When the next big outbreaks happen, they’ll probably happen in Texas [Respectful Insolence]

Back in the day, I used to write posts with titles like When the outbreaks occur, they’ll start in California. I even wrote a followup, When the outbreaks occur, they’ll start in California, 2014 edition. The reason, of course, was that California was one of the epicenters of vaccine hesitancy as well as the home to some high profile antivaccine-sympathetic physicians, such as Dr. Bob Sears (who’s known for making Holocaust analogies about bills tightening school vaccine mandate requirements) and Dr. Jay Gordon (who’s known for continuing to claim, against all evidence, that vaccines cause autism). Of course, it was true. The outbreaks did happen in California, culminating with a large outbreak after Christmas 2014 known as the Disneyland measles outbreak.

Then a funny thing happened in 2015. California passed a bill, SB 277, eliminating non-medical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. The law took effect this school year, and antivaccine activists are, of course, not pleased, assembling a motley crew to oppose the law. Time will tell whether SB 277 has its intended effect of increasing vaccine uptake and maintaining herd immunity, but early indications are that it will.

Now, apparently, we have to turn our attention to another big, populous state where public health is potentially being endangered. Now, most people would probably assume I’m referring to another coastal state with a lot of liberal politics and crunchy New Age-y types, like California, but I’m not. I’m referring to Texas. Yesterday, I saw an article in Science by Kai Kupferschmidt entitled Why Texas is becoming a major antivaccine battlefield:

Peter Hotez used to worry mostly about vaccines for children in far-away places. An infectious diseases researcher at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, Hotez is developing shots against diseases in poorer countries such as hookworm and schistosomiasis.

But now, Hotez is anxious about children much closer to home. The number of schoolchildren not vaccinated against childhood diseases in Texas is growing rapidly, which means that the state may see its first measles outbreaks in the winter or spring of 2018, Hotez predicted in a recent article in PLOS Medicine. Disgraced antivaccine physician Andrew Wakefield has set up shop in the Texan capital, Austin, and a political action committee (PAC) is putting pressure on legislators facing a slew of vaccine-related bills.

“Texas is now the center of the antivaxxer movement,” Hotez says. “There is a big fight coming,” adds Anna Dragsbaek of The Immunization Partnership, a nonprofit organization in Houston that advocates for vaccinations.

Now, in fairness, the article notes that currently Texas still has one of the highest rates of vaccine uptake overall, but as I try to pound home time and time again, it’s not just statewide uptake rates that matter. It’s local pockets of low vaccine uptake that lead to declining herd immunity or community immunity. Whatever you want to call it the phenomenon of high vaccine uptake protecting even those who can’t be vaccinated or won’t vaccinate, we’re starting to see a situation in Texas that is worrisome and possibly outright alarming: skyrocketing rates of personal belief exemptions, from 2,300 in 2003 to nearly 45,000 so far this year, more than a 19-fold increase. A graph from the PLoS Medicine article tells the tale:

Looking at that graph, I see little sign that it’s starting to plateau, and public health officials agree. The trend looks as though it will continue. If I were a public health official in Texas, I’d be alarmed, and they are. Of course, at the risk of being repetitive—but when did that ever stop me?—I have to emphasize that it’s not just raw numbers. After all, Texas is a big state. If those numbers were spread out, the trend would still be of concern, but not quite so alarming as it is. From the PLoS article by Peter Hotez:

Measles vaccination coverage in certain Texas counties is dangerously close to dropping below the 95% coverage rate necessary to ensure herd immunity and prevent measles outbreaks. For instance, in Gaines County in West Texas, the percentage of exemptions is now 4.83%, while in Briscoe County in the Texas Panhandle, the percentage is 3.55% (Table 1) [5]. In the very large Austin Independent School District (Travis County), the exemption rate is at 2.02% [5]. Especially troubling are many of the private schools, mostly in Travis County—the Austin, Texas area—where exemption rates often exceed 20%, including more than 40% of the Austin Waldorf School [6]. The rising numbers of nonmedical immunization exemptions across the state in combination with pockets of very low coverage in vulnerable populations is extremely troubling.

