Climate experts warn world leaders 1.5C is ‘real science’, not just talking point

Scientists say keeping temperature rises to 1.5C is vital physical threshold for planet that cannot be negotiated

The Greenland ice sheet, the melting of which would raise sea level rises, could be tipped into a state of irreversible decline beyond 1.5C.

Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images


Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent
Sat 30 Oct 2021 07.00 B

The 1.5C temperature limit to be discussed by world leaders at critical meetings this weekend is a vital physical threshold for the planet’s climate, and not an arbitrary political construct that can be haggled over, leading climate scientists have warned.

World leaders are meeting in Rome and Glasgow over the next four days to thrash out a common approach aimed at holding global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the lower of two limits set out in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

But some countries are unwilling to peg their emissions plans to the tougher goal, as it would require more urgent efforts. They prefer to consider long-term goals such as net zero by 2050.

Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and one of the world’s foremost climate scientists, warned that the 1.5C target was not like other political negotiations, which can be haggled over or compromised on.

“A rise of 1.5C is not an arbitrary number, it is not a political number. It is a planetary boundary,” he told the Guardian in an interview. “Every fraction of a degree more is dangerous.”
Allowing temperatures to rise by more than 1.5C would vastly increase the risk of irreversible changes to the climate, he said. For instance, it would raise the risk of the Arctic losing its summer ice, with dire knock-on effects on the rest of the climate as the loss of reflective ice increases the amount of heat the water absorbs, in a feedback loop that could rapidly raise temperatures further.


Who’s who at Cop26: the leaders who hold the world’s future in their hands

The Greenland ice sheet, the melting of which would raise sea level rises, could also be tipped into a state of irreversible decline beyond 1.5C.

A rise of more than 1.5C would also threaten changes to the Gulf Stream, which could also become irreversible. It could result in catastrophe for biodiversity hotspots, damage agriculture across swathes of the globe, and could inundate small islands and low-lying coastal areas.

“This is real science – it is a real number. Now we can say that with a high degree of confidence,” he said, as 1.5C indicated a physical limit to the warming the planet can safely absorb.

Rockström added: “[Staying within] 1.5C is achievable. It is absolutely what we should be going for.”

The leaders of the G20 group of the world’s biggest economies – developed and developing – are meeting on Saturday in Rome. They will fly to Glasgow for Monday morning, where they will be joined by more than 100 leaders from the rest of the world for the UN Cop26 climate summit.

The UK, as host of Cop26, has set the aim of “keeping 1.5C alive”, but some countries – including China, Saudi Arabia and Russia – have been reluctant to agree to focus on the 1.5C limit, preferring to point out that the Paris agreement states the world must hold temperatures “well below” 2C while “pursuing efforts” to stay within 1.5C.


Wealthy nations urged to meet $100bn climate finance goal

However, scientific research since the Paris agreement was signed has added to a compelling body of global science showing that if temperatures are allowed to rise by more than 1.5C, the consequences will be severely damaging and many are likely to be irreversible.

Other leading climate scientists echoed Rockström’s warnings. Mark Maslin, a professor of Earth systems science at University College London, said: “The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published in 2018 made the science very clear: there are significant climate impacts all round the world even if we limit warming to 1.5C.

“The report also showed there were significant increases to impacts and damages if we overshoot this target … These results were fully supported by the very latest 2021 IPCC science report [published in August]. This is the science and these agreed climate targets set by the Paris agreement are non-negotiable and have been agreed already by all 197 countries of the UN.”

Joeri Rogelj, the director of research at the Grantham institute, Imperial College London, said: “Science tells us that climate change risks increase rapidly between 1.5C and 2C of warming. Looking at the last years, during which we experienced some of the impacts of a 1.2C warmer world [such as heatwaves, flooding and extreme weather] – one would be hard pressed to call this safe.”

Earth gets hotter, deadlier during decades of climate talks BLAH BLAH BLAH

By SETH BORENSTEIN

24 minutes ago

1 of 14

FILE - In this Aug. 17, 2021, file photo, embers light up hillsides as the Dixie Fire burns near Milford in Lassen County, Calif. World leaders have been trying to do something about climate change for 29 years but in that time Earth has gotten much hotter and more dangerous. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

World leaders have been meeting for 29 years to try to curb global warming, and in that time Earth has become a much hotter and deadlier planet.

