski for POLITICO
“People come in saying they can’t sleep, they’re drinking too much, they’re having trouble with their kids, their jobs or their marriages are falling apart. They may not know where the anxiety is coming from, but everyone is affected by the stress of climate change.”
The same kind of vicarious reactions were documented after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and after Hurricane Katrina, particularly in children, said Columbia University pediatrician and disaster preparedness expert Irwin Redlener.
“The mental health effects of natural disasters are really important and vastly overlooked, not only acutely but over the long term,” he said.
Everyone who lives through a major storm experiences some level of anxiety and depression. But for low-income people and those without strong social supports, the symptoms are much worse, said Ronald Kessler, an epidemiologist and disaster policy expert at Harvard Medical School. The same is true for people who already suffered from mental illness or drug or alcohol addiction before the disaster occurred.
Repeated exposure to weather disasters is another risk factor for mental and behavioral disorders. Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, followed by Hurricane Rita less than a month later. Three years after that, Hurricane Gustav hit the Louisiana coast, followed by Hurricane Ike two weeks later.
In September, many who had fled Hurricane Katrina and resettled in Houston had to relive the same horrors all over again, putting them at higher risk for long-term mental health problems.
TOP LEFT: Wagner in her backyard. TOP RIGHT: Wagner's medications. BOTTOM LEFT: Wagner shows off a photo of her son, Sgt. Aaron Briggs, receiving his sergeant badge in a photo on her phone. BOTTOM RIGHT: Wagner's daughter, Jessica Briggs, her grandson, Jeremy Goudeau Jr., and her daughter, Kristina Briggs, at her home in Lafitte, La.. | Bryan Tamowski for POLITICO
But perhaps the greatest risk of adverse mental health reactions to storms occurs when an entire community like New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward is so completely destroyed that people can’t return to normal for months or years, if ever. For those who left and went to live in Houston, Atlanta and other far-flung cities, the dislocation and loss of community was equally harmful, researchers say.
“People are only physically and mentally resilient to a point and then they are either irretrievably injured or they die,” Kessler said. If storms intensify in the future, the kind of devastation parts of New Orleans experienced could become more common, he said.
Psychiatric First Aid
In the past decade, first responders and public health workers began training in a type of mental health first aid that research has shown to be effective in lowering anxiety and reducing the risk that the traumas experienced during a storm will lead to serious mental illness.
Using evidence-based techniques, rescue workers reassure storm survivors that feelings of sadness, anger and fear are normal and that they are likely to go away quickly. But when survivors complain that they’ve been crying nonstop, haven’t slept for days or are having suicidal thoughts, rescue workers are trained to make sure they get more intensive mental health care immediately.
In Houston, for example, teams of doctors, nurses, mental health counselors and other health care professionals offered both physical and mental health services at clinics set up in every storm shelter. The city’s emergency medical director, Davie Persse, said the clinics were so successful that local hospital emergency departments reported no surges in patients with psychiatric distress or minor injuries.
Forced evacuation, whether temporary or permanent, can also trigger psychological problems for people confronted by natural disasters. | Wikimedia Commons
Another important factor in reducing the psychological impacts of a storm is avoiding secondary traumas like being stranded for weeks in the convention center in New Orleans, said Sarah Lowe, a co-author of the Katrina study who teaches psychology at Montclair University in New Jersey. “Repeated traumas can pile up almost the way concussions do.”
“What I’m seeing in Harvey and Irma is there’s more mitigation of secondary trauma,” Lowe said. People were allowed to take their pets to the shelters with them, for example. In Katrina, survivors either had to leave their pets behind or stay in their homes and be more exposed to physical and mental dangers.
Evacuation and relocation
Some public health experts say that we need to start thinking of longer-term solutions to the longer-term problem of severe weather; instead of trying to treat post-storm psychological damage, we should avoid it in the first place by persuading residents to move out of storm-prone areas.