Now, I know what antivaccine apologists will say here. They’ll say that those rates are still high. Yes, that is true, but the trend is in the wrong direction. As noted by Hotez, in some counties MMR uptake is falling close to the range where herd immunity will start to waver. It’s not there yet, but it’s trending that way, which is why Hotez is concerned that by next winter there could be outbreaks. Then, of course, there are the private schools, such as the Waldorf Schools (schools I like to refer to as disease vectors because of the Waldorf philosophy that discourages vaccination), much like the case in California. These schools almost always have very high personal belief exemption rates and low vaccine uptake rates.

It’s not as though Texas hasn’t had outbreaks yet, either. For instance, in 2013 there was a measles outbreak centered at a Texas megachurch. The outbreak started when a person who contracted measles overseas visited Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, located about 20 miles north of Fort Worth, Texas. This particular church is part of Kenneth Copeland Ministries. (Terri Pearsons is Kenneth Copeland’s daughter.) Kenneth Copeland and Terri Pearson promote all sorts of “natural healing” woo that you could easily find at Joe Mercola’s website, and, as is so common with believers in “natural healing,” they are (or at least were) antivaccine. In the wake of the outbreak, Terri Pearsons actually encouraged those who haven’t been vaccinated to do so, adding that the Old Testament is “full of precautionary measures.” Sadly, this is a common theme. Antivaccine warriors remain stubbornly antivaccine until the consequences of not vaccinating hit home.

Of course, I have no idea whether this sermon represented a true change of heart. Googling “Terri Pearsons” and “vaccines” brought up scads and scads of hits about the Eagle Mountain measles outbreak, but I didn’t have time to keep searching for more recent statements by Pearsons on vaccines. I do know that, even at the time, Pearsons’ statements were contradictory in that she still expressed concerns for “very young children with a family history of autism.” In any case, fundamentalist religious communities have become a new center for vaccine resistance and disease outbreaks, and Texas has those in abundance, which is another reason for concern in the face of rising personal belief exemption rates. They represent a fertile ground for antivaccine pseudoscience to take root.

There’s another thing Texas has that contributes to measles outbreaks, unfortunately, and that’s Andrew Wakefield:

But Hotez believes the situation in the Lone Star State is more perilous. One factor is the arrival of Wakefield, widely seen as the father of the modern antivaccine movement. Wakefield published a paper in The Lancet in 1998 that alleged a link between the MMR vaccine (which combines shots against measles, mumps, and rubella) and autism. Several large studies have failed to find the link, Wakefield’s paper was retracted in 2010, and he was disbarred as a physician after the U.K. General Medical Council found him guilty of dishonesty and endangering children. Wakefield has appeared at screenings of his film Vaxxed, released in April, all over Texas and has testified at many city councils, Dragsbaek says. “He is definitely a major influencer.”

I’d be somewhat cautious about this assessment, though. Andrew Wakefield has lived in Texas for well over a decade, basically having fled his home in England after having sparked an antivaccine panic there. I have no doubt that Wakefield is a major influencer. Also, in 2016 he’s been more active than ever, having released an antivaccine propaganda film, VAXXED, that peddles the conspiracy theory that is the “CDC whistleblower” and promotes pretty much every common antivaccine lie known to the antivaccine fringe. His partners in woo, Del Bigtree and Polly Tommey, have been traveling the country to show up at screenings and promote the movie. Sometimes they’re even joined by Wakefield himself, who is a rock star among antivaccine activists. Sometimes they meet with federal legislators; sometimes they meet with state legislators; sometimes they meet with Donald Trump. (OK, Wakefield and his fellow travelers only met with Trump once, but once is bad enough.)