Trillions of tons of ice have disappeared over that period, the burning of fossil fuels has spewed billions of tons of heat-trapping gases into the air, and hundreds of thousands of people have died from heat and other weather disasters stoked by climate change, statistics show.

When more than 100 world leaders descended on Rio de Janeiro in 1992 for an Earth Summit to discuss global warming and other environmental issues, there was “a huge feeling of well-being, of being able to do something. There was hope really,” said Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, one of the representatives for Native Americans at the summit.

Now, the 91-year-old activist said, that hope has been smothered: “The ice is melting. ... Everything is bad. ... Thirty years of degradation.”

Data analyzed by The Associated Press from government figures and scientific reports shows “how much we did lose Earth,” said former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief William K. Reilly, who headed the American delegation three decades ago.

That Earth Summit set up the process of international climate negotiations that culminated in the 2015 Paris accord and resumes Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland, where leaders will try to ramp up efforts to cut carbon pollution.

Back in 1992, it was clear climate change was a problem “with major implications for lives and livelihoods in the future,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the AP this month. “That future is here and we are out of time.”

World leaders have hammered out two agreements to curb climate change. In Kyoto in 1997, a protocol set carbon pollution cuts for developed countries but not poorer nations. That did not go into effect until 2005 because of ratification requirements. In 2015, the Paris agreement made every nation set its own emission goals.

In both cases, the United States, a top-polluting country, helped negotiate the deals but later pulled out of the process when a Republican president took office. The U.S. has since rejoined the Paris agreement.

The yearly global temperature has increased almost 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) since 1992, based on multi-year averaging, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Earth has warmed more in the last 29 years than in the previous 110. Since 1992, the world has broken the annual global high temperature record eight times.

In Alaska, the average temperature has increased 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since 1992, according to NOAA. The Arctic had been warming twice as fast as the globe as a whole, but now has jumped to three times faster in some seasons, according to the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program.

That heat is melting Earth’s ice. Since 1992, Earth has lost 36 trillion tons of ice (33 trillion metric tons), according to calculations by climate scientist Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds. That includes sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic that melts now more in the summer than it used to, the shrinking of giant ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, and melting glaciers.

And Michael Zemp, who runs the World Glacier Monitoring Service, said Shepherd’s numbers may be a little low. He calculates that since 1992, the glaciers of the world have lost nearly 9.5 trillion tons of ice (8.6 trillion metric tons), about a trillion tons more than Shepherd’s figures.

With more ice melt in the ocean and water expanding as it warms, the world’s average sea level has risen about 3.7 inches (95 millimeters) since 1992, according to the University of Colorado. That may not sound like much, but it is enough to cover the United States in water to a depth of 11 feet (3.5 meters), University of Colorado sea level researcher Steve Nerem calculated.

Wildfires in the United States have more than doubled in how much they have burned. From 1983 to 1992, wildfires consumed an average of 2.7 million acres a year. From 2011 to 2020, the average was up to 7.5 million acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

“The unhealthy choices that are killing our planet are killing our people as well,” said Dr. Maria Neira, director of the World Heath Organization’s environment, climate change and health program.

The United States has had 265 weather disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage — adjusted to 2021 dollars — since 1992, including 18 so far this year. Those disasters have caused 11,991 deaths and cost $1.8 trillion. From 1980 to 1992, the U.S. averaged three of those billion-dollar weather disasters a year. Since 1993, the country has averaged nine a year.

Worldwide there have been nearly 8,000 climate, water and weather disasters, killing 563,735, according to the EMDAT disaster databas e. Those figures are probably missing a lot of disasters and deaths, said the Debarati Guha-Sapir, who oversees the database for the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at the University of Louvain School of Public Health in Brussels.

Medical researchers earlier this year looked at 732 cities worldwide and calculated how many deaths were from climate change-caused extra heat. They found that on average since 1991, there have been 9,702 heat deaths from global warming a year just in those studied cities, which adds up to 281,000 climate-caused heat deaths since 1992.

