huffingtonpost.com - October 1, 2013

The government shutdown is underway, as a dispute about President Obama's Affordable Care Act led to a partisan stalemate over a funding bill. The ACA will go forward, with health exchanges opening today, but that doesn't mean the shutdown won't have an impact on the health of Americans.

Here are nine ways the shutdown could affect your health, a reminder of just how crucial government resources can be in protecting and improving our health and well-being.

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The devastating Rim Fire threatened Yosemite in August.  Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

This year has been a bloody one for firefighters on the front lines against wildfires. With climate change intensifying fires, it may be time to change the way we fight them.

time.com - by Bryan Walsh - October 4, 2013

We usually measure wildfires in acres burnt or the number of homes destroyed. But there’s a human toll to fires as well. So far this year 32 people have lost their lives fighting fires, the highest number in nearly 20 years—and the fire season isn’t done yet. More than half of those deaths occurred in a single incident, when all but one of a 20-man firefighting crew were killed during the Yarnell Hill fire in Arizona in June.

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cfr.org - Council on Foreign Relations - June 2013

Overview

This CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force warns that "escalating attacks on countries, companies, and individuals, as well as pervasive criminal activity, threaten the security and safety of the Internet." The number of "state-backed operations continues to rise, and future attacks will become more sophisticated and disruptive," argues the Task Force report, Defending an Open, Global, Secure, and Resilient Internet.

With the ideal vision of an open and secure Internet increasingly at risk, the Task Force urges the United States, with its friends and allies, "to act quickly to encourage a global cyberspace that reflects shared values of free expression and free markets."

(CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, AND TO DOWNLOAD THE REPORT)

FILE- In this July 11, 2010, file photo, provided by BP, workers onboard the Transocean Discoverer Inspiration deploy the 3 Ram Capping Stack to the Deepwater Horizon BOP in the Gulf of Mexico. Experts for BP and the federal government used the data from the gauges in calculating how much how much oil spilled into the Gulf during the 87 days it took to plug the well. But they will provide a judge with widely different estimates when the second phase of a trial resumes Monday, Oct. 7, 2013, for litigation spawned by the spill. (AP Photo/BP, Marc Morrison, File)

ap.org - abcnews.com - by Michael Kunzelman
September 30, 2013

The focus of a trial over BP's massive 2010 oil spill has shifted from the causes of the deadly disaster to the company's struggle to plug its blown-out well while millions of gallons of crude gushed into the Gulf of Mexico for nearly three months.

The trial's second phase opened Monday with claims that BP could have capped the well much sooner if it hadn't ignored decades of warnings about the risks of a deep-water blowout or withheld crucial information about the size of the spill from federal officials.

REPORT - Fracking by the Numbers - Key Impacts of Dirty Drilling at the State and National Level (47 page .PDF report)

CLICK HERE - Fracking by the Numbers - Key Impacts of Dirty Drilling at the State and National Level

CLICK HERE - Fracking by the Numbers - New Report First to Quantify Damage Done by Gas Drilling

Growing concerns over radiation risks as report finds widespread environmental damage on an unimaginable scale in the US

theguardian.com - by Suzanne Goldenberg
October 4, 2013

Fracking in America generated 280bn US gallons of toxic waste water last year – enough to flood all of Washington DC beneath a 22ft deep toxic lagoon, a new report out on Thursday found.

On July 18, 2013, Frank Nutter, President of the Reinsurance Association of America, testified before the Senate Committee on Environment Protection and Public Works as to the RAAs perspective on weather and climate-related impacts in the United States.

Following are excerpts from his report:

"In the 1980’s, the average number of natural catastrophes globally was 400 events per year. In recent years, the average is 1000. Munich Re’s analysis suggests the increase is driven almost entirely by weather-related events. North America has seen a fivefold increase in the number of such events since 1980. In comparison, Europe has seen a twofold increase.

newscientist.com - by Fred Pearce - October 4, 2013

CLICK HERE - State of the Ocean Report 2013

We know the oceans are warming. We know they are acidifying. And now, to cap it all, it turns out they are suffocating, too. A new health check on the state of the oceans warns that they will have lost as much as 7 per cent of their oxygen by the end of the century.