I just want to emphasize, though, that this goes way beyond just Wakefield:

Meanwhile, a PAC named Texans for Vaccine Choice has sprung up after state Representative Jason Villalba, a Republican lawyer from Dallas, proposed scrapping nonmedical exemptions last year. (The Texas House of Representatives voted down the bill.) “While they do not have a whole lot of money, they have a lot of people that they can deploy to interfere in primary campaigns,” Dragsbaek says. “They made Villalba’s primary campaign very, very difficult.” Rebecca Hardy, director of state policies at Texans for Vaccine Choice, says the group is not trying to convince parents that vaccines are dangerous, but fighting for their right not to immunize their children. (It’s also helping them apply for exemptions.)

We have our own version of this PAC in Michigan, but fortunately it seems not to have anywhere near the influence. The Texas PAC is more active, including its online presence. It peddles the usual antivaccine myths, with articles resenting being called out for pseudoscientific beliefs that endanger children and instead trying to peddle the risible narrative that these parents have made a “thoughtful decision to selectively, delay, or decline vaccines in the state of Texas.” I like to call such decisions pseudo-thoughtful. They appear thoughtful to parents because the parents actually do think a lot about their decisions, but they aren’t really thoughtful in that the parents’ thought is wasted because it’s based on misinformation, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories. Particularly hilarious is an article that tries to make a virtue of being a crackpot—excuse me, a cracked pot. Of course, yet another of my irony meters exploded when I read a post on an antivaccine site complaining about trolls.

It’s a common misconception that antivaccine views and vaccine-hesitancy are primarily the provenance of crunchy coastal liberals. They’re not. As I point out frequently, antivaccine views are the pseudoscience that transcends political views. Unfortunately, we very well might be seeing evidence of that in Texas when the next measles outbreaks happen there.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2fZVmBd

Back in the day, I used to write posts with titles like When the outbreaks occur, they’ll start in California. I even wrote a followup, When the outbreaks occur, they’ll start in California, 2014 edition. The reason, of course, was that California was one of the epicenters of vaccine hesitancy as well as the home to some high profile antivaccine-sympathetic physicians, such as Dr. Bob Sears (who’s known for making Holocaust analogies about bills tightening school vaccine mandate requirements) and Dr. Jay Gordon (who’s known for continuing to claim, against all evidence, that vaccines cause autism). Of course, it was true. The outbreaks did happen in California, culminating with a large outbreak after Christmas 2014 known as the Disneyland measles outbreak.

Then a funny thing happened in 2015. California passed a bill, SB 277, eliminating non-medical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. The law took effect this school year, and antivaccine activists are, of course, not pleased, assembling a motley crew to oppose the law. Time will tell whether SB 277 has its intended effect of increasing vaccine uptake and maintaining herd immunity, but early indications are that it will.

Now, apparently, we have to turn our attention to another big, populous state where public health is potentially being endangered. Now, most people would probably assume I’m referring to another coastal state with a lot of liberal politics and crunchy New Age-y types, like California, but I’m not. I’m referring to Texas. Yesterday, I saw an article in Science by Kai Kupferschmidt entitled Why Texas is becoming a major antivaccine battlefield:

Peter Hotez used to worry mostly about vaccines for children in far-away places. An infectious diseases researcher at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, Hotez is developing shots against diseases in poorer countries such as hookworm and schistosomiasis.

But now, Hotez is anxious about children much closer to home. The number of schoolchildren not vaccinated against childhood diseases in Texas is growing rapidly, which means that the state may see its first measles outbreaks in the winter or spring of 2018, Hotez predicted in a recent article in PLOS Medicine. Disgraced antivaccine physician Andrew Wakefield has set up shop in the Texan capital, Austin, and a political action committee (PAC) is putting pressure on legislators facing a slew of vaccine-related bills.

“Texas is now the center of the antivaxxer movement,” Hotez says. “There is a big fight coming,” adds Anna Dragsbaek of The Immunization Partnership, a nonprofit organization in Houston that advocates for vaccinations.