But that’s a small proportion of what really is happening, said study author Ana Vicedo-Cabrera, an epidemiologist at the Institute of Social and Preventative Medicine at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Using those cities, researchers calculated that during the four hottest months of the year, the added heat from climate change is responsible for 0.58% of the globe’s deaths.

That comes to about 100,000 heat deaths caused by climate change a year for 29 years, she said.

WHO officials said those figures make sense and calculate the annual death toll from climate change will rise to 250,000 a year in the 2030s.

Scientists say this is happening because of heat-trapping gases. Carbon dioxide levels have increased 17% from 353 parts per million in September 1992 to 413 in September 2021, according to NOAA. The agency’s annual greenhouse gas index, which charts six gases and weights them according to how much heat they trap, rose almost 20% since 1992.

From 1993 to 2019, the world put more than 885 billion tons (803 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide in the air from the burning of fossil fuels and making of cement, according to the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists who track emissions.

A pessimistic Lyons, the Native American activist, said, “I would say this meeting in Glasgow is the last shot.”

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Read stories on climate issues by The Associated Press at https://apnews.com/hub/climate.

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

G20: India's Modi to meet Pope Francis for first time

Religious minorities in India have reported increased discrimination and violence since Narendra Modi took office in 2014. The pope wants to make an official trip to the South Asian nation, but has so far been shunned.


Pope Francis (right) is expected to call on Indian PM Narendra Modi to take tougher action to stop religious violence

The first meeting between Pope Francis and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome this weekend is being tipped as a potential thorny encounter.

Francis will receive Modi at the Vatican on Saturday amid accusations of increasing levels of discrimination against religious minorities in India since the Hindu nationalist politician took office in 2014.

The pope is also expected to prepare the ground for a long-awaited official visit to India, which, according to Catholic media, is being held up by Modi's refusal to set a date.

The last time a pope visited India's nearly 28 million Christians was in 1999.

Modi stokes divisions

India's population of 1.4 billion is made up of various ethnicities and religions. While the country has long been plagued by communal tensions, Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are accused of fueling a rise in discrimination and violence toward people of other religions.

While Muslims, who make up around 14% of the population, have borne the brunt, Christians, who account for just over 2%, have also reported a rise in reported violent attacks.

More than 300 violent incidents have been recorded this year, according to a report by a group of NGOs released this month, under the pretext that Christians are seeking to forcibly convert Hindus.

The report said Christians face persecution from Hindu nationalist groups in 21 of the 28 states, most of them ruled by the BJP.

Christianity is India's third-largest religion after Hinduism and Islam, with approximately 27.8 million followers

The recent violence includes an attack earlier this month on a Christian prayer house in the northern state of Uttarakhand, which the local head of the BJP accused of holding "suspicious gatherings."

In March, a mob of Hindu radicals in the central state of Chhattisgarh attacked around 150 people in a church with axes, stones and wooden clubs. Eight people were seriously injured, according to reports.

In August in the same state, a mob of around 100 people beat up a pastor and vandalized his house. A month later, a crowd forced their way into a police station and assaulted a priest who was being questioned.

Catholic bishops demand end to violence

In recent days, Catholic bishops in India have demanded that the national and state governments take firm action against increasing persecution and violence against Christians.

At least three states run by the BJP have passed legislation aimed at preventing "forced conversion," and dozens of people have been arrested. Others plan to follow suit including the southern state of Karnataka, where priests have come out in protest.

The archbishop emeritus of Guwahati, Thomas Menamparampil, recently described the Hindu nationalist or Hindutva movement as "a vicious form of nationalism."

In the online magazine Indian Currents, he wrote that Hindutva and BJP along with powerful businessmen, "have developed the art of using religious and cultural symbols to mobilize crowds to win elections and promote their own interests."

The national debate now revolves exclusively around "what this club considers important: not development and welfare, but profits and privilege," Menamparampil added.

Modi's government has rejected having a Hindu agenda and insists that people of all religions have equal rights.