“We do a great job with preparedness and response to hurricanes in this country. It’s an amazing accomplishment,” said Mark Keim, an Atlanta-based consultant who works with the CDC and the National Center for Disaster Medicine and Health. “But as climate change progresses over the next one hundred years, what are we going to do—respond, respond, respond? We can’t afford that anymore.”
According to Keim, much of the rest of the world is already taking that approach:
“Hurricanes can’t be prevented, but by refusing to rebuild in flood plains and developing the infrastructure needed to reduce inland flooding and coastal surges, we can avoid much of the human exposure to the coming storms. That’s where the world is right now in disaster management. Preparedness and response are older approaches.”
Climate change experts agree. To avoid increasing loss of lives from the mega storms expected in the decades ahead, large coastal populations should relocate, researchers say. Mathew Hauer, a demographer at the University of Georgia, recently found that a predicted 6-foot rise in sea levels by 2100 would put 13 million people in more than 300 U.S. coastal counties at risk of major flooding.
But relocating large populations has its own risks. For the hundreds of thousands of New Orleans residents who rebuilt their lives far from home after Katrina, the loss of social ties and the stress of adapting to new surroundings also took a heavy psychological toll, according to recent research at the University of California.
There’s another problem with relocating people from coastal regions. It’s not just hurricanes that are expected to plague the planet as the climate shifts. Wildfires, droughts, inland flooding, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters are also expected to increase in frequency and intensity, making it hard to find a safe place to put down new roots.
“Whether people decide to stay or decide to move, which means giving up a way of life, the long-term psychological costs of climate change appear to be inevitable,” Harvard’s Kessler said. “We can expect a growing number of people to have to face that dilemma. They’ll be affected by extreme weather one way or another, and they will need psychological help that already is in short supply.”
Christine Vestal is a reporter for Stateline, a nonprofit journalism project funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
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What's a science reporter to do when sound evidence isn't sound?
I usually base my ideas on scientific research that has matured far enough that it is beginning to get published in peer-reviewed journals. This time I couldn't.
What’s a Science Reporter to Do When Sound Evidence Isn’t Sound?
By CARL ZIMMEROCT. 6, 2017
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A view of the United States Embassy in Havana. Some American diplomats have fallen ill in Cuba due to an alleged “sonic attack.” Credit Alejandro Ernesto/European Pressphoto Agency
On Tuesday, Michael Mason, my editor on the science desk, shot me an email. Would I consider writing an article about “this sonic ‘attack’ business”?
I knew exactly what he was talking about. I had been vaguely puzzled about this business for months.
Earlier this year, my colleagues at The New York Times started to report on a medical mystery that has turned into an international standoff. American diplomats in Cuba have fallen ill with a variety of perplexing symptoms, including — reportedly — some that might denote mild brain injury. The United States government has claimed foul play and accuses Cuba of, at the very least, not protecting the diplomats.
No one was publicly saying what caused the symptoms. But again and again, I would see suggestions that the diplomats were being attacked with a sonic weapon. A sound rifle, perhaps.
When the United States escalated the dispute by expelling 15 Cuban diplomats on Tuesday, Michael decided he wanted to learn more about this strange idea. I decided to try to find something out — not as a political reporter but as a science writer. My article was published on Thursday.
I have been contributing articles about science to The Times since 2004. For the past four years I’ve written a weekly column called Matter. I usually base my ideas on scientific research that has matured far enough that it is beginning to get published in peer-reviewed journals. The biggest challenge in writing these is that there’s so much data to learn about, to mull and to transform into a narrative that will be compelling to nonexperts.
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A ‘Sonic Attack’ on Diplomats in Cuba? These Scientists Doubt It OCT. 5, 2017
U.S. Expels 15 Cuban Diplomats, in Latest Sign Détente May Be Ending OCT. 3, 2017
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RECENT COMMENTS
jp 22 hours ago
LIke many of the comment writers, I thought it most likely that our own government was playing games.However, an article in Wired on October...