Now, in fairness, the article notes that currently Texas still has one of the highest rates of vaccine uptake overall, but as I try to pound home time and time again, it’s not just statewide uptake rates that matter. It’s local pockets of low vaccine uptake that lead to declining herd immunity or community immunity. Whatever you want to call it the phenomenon of high vaccine uptake protecting even those who can’t be vaccinated or won’t vaccinate, we’re starting to see a situation in Texas that is worrisome and possibly outright alarming: skyrocketing rates of personal belief exemptions, from 2,300 in 2003 to nearly 45,000 so far this year, more than a 19-fold increase. A graph from the PLoS Medicine article tells the tale:

Looking at that graph, I see little sign that it’s starting to plateau, and public health officials agree. The trend looks as though it will continue. If I were a public health official in Texas, I’d be alarmed, and they are. Of course, at the risk of being repetitive—but when did that ever stop me?—I have to emphasize that it’s not just raw numbers. After all, Texas is a big state. If those numbers were spread out, the trend would still be of concern, but not quite so alarming as it is. From the PLoS article by Peter Hotez:

Measles vaccination coverage in certain Texas counties is dangerously close to dropping below the 95% coverage rate necessary to ensure herd immunity and prevent measles outbreaks. For instance, in Gaines County in West Texas, the percentage of exemptions is now 4.83%, while in Briscoe County in the Texas Panhandle, the percentage is 3.55% (Table 1) [5]. In the very large Austin Independent School District (Travis County), the exemption rate is at 2.02% [5]. Especially troubling are many of the private schools, mostly in Travis County—the Austin, Texas area—where exemption rates often exceed 20%, including more than 40% of the Austin Waldorf School [6]. The rising numbers of nonmedical immunization exemptions across the state in combination with pockets of very low coverage in vulnerable populations is extremely troubling.

Now, I know what antivaccine apologists will say here. They’ll say that those rates are still high. Yes, that is true, but the trend is in the wrong direction. As noted by Hotez, in some counties MMR uptake is falling close to the range where herd immunity will start to waver. It’s not there yet, but it’s trending that way, which is why Hotez is concerned that by next winter there could be outbreaks. Then, of course, there are the private schools, such as the Waldorf Schools (schools I like to refer to as disease vectors because of the Waldorf philosophy that discourages vaccination), much like the case in California. These schools almost always have very high personal belief exemption rates and low vaccine uptake rates.

It’s not as though Texas hasn’t had outbreaks yet, either. For instance, in 2013 there was a measles outbreak centered at a Texas megachurch. The outbreak started when a person who contracted measles overseas visited Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, located about 20 miles north of Fort Worth, Texas. This particular church is part of Kenneth Copeland Ministries. (Terri Pearsons is Kenneth Copeland’s daughter.) Kenneth Copeland and Terri Pearson promote all sorts of “natural healing” woo that you could easily find at Joe Mercola’s website, and, as is so common with believers in “natural healing,” they are (or at least were) antivaccine. In the wake of the outbreak, Terri Pearsons actually encouraged those who haven’t been vaccinated to do so, adding that the Old Testament is “full of precautionary measures.” Sadly, this is a common theme. Antivaccine warriors remain stubbornly antivaccine until the consequences of not vaccinating hit home.

Of course, I have no idea whether this sermon represented a true change of heart. Googling “Terri Pearsons” and “vaccines” brought up scads and scads of hits about the Eagle Mountain measles outbreak, but I didn’t have time to keep searching for more recent statements by Pearsons on vaccines. I do know that, even at the time, Pearsons’ statements were contradictory in that she still expressed concerns for “very young children with a family history of autism.” In any case, fundamentalist religious communities have become a new center for vaccine resistance and disease outbreaks, and Texas has those in abundance, which is another reason for concern in the face of rising personal belief exemption rates. They represent a fertile ground for antivaccine pseudoscience to take root.