After the G20 gathering, Modi is due to leave for Glasgow to attend the COP26 climate summit.

mm/sri (AFP, KNA)

 

Strong solar flare could disrupt navigation, lead to auroras

A major solar flare was seen as a bright flash at the sun's lower center this week, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. This is one of the strongest solar storms in the star's current weather cycle.

    

The solar storm has been classified as an 'X1-class flare,' space agency NASA said

A strong solar flare erupted earlier this week which could affect GPS and communication satellites in the coming days, and also cause auroras in Europe and North America, space agency NASA and weather agency NOAA said.

"Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation," NASA explained in a statement.

"Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel," it said.

The solar storm has been classified as an "X1-class flare," the space agency added.

"X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength," it said.

This means that X2 would be twice as strong as the one on Thursday. According to NASA, flare classified X10 — 10 times the strength of current flare — or stronger is considered "unusually intense."

Space Weather Prediction Center of NOAA said an "R3 (Strong radio blackout) event took place due to an X1 flare," on Thursday.

The space flight of German astronaut Matthias Maurer, who is set to start his expedition to the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday, is not believed to be at risk.

The high-energy particles emitted by the flare could also cause certain atoms in the Earth's atmosphere to glow, leading to auroras in Central Europe as well as North America.

However, the phenomenon could only be seen if the weather is clear.

With material from DPA news agency.

Bumper Cannabis Crop For Afghan Farmers


By Daphne ROUSSEAU
10/30/21 

Afghanistan's new Taliban authorities swear they plan to crack down on the illicit drugs trade that largely fuelled their successful revolt.

But so far nothing has changed for cannabis farmers like Ghulam Ali, whose crop stands head-height across three hectares (eight acres) of land outside Kandahar.

A boy works in a cannabis field on the outskirts of Kandahar Photo: AFP / BULENT KILIC

The plantation lies on the main road through the Panjwai district, northeast of the city, its dark green plants as recognisable as the acrid smell.

"We benefit from it more than from any other crop or fruit," Ali told AFP.


"I had the option to grow other things, but poppy needs more investment, more chemicals to protect the plant from disease."

The Taliban victory put an end to a form of double taxation whereby the insurgents and the former government both took a cut of farmers' profits Photo: AFP / BULENT KILIC

Under the previous US-backed government, overthrown by the Taliban in August, the hashish farmer paid local officials a levy of 3,000 Pakistani rupees ($17) a kilo.

"It was nothing official, just a tax we had to pay. If not they could destroy our plantation," Ali said.

Under the previous US-backed government, overthrown by the Taliban in August, some hashish farmers paid local officials a levy of 3,000 Pakistani rupees ($17) a kilo Photo: AFP / BULENT KILIC

Ali's family converted maize fields to cannabis in 2000, just before the end of the previous Taliban regime, and have had no cause to regret it.

Some 20 relatives live in his mud-brick farmstead. They're not wealthy, but the children go to school and life is comfortable by rural Afghan standards.

At busy times, they hire outside workers to help bring in the harvest.

The Taliban officially opposes the drugs trade but cannabis farmers say the former insurgents are doing nothing to stop them growing their crops Photo: AFP / BULENT KILIC

Next month, the plants will be sifted, pressed and heated to extract an oil, which is then transformed into black-green hashish paste for sale and export.

The bricks sell to traffickers for between 10,000 and 12,000 rupees per kilo ($60).

Ali knows the smugglers will sell it on for double the price in Iran, Pakistan or India, but he hopes to make a profit of 3,000 rupees per kilo.

All this despite the Taliban, once a shadow army in the region and now the local administration, formally opposing the drugs trade.

Yussef Wafa, a mullah and governor of Kandahar under the Taliban emirate, told AFP that his men had arrested 1,000 "addicts" in the past month.

"We are trying to defeat poppy and hashish and we are trying to keep the people from the sellers, the smugglers," he said in an interview.

"And we will not let the farmers grow it."

Whatever the plan, however, Ali is optimistic.

The Taliban victory has at least put an end to a form of double taxation, where the insurgents and the former government both took a cut of his profit.

"They are just here across the road," he told AFP at the farm, referring to the Taliban. "But they don't want anything from us."