Martin Brooks 22 hours ago
I'm no scientist, but I am an ex-recording engineer and I don't quite buy it. If the sonic attack was at very low frequencies, it would have...
Todd 22 hours ago
From what I have read, the only evidence that a sonic weapon might be behind the symptoms reported by diplomats in Cuba is that several...
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I knew that an article on sonic weapons would be very different from the ones I usually write. Consulting with Gardiner Harris, who covers international diplomacy for The Times and has written several articles about this case, I learned there was not even an official medical report.
I decided to try to draw some boundary lines for all the speculation swirling around the story. Is the idea of a sonic attack plausible, based on what scientists know about sound and the human body?
I wound up perusing a massive 2009 book called “ ‘Non-Lethal’ Weapons,” with a chapter summarizing research on using sound to incapacitate people at a distance.
But there’s less than meets the eye. There’s a lot of wild rumor about secret weapons that can make brains explode or make people think there’s a voice inside their head. And while medical researchers have studied the effects of sound for decades, they’ve done so sporadically, leaving us with a very patchy understanding.
So I hit the phone. I didn’t want to talk with just anyone — I looked for people with lots of experience in research that had direct bearing on this question. I started with Timothy Leighton, whose job title at Southampton University is, literally, professor of ultrasonics and underwater acoustics. Better yet, Dr. Leighton has published the only thorough recent scientific review of the effects of environmental ultrasound that I’m aware of.
When I interviewed Dr. Leighton and others, I made clear I didn’t expect them to solve this mystery; I just wanted them to reconcile the question with what we know through science. Everyone I spoke with had been following the news, too, so in each interview we hit the ground running.
23
COMMENTS
Spoiler alert: The consensus was that it was extremely unlikely the diplomats were the victims of a sonic weapon. It would be necessary to rule out less exotic possibilities before taking that one seriously. The notion has ricocheted like mad around the press, making it possible for readers to assume that it has been generally accepted by experts. But it most certainly has not. I’ll be curious to see if articles like mine can put the brakes on the speculation.
If the United States government ever does release the results of a detailed investigation, I would love to report on the case again. But, as the retired acoustics professor Steven L. Garrett pointed out, the chance to easily prove that a sonic weapon was involved — using a cellphone microphone — is long past. I may never get to write that follow-up.
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Mid-air turbulence set to triple due to climate change, scientists warn.
Commercial airliners will be buffeted by up to three times more turbulence in future decades, according to a new report.
Commercial airliners will be buffeted by up to three times more turbulence in future decades, according to a new report.
Experts have warned the risk of mid-air injuries will rise and passengers can expect to spend more time confined to their seats with the seatbelt sign switched on due to rougher skies disturbed by climate change.
On some popular routes for UK travellers, such as transatlantic flights, instances of severe turbulence will increase by 180 per cent, while over Europe the rate is set to worsen by 160 per cent.
Scientists had already noticed that so-called clear-air turbulence (CAT) was on the rise, however the new study by the University of Reading is the first to come up with a comprehensive mathematical model predicting long-term global conditions.
It estimates that by 2050 the rate of inflight injuries will have almost tripled in line with the increased volume of turbulence.
The research team called for better forecasting systems allowing cabin crew to get their passengers seated and belted in time.
“Air turbulence is increasing across the globe, in all seasons and at multiple cruising altitudes,” said Paul Williams, Professor of Atmospheric Science at Reading, who led the new study.
“This problem is only going to worsen as the climate continues to change.”
CAT is the most troublesome type faced by airliners because it is invisible and cannot be detected on radar.
Global warming is increasing the phenomenon by strengthening wind instabilities at high altitudes in the jet streams and by making pockets of rough air stronger and more frequent.
Even severe turbulence is all but incapable of threatening the survival of a commercial aircraft, however it can cause injury to those on board.
In June, 20 people were injured, including some with broken bones and head wounds, when a China Eastern Airlines flight from Paris to South West China struck heavy turbulence.