The cascade of chemical and biological changes now under way could see coral reefs irreversibly destroyed in 50 to 100 years, with marine ecosystems increasingly taken over by jellyfish and toxic algal blooms.

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(CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION)

Image: The Design Like You Give a Damn banner

architectureforhumanity.org

Image: ExxonMobil's flag flies near an oil refinery.

grist.org - September 12th, 2013 - John Upton

ExxonMobil subsidiary XTO Energy is being prosecuted for alleged environmental crimes after it spilled fracking wastewater into a Pennsylvania river in 2010.

The company’s response? It claims the criminal charges could harm the environment.

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A National Park Service police guarded The Lincoln Memorial as signs were put up explaining government shutdown, on Tuesday.

nytimes.com - by michael D. Shear - October 1, 2013

WASHINGTON — The vast machinery of the federal government began grinding to a halt Tuesday morning just hours after weary lawmakers gave up hope of passing a budget in the face of Republican attacks on President Obama’s health care law.

For the first time in 17 years, Congress failed Monday night to agree on a new budget and refused to extend the current one. Without the authority to spend money, the executive branch on Tuesday morning started the process of temporarily mothballing facilities and suspending the many services the government provides.

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Operational Biosurveillance - biosurveillance.typepad.com - October 1, 2013

Mexico is reporting upwards of 44 cases of cholera now with one fatality involving Hidalgo State and Mexico City.  The appearance of cholera in Mexico City is deeply concerning from the standpoint of the "tip of the iceberg": we only know of the recognized cases.  There are likely others out there.

A couple of points about this:

1. Totally expected to see expansion of the Nepalese cholera from Haiti to the DR, to Cuba, and now to Mexico. It is likely to include many other countries in that region before all is said and done.

2. It is likely to spread in Mexico in 'fits and starts' due to lack of indigenous immunity and will cause disruption.

3. It will likely spread along trade and migrant labor routes to the US and other countries doing business with Mexico.

4. Communities in the US may be caught unawareness due to basic expectation of border communities in Texas serving as "canaries in a coal mine" for the rest of the country. We propose the migrant labor routes penetrate deep into the US and far from these border communities.

A home destroyed during the landfall of Superstorm Sandy is pictured in Mantoloking, New Jersey March 22, 2013.  Credit: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

reuters.com - by Barbara Liston - September 24, 2013

(Reuters) - More than a million homeowners living in older houses along the coastlines and riverbanks of the United States are being jolted by federal flood insurance rate hikes under a law passed in the wake of devastating storms.

Carol Giovannoni, 51, of St. Pete Beach, a barrier island community off Florida's west coast, is one of the people dreading October 1, when the law takes effect. Giovannoni said the annual flood insurance premium on her standard 1950s concrete-block, ranch-style home on the waterfront will jump from $1,700 to $15,000 over the next few years.

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CLICK HERE - Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012

ipcc.ch - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

"Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis" is the contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This comprehensive assessment of the physical aspects of climate change puts a focus on those elements that are relevant to understand past, document current, and project future climate change.

(CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND FOR LINKS TO THE FULL REPORT)

submitted by Margery Schab

eesi.org - Environmental and Energy Study Institute

Educating Congress on energy efficiency and renewable energy; advancing innovative policy solutions

For more information contact: Amaury Laporte at (202) 662-1884 or ***@***.***

"The emergence of the global warming problem creates an imperative for action that cannot be ignored." – The Environmental and Energy Study Institute's Board of Directors' unanimous statement, 1988.

In the past quarter century, the case for action has become ever more pressing, and the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a scientific body under the auspices of the United Nations, adds yet more urgency. The IPCC, first set up in 1990, has become the world's leading scientific authority on climate change.

cnn.com - by Dave Hennen, Brandon Miller and Eliott C. McLaughlin - September 27, 2013

(CNN) -- The world's getting hotter, the sea's rising and there's increasing evidence neither are naturally occurring phenomena.

So says a report from the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change, a document released every six years that is considered the benchmark on the topic. More than 800 authors and 50 editors from dozens of countries took part in its creation.

The summary for policymakers was released early Friday, while the full report, which bills itself as "a comprehensive assessment of the physical science basis of climate change," will be distributed Monday. Other reports, including those dealing with vulnerability and mitigation, will be released next year.

Here are the highlights from Friday's summary:

Man-made climate change is almost certain