DOING ORWELL PROUD
Vietnam jails citizen journalists for 'abusing democratic rights'

Vietnam has a poor record for free speech and is ranked 175th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' 2021 World Press Freedom Index

Hanoi (AFP)

A Vietnamese court has jailed five citizen journalists for "abusing democratic rights", drawing sharp US criticism of the communist government's crackdown on freedom of speech.

Vietnam's hardline administration often moves swiftly to stifle dissent, jailing activists, journalists and any critic with large audiences on Facebook, which is widely used throughout the country.

Critics say the government has adopted a much tougher approach to dissent since Nguyen Phu Trong was re-elected as the Communist Party chief after a secretive congress earlier this year.

Five people working on an online citizen journalist news page were sentenced on Thursday by a court in Can Tho, a city in southern Vietnam's Mekong Delta region.

Truong Chau Huu Danh, the founder of Facebook page Bao Sach, which translates as "The Clean Newspaper" and has posts on hot-button social issues and corruption, was jailed for four and a half years.

Articles by Danh -- a former journalist -- had "reactionary thoughts, going deep into content that is not suitable for the interests of the country", state-run Vietnam News Agency said, quoting court documents.

His four co-defendants received jail terms of between two and three years.

All five will be banned from working in journalism for three years after completing their jail terms.

The verdict is the latest in a "troubling trend" of detentions of press workers and any citizen "exercising their rights to freedom of speech and of the press", US State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Friday.

"We understand this group of journalists focused on investigative reporting on corruption, which, of course, is not a crime," he said in a statement.

"The United States calls on the Vietnamese authorities... to release these five journalists and all those unjustly detained, and to allow all individuals in Vietnam to express their views freely and without fear of retaliation."

In July, former radio journalist Pham Chi Thanh -- also a well-known pro-democracy activist -- was sentenced to five and a half years in prison on anti-state charges for disseminating information on Facebook.

Vietnam is ranked 175th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

© 2021 AFP

Sweden's 'gentle art' of house cleaning before death

Swedish death cleaning is meant to relieve families of the burden of sorting through possessions after the death of a loved one 

Jonathan Nackstrand AFP/File

Issued on: 30/10/2021 

Stockholm (AFP)

In her elegant apartment in the centre of Stockholm, 84-year-old Lena Sundgren looks at her crowded bookshelf, lit by the glow of a candle.

Sighing deeply, she lifts up a pile of gardening books and moves them to one side. "The feeling of getting rid of them is a relief," she admits. "This death cleaning, which I do a few times a week, makes me calm."

Death cleaning, or "dostadning" in Swedish, is the name given to the practice of sorting through your personal belongings before your death.

The concept has gained something of a cult following around the world since it was coined by author Margareta Magnusson in her 2017 bestseller "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter".

"I think you should take care of your stuff so that no one else has to do all the work for you with all the crap that you have left behind," the author tells AFP.

Sorting through a lifetime of possessions "takes you back to moments you want to remember maybe, and if you don't, just throw it away", she says.

Death cleaning differs from the decluttering approach to a tidy home associated with Marie Kondo, a Japanese celebrity who gained global fame promoting the idea that people should keep only those items that bring them joy.

Swedish death cleaning is meant to relieve families of the burden of sorting through possessions after the death of a loved one.

'You can't live forever!'

Magnusson's daughter Jane appreciates her mother's efforts.

"I think most people who have really old parents and a busy life would like to go through less of their parents' things when they are gone," she says.

"I am grateful for the huge amount of work she has done... and happy that it's catching on around the world."

Magnusson's book has made the New York Times bestseller list, has been translated into dozens of languages.

An American blogger who posted a video about her experience with death cleaning has racked up three million views online.

While Magnusson coined the term, Swedes have been death cleaning for ages.

"Forty years ago a very old neighbour of mine told me that she was going to do death cleaning," recalls Kristina Adolphson, an 84-year-old former actress who is now also doing it.

"When you death clean... you have to realise that you can't live forever!"

Swedes' pragmatic approach to dying helps explain the phenomenon, says Magnusson, suggesting that other cultures prefer to avoid the subject.