The overall number of casualties recorded globally each year is in the low hundreds, however experts believe this is due to under-reporting of minor injuries and the true number is significantly higher.
Last month the manufacturer Boeing announced it was preparing to test a new laser technology allowing pilots to detect CAT up to ten miles away, although given the 550 mph cruising speed of most passenger jets, this would only give about 60 seconds’ notice.
“Unless aviation meteorologists become better at forecasting patches of turbulence, passengers will face increased discomfort levels from in-flight bumpiness and an increased risk of injury,” said Professor Williams.
“Air travellers can expect the amount of time they spend flying through turbulence confined to their seats to double or maybe even treble on some routes.”
Published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the study predicted that severe turbulence over North America will increase by 110 per cent from 2050, 90 per cent over the North Pacific and 60 per cent over Asia.
The model also include the first turbulence predictions for the Southern Hemisphere and tropical regions of the planet, estimating an increase in severe turbulence over South America of 60 per cent, and Australia and Africa of 50 per cent.
Aircraft are currently thought to spent about three per cent of their cruising time in light intensity CAT, and about 1 per cent in turbulence of moderate intensity.
Dr Manoj Joshi, who co-authored the research from the University of East Anglia, said: “This study is another example of how the impacts of climate change can be felt through the circulation of the atmosphere, not just through the increases in surface temperature itself.”
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Divided US solar sector spars over trade relief at hearing.
U.S. solar manufacturers on Tuesday asked federal trade officials to impose tariffs on cheap foreign-made panels, clashing with companies who rely on those products to build low-priced projects that can compete with gas and coal.
(Reuters) - U.S. solar manufacturers on Tuesday asked federal trade officials to impose tariffs on cheap foreign-made panels, clashing with companies who rely on those products to build low-priced projects that can compete with gas and coal.
In a closely-watched case, the U.S. International Trade Commission is set to recommend measures to prop up the small domestic solar manufacturing industry after it ruled unanimously last month that producers have been harmed by imports.
It must deliver its report by Nov.13 to President Donald Trump, who will then decide how to proceed.
The outcome could have a major impact on the price of solar power in the United States and determine whether the renewable energy technology can compete with dominant fossil fuels.
Suniva and SolarWorld, which are both foreign-owned but manufacture panels in the United States, asked for four years of tariffs on all solar cells and panels made overseas, plus either a price floor on panels or an import quota.
“Tariffs alone will not remedy the serious injury you found,” Suniva attorney Matthew McConkey told the commission.
In documents filed last week, Suniva asked for a tariff of 25 cents per watt on solar cells and 32 cents per watt on panels. The manufacturer is also seeking a minimum price on panels of 74 cents a watt, nearly double their current cost. SolarWorld has asked for an import quota.
Existing tariffs on solar products from China and Taiwan have been insufficient to protect the domestic industry, Suniva said.
Suniva is majority owned by Shunfeng International Clean Energy and SolarWorld AG is based in Germany. Suniva filed for bankruptcy in April and soon after filed its petition with the ITC.
The Solar Energy Industries Association, the sector’s primary trade group, opposes Suniva’s petition.
SEIA argued on Tuesday that higher panel prices would hurt demand, impacting installation companies and manufacturers and leading to widespread job losses.
“These job losses are far, far in excess of any limited job gains the domestic cell and module industry might obtain based on optimistic projections,” SEIA attorney Matthew Nicely said.
SEIA suggested less radical remedies - technical assistance, job training programs, and a modest import licensing fee.
SunPower Corp Chief Executive Tom Werner testified that concerns about new tariffs had caused his company to lose “a multi-hundred million dollar opportunity” to rival First Solar Inc, which uses a technology not included in the trade case.
“We couldn’t offer price certainty and they could,” Werner said. SunPower is based in California but primarily manufactures panels in Asia.
Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Sue Horton and Rosalba O'Brien
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