Tuesday, September 15th, 2015
Suzanne Goldenberg , Environmental Correspondent - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: The future is being revealed quicker than anyone believed possible.
The Sierra Nevada snowpack is a key source of water for California.
Credit: Rich Pedroncelli/AP
The Sierra Nevada snowpack that is a critical water source for California fell to a 500-year low last winter – far worse than scientists had estimated and underlining the severity of the current drought, according to new research.
The snow accumulation in the mountains was just 5% of what is normal, inflating the risk of wildfires, drying up wells and orchards, and pushing communities into water rationing.
Scientists had earlier thought that the snow pack was the lowest in 100 years, after a winter that was the warmest on record. Now it turns out it was actually the lowest in five centuries, according to research published in Nature Climate Change on Monday.
“It was definitely a 500-year low. In the 500-year reconstruction, it was unprecedented,” said Valerie Trouet of the University of Arizona, who led the study. “When you are a climate scientist, first you get excited by the […]
1 Comment
Tuesday, September 15th, 2015
Katie Halper, - The Raw Story
Stephan: Someone told me the other day that SR concerns about racism were overblown, that racism is at best a minor issue, mostly concerned the the police. Oh, really? Try this story on for size.
The truth is we have still not healed the wounds of the Civil War and racism is still a hallmark of American society.
Black child in U.S. hospital
Credit: www.firstdreamfoundation.com
A study released Monday shows that Black children are given less painkillers than white children when being treated for acute appendicitis, an extremely painful inflammation of the appendix. While several studies have looked at the racial disparity in pain management among adults, this study focuses on the phenomenon among children. And it turns out that both Black children and Black adults can look forward to racial bias and racist treatment when seeking medical attention.
The article published online by JAMA Pediatrics on Monday presents a study which used data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey from 2003 to 2010 to look at the use of opioid analgesia (which includes medications like Percocet ) and nonopioid analgesia (which includes over the counter household medicine like Tylenol).
Of an estimated almost 1 million children evaluated in Emergency Departments (EDs) who were diagnosed with appendicitis, 56.8 percent of patients received some for of analgesia and 41.3 percent received opioid analgesia. Among […]
1 Comment
Tuesday, September 15th, 2015
Karel Beckman, - CleanTechnica/Energy Post
Stephan: Here is a story confirming what SR has been saying for several years. Of course it got no play at all from the corporate media.
However, what they don't think is important I think is the sign of a shift in a major trend. Today even Steve Holliday, CEO of National Grid can see the handwriting on the wall concerning the future of the old massive grid power distribution model.
Steve Holliday, CEO of National Grid
Steve Holliday, CEO of National Grid, the company that operates the gas and power transmission networks in the UK and in the northeastern US, believes the idea of large coal-fired or nuclear power stations to be used for baseload power is “outdated”. “From a consumer’s point of view, the solar on the rooftop is going to be the baseload. Centralised power stations will be increasingly used to provide peak demand”, he says, in an exclusive interview for World Energy Focus, a publication of the World Energy Council produced by Energy Post. The chief of National Grid also notes that energy markets “are clearly moving towards much more distributed production and towards microgrids”.
“This industry is going through a tremendous transformation. We used to have a pretty good idea of what future needs would be. We would build assets that would last decades and that would be sure to cover those needs. That world has ended. Our strategy is now centred around agility and flexibility, based on our inability to predict or prescribe what […]
No Comments
Tuesday, September 15th, 2015
Marc Siegel, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Medical Director of Doctor Radio at New York University’s Langone Medical Center - Slate Magazine
Stephan: Read this article carefully and go talk to your physician if you have high blood pressure and hypertension.
Credit: Photo illustration by Juliana Jiménez. Photo by Thinkstock.
It’s easy to get confused by the overly dramatic daily news about health and medicine. One day coffee is great for you, the next day it interferes with
sleep and leads to illness. One day the plague is back, the next day it’s Ebola or West Nile virus that’s capturing attention. Health care stories ebb and flow as seen through the skewed eye of TV news.
But every now and then, a story comes along that literally changes the way I and other doctors practice medicine. It is difficult to overstate the importance of such a story.
One of the clues that we are in the medical research big leagues is when a study is stopped early for dramatic, clear findings. That’s what occurred this past week with the National Institutes of Health–sponsored Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial, or SPRINT. Another clue is when the study is prospective […]
3 Comments
Sunday, September 13th, 2015
Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate and Op-Ed Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan: Paul Krugman has been right so often that only rigid ideology stops governments from taking the point he is making: Austerity is killing the world economy.
Paul Krugman
TOKYO — Visitors to Japan are often surprised by how prosperous it seems. It doesn’t look like a deeply depressed economy. And that’s because it isn’t.
Unemployment is low; overall economic growth has been slow for decades, but that’s largely because it’s an aging country with ever fewer people in their prime working years. Measured relative to the number of working-age adults, Japanese growth over the past quarter century has been almost as fast as America’s, and better than Western Europe’s.
Yet Japan is still caught in an economic trap. Persistent deflation has created a society in which people hoard cash, making it hard for policy to respond when bad things happen, which is why the businesspeople I’ve been talking to here are terrified about the possible spillover from China’s troubles.
Deflation has also created worrisome “debt dynamics”: Japan, unlike, say, So Japan needs to make a […]
No Comments