"They are afraid of death, and so are Swedes. But we talk about it."

Only a few essential items of clothing hang in her closet, but a few figurines of animals and trolls still dot her living room.

"I have death cleaned my apartment many times but I still have quite a few things. So it never ends."

© 2021 AFP

Japanese start-up takes hoverbike for a spin around racetrack


Oct. 29 (UPI) -- A Japanese start-up unveiled its single-rider hoverbike with a video showing the airborne vehicle circling a track.

The XTURISMO Limited Edition Model was taken for a test drive at the Fuji Speedway Racing Course in Oyama and a video of the flight was posted to the company's YouTube account.

The bike features a combustion engine and four battery powered motors that allow it to move at speeds of up to 60 mph.

XTURISMO said the bike is available n Japan for $680,000.

Nipah virus likely won't be next pandemic, but should be watched

By Ian Jones, University of Reading


Fruit bats are the main animal host of the Nipah virus. 

Photo by BTS-BotrosTravelSolutions/Pixabay


Oct. 29 (UPI) -- The severe and devastating consequences of the coronavirus pandemic were undoubtedly made worse by a substantial lack of pandemic preparedness, with the exception of East and South East Asia, which had built up defenses after their experience with SARS in 2003. So it is crucial that governments begin to develop strategies to protect us if other deadly viruses emerge.

A recent outbreak of Nipah virus in India has raised the question of whether we should start to consider it as a future threat, and look to build up our arsenal of defenses now.

The rapid development of vaccines against the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, have provided a pathway out of this pandemic. So, if vaccines for other potentially dangerous viruses could be developed and stockpiled, they could be rolled out as soon as any new outbreak is detected. We would then be ahead of the curve and a pandemic could be avoided.

This approach is laudable -- but it assumes that viruses with pandemic potential can be identified in advance, which is not easy to do. And it also runs the risk that a "don't worry, there's a vaccine" mindset might cause simpler preventative methods to be overlooked.

Nipah virus was first identified in Malaysia in 1998. Cases such as the recent death of a boy in Kerala, India have raised concerns that it could mutate and increase its efficiency of transmission, leading to widespread circulation.

That scenario is frightening as the virus currently has a case fatality rate of over 50% and there is no vaccine or tried-and-tested treatment.

But before we can invest resources into vaccine development against Nipah we need to assess whether it is a realistic pandemic threat. And even if it is, there are other viruses out there, so we must understand where it should rank on the list of priorities.

Assessing the risk

To assess the risk, we need to look at how the virus transmits and replicates.

Nipah is a paramyxovirus. It is related to a human virus, human parainfluenza virus, one of the handful of viruses that cause the common cold. Its natural host is the fruit bat, the large and small flying foxes which are distributed across South and Southeast Asia. All cases of human infection with the Nipah virus to date have been due to direct or indirect contact with infected bats.

The infection in bats is sub-clinical, so goes largely unnoticed. Virus is excreted in the urine which, via grooming and crowding, ensures transfer within and between colonies.

Fruit or fruit juice contaminated by bat urine is the principal route of virus transmission to people.

A long-term study in Bangladesh, where regular Nipah virus outbreaks occur among its people, suggests that bat population density, virus prevalence and people drinking raw date palm sap are the main factors explaining the pattern of transmission. The bats contaminate the sap while it is being tapped from the date palm tree, and it is then consumed locally.

That is an important finding. As we have seen with SARS-CoV-2, better transmitting viruses evolve while the virus is circulating among its human, not animal, hosts. So, keeping the number of infections in people to a minimum not only minimizes the death rate from Nipah itself but also reduces the chance of virus adaptation. Stop the transmission and you stop the pandemic threat.

In the cases of human infection, so far, there has been limited spread to only close contacts of the primary infected individual, such as family members or, if the person is hospitalized, hospital staff.

General transmission does not occur, mainly because the proteins the Nipah virus uses to enter cells, the receptors, are concentrated in brain and central nervous tissues.

Nipah infection leads to death by acute encephalitis in most cases as the virus replicates best in the tissues where it is easy for the virus to enter the cells.

