Obesity, climate change and hunger must be fought as one, health experts declare

Maybe, when it comes to finding a way out of a global crisis of obesity, we’re just thinking too small.

The best way to fight the obesity epidemic is to tackle
it and the problems of malnutrition and climate change
 at the same time, experts argue in Lancet.

Maybe the steps needed to reverse a pandemic of unhealthy weight gain are the same as those needed to solve two other crises of human health: malnutrition and climate change.

So instead of trying to tackle each of these problems individually, public health experts recommend that we lash the three together.

In a treatise published Sunday in the British medical journal Lancet, a multinational commission argues that consumers, business leaders and policymakers must focus their efforts on steps that address at least two of these crises at a time. Only then can they can resolve this trio of emergencies fast and fully enough to make a difference, they wrote.

And no, the experts added: Tackling climate change, world hunger and obesity all at once is not an overreach

Read the story from The Los Angeles Times by Melissa Healy - “Obesity, climate change and hunger must be fought as one, health experts declare.”

Oceans warming faster than thought, new research finds

Washington: Scientists say the world's oceans are warming far more quickly than previously thought, a finding with dire implications for climate change because almost all the excess heat absorbed by the planet ends up stored in their waters.

Rising seas: People sit in a flooded St Mark's Square in Venice,
Italy, as high tides inundated the city in March 2018.

CREDIT:

A new analysis, published on Thursday in the journal Science, found that the oceans are heating up 40 per cent faster on average than a UN panel estimated five years ago. The researchers also concluded that ocean temperatures have broken records for several straight years.

"2018 is going to be the warmest year on record for the Earth's oceans," said Zeke Hausfather, an energy systems analyst at independent climate research group Berkeley Earth and an author of the study. "As 2017 was the warmest year, and 2016 was the warmest year.”

As the planet has warmed, the oceans have provided a critical buffer. They have slowed the effects of climate change by absorbing 93 per cent of the heat trapped by the greenhouse gases humans pump into the atmosphere.

Read the story from The Age by Kendra Pierre-Louis - “Oceans warming faster than thought, new research finds.”

Millions spent on Great Barrier Reef projects against expert advice

Millions of dollars of Commonwealth money is being handed to tourism-linked groups for Great Barrier Reef protection, despite official advice recommending against the projects, or repeatedly finding them to be failing.

Government money being spent on protecting
the Great Barrier Reef contrary to official advice

The contracts include millions of dollars for tourism operators to cull out-of-control coral-eating crown of thorns starfish. Funds continue to be distributed, despite researchers employed to evaluate the program repeatedly finding it to have failed, and potentially having made the problem worse.

It also includes $2.2m spent on an unusual project involving giant fans installed on a small part of the reef to cool water down to prevent bleaching. Documents obtained by the Guardian reveal the government’s independent expert panel recommended against the project proceeding, finding the justification relied on claims that were “a major departure from reality” and that the fans could accidentally kill nearby coral.

Read Michael Slezak’s story from The Guardian - “Millions spent on Great Barrier Reef projects against expert advice.”

Exclusive: Elevated CO2 Levels Directly Affect Human Cognition, New Harvard Study Shows

In a landmark public health finding, a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health finds that carbon dioxide (CO2) has a direct and negative impact on human cognition and decision-making. These impacts have been observed at CO2 levels that most Americans — and their children — are routinely exposed to today inside classrooms, offices, homes, planes, and cars.

Carbon dioxide levels are inevitably higher indoors than the baseline set by the outdoor air used for ventilation, a baseline that is rising at an accelerating rate thanks to human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels. So this seminal research has equally great importance for climate policy, providing an entirely new public health impetus for keeping global CO2 levels as low as possible.

Read Joe Romm’s ThinkProgress story - “Exclusive: Elevated CO2 Levels Directly Affect Human Cognition, New Harvard Study Shows.

Scientists find the temperature that makes you the friendliest

It's a finding that is destined to start a new round of arguments over the aircon remote.

The study found 22 degrees was the ideal average temperature to live in.

A new study covering more than 1.6 million people has revealed that 22 degrees is the perfect air temperature to live in.

A city with an average annual temperature closer to 22 tends to have a population who are more agreeable, conscientious, emotionally stable and extroverted.

The study is observational, and does not show cause-and-effect. But the scientists behind it theorise that better weather leads people to leave the house more often, leading to more social interaction, which encourages a friendlier personality.

Read the story by Liam Mannix in today’s Melbourne Age - “Scientists find the temperature that makes you the friendliest.”