The virus does replicate to a small degree in the vasculature, the blood vessels, which provide a route for the virus to travel from consumed foodstuffs to the nervous system. But the central nervous system preference also suggests why onward transmission is limited. The virus cannot easily transmit from there.

Of course a very sick individual will have virus everywhere, but as with Ebola, the virus is not efficiently transmitted by the respiratory route and requires touch or transfer of body fluids. Very close contact is required to infect someone else.

The chance of the virus changing to replicate in the upper respiratory tract, from where it certainly would be more transmissible, is small, and while this does not rule out pandemic potential it significantly lessens its probability. Like other regular zoonotic infections, the spillover event itself from bat to human, and the immediate people affected is more the issue than the potential for epidemic spread.

There is a case for a Nipah vaccine, but more for emergency use in those in contact with a primary case than for a vaccination campaign in general.

The case against it rests on the fact that absolute numbers are low, costs high and outbreaks so sporadic that a clinical trial would be very difficult to organize. Research has shown that therapeutic antibody is effective and that would make a far more practical treatment option in the short term.

In my view, Nipah does not pose a high risk of causing a pandemic. Its current pattern of outbreak is likely to remain the norm. Instead, as has been discussed elsewhere, we need to ensure that surveillance, improved awareness and effective public health measures are in place and adhered to. They will have a much bigger impact on the control of Nipah virus cases in the immediate future. As for pandemic preparedness in the medium and long term, we need to turn our attention to identifying which other viruses pose a threat and work to develop vaccines and other defensive measures against those.

Ian Jones is a professor of virology at the University of Reading.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

Climate change already harming the health of many in U.S., report says

By HealthDay News

OCT. 30, 2021 

Climate change is already making Americans sick and researchers warn that the nation must take swift action to protect people's well-being.

"Climate change effects aren't just an abstraction, something that will happen years from now," said researcher Lewis Ziska, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City.

"They are happening today, and they impact every aspect of your health, from the air you breathe [more smoke, more pollen] to the nutritional quality of the food you eat [less protein]," he said.

"Yet at present, at the federal level, there is almost no funding for studying the health effects," Ziska added. "We are stumbling along with a candle, when we need a searchlight to see -- and to respond -- to these threats."

Ziska was among the contributors to a U.S. Brief that accompanies the annual Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change.

A large international team produced the report, which was published this week in The Lancet. It focuses on three climate change-associated health threats: heat waves, drought and wildfires.

Compared to 1986-2005, U.S. seniors and babies under 1 year of age experienced many more days of heat wave exposure in 2020.

Certain groups are more likely to be exposed to extreme heat, including people of color, outdoor workers, prison inmates and those living below the poverty line, the study noted.

Wildfires in the Western United States dovetail with hotter temperatures and the wildfire season is getting longer.

By September of last year, the maximum annual U.S. wildfire incidence peaked at about 80,000, eight times more than in all of 2001.

There is emerging evidence that fine particulate matter -- PM2.5 -- in wildfire smoke may be up to 10 times more harmful to human health than PM2.5 from other sources, posing an increased risk of respiratory harm to children.

It's also been shown that PM2.5 from climate change-intensified wildfire smoke increases the risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19, possibly by enabling the virus to travel farther and cause more lung inflammation.

Droughts also are a health threat because they compound exposure to heat, increase respiratory and infectious disease risks, harm water quality, and worsen mental health issues, particularly in rural areas.

"The data in this report are more than just alarming statistics and trends," brief lead author Dr. Renee Salas said in a Lancet news release. She's a climate and health expert at the Harvard Global Health Institute and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

"These numbers represent patients, such as those with worsening asthma attacks, Lyme disease, or life-threatening illnesses from extreme heat," Salas said.

Acting on climate change is a way to improve health in the United States and advance equity, she added.

The brief outlines what the United States needs to do. The steps include making rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, recognizing the health-related costs of fossil fuels, and quickly increasing funding for protections against climate change-related health threats.

"Climate change is real and happening now," said brief contributor Dr. Cecilia Sorensen, associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia's Mailman School. "The good news is that there is a ton that we can do to change the course we are on."

More information

The World Health Organization has more on climate change and health.

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