There’s another thing Texas has that contributes to measles outbreaks, unfortunately, and that’s Andrew Wakefield:

But Hotez believes the situation in the Lone Star State is more perilous. One factor is the arrival of Wakefield, widely seen as the father of the modern antivaccine movement. Wakefield published a paper in The Lancet in 1998 that alleged a link between the MMR vaccine (which combines shots against measles, mumps, and rubella) and autism. Several large studies have failed to find the link, Wakefield’s paper was retracted in 2010, and he was disbarred as a physician after the U.K. General Medical Council found him guilty of dishonesty and endangering children. Wakefield has appeared at screenings of his film Vaxxed, released in April, all over Texas and has testified at many city councils, Dragsbaek says. “He is definitely a major influencer.”

I’d be somewhat cautious about this assessment, though. Andrew Wakefield has lived in Texas for well over a decade, basically having fled his home in England after having sparked an antivaccine panic there. I have no doubt that Wakefield is a major influencer. Also, in 2016 he’s been more active than ever, having released an antivaccine propaganda film, VAXXED, that peddles the conspiracy theory that is the “CDC whistleblower” and promotes pretty much every common antivaccine lie known to the antivaccine fringe. His partners in woo, Del Bigtree and Polly Tommey, have been traveling the country to show up at screenings and promote the movie. Sometimes they’re even joined by Wakefield himself, who is a rock star among antivaccine activists. Sometimes they meet with federal legislators; sometimes they meet with state legislators; sometimes they meet with Donald Trump. (OK, Wakefield and his fellow travelers only met with Trump once, but once is bad enough.)

I just want to emphasize, though, that this goes way beyond just Wakefield:

Meanwhile, a PAC named Texans for Vaccine Choice has sprung up after state Representative Jason Villalba, a Republican lawyer from Dallas, proposed scrapping nonmedical exemptions last year. (The Texas House of Representatives voted down the bill.) “While they do not have a whole lot of money, they have a lot of people that they can deploy to interfere in primary campaigns,” Dragsbaek says. “They made Villalba’s primary campaign very, very difficult.” Rebecca Hardy, director of state policies at Texans for Vaccine Choice, says the group is not trying to convince parents that vaccines are dangerous, but fighting for their right not to immunize their children. (It’s also helping them apply for exemptions.)

We have our own version of this PAC in Michigan, but fortunately it seems not to have anywhere near the influence. The Texas PAC is more active, including its online presence. It peddles the usual antivaccine myths, with articles resenting being called out for pseudoscientific beliefs that endanger children and instead trying to peddle the risible narrative that these parents have made a “thoughtful decision to selectively, delay, or decline vaccines in the state of Texas.” I like to call such decisions pseudo-thoughtful. They appear thoughtful to parents because the parents actually do think a lot about their decisions, but they aren’t really thoughtful in that the parents’ thought is wasted because it’s based on misinformation, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories. Particularly hilarious is an article that tries to make a virtue of being a crackpot—excuse me, a cracked pot. Of course, yet another of my irony meters exploded when I read a post on an antivaccine site complaining about trolls.

It’s a common misconception that antivaccine views and vaccine-hesitancy are primarily the provenance of crunchy coastal liberals. They’re not. As I point out frequently, antivaccine views are the pseudoscience that transcends political views. Unfortunately, we very well might be seeing evidence of that in Texas when the next measles outbreaks happen there.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2fZVmBd

Don’t miss moon and Venus December 2

Tonight – December 2, 2016 – you won’t want to to miss the grand coupling of the moon and Venus at dusk and early evening! After all, the moon and Venus rank as the second-brightest and third-brightest celestial bodies, respectively, after the sun. Think photo opportunity.

Two other visible planets reside in the December 2016 evening sky: Mercury and Mars. It’ll be a challenge to catch the planet Mercury below the moon and Venus, and easier to view the red planet Mars above the moon and Venus. Mercury follows the sun below the horizon before nightfall, whereas Mars stays out until about 9 to 10 p.m. at mid-northern latitudes. At southerly latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere Mars stays out until very late evening.

From around the world, the waxing crescent moon will join up with Mars on the sky’s dome in a few more days. See the sky chart below.

The moon’s position relative to the planets Venus and Mars over the next several days, as viewed from North America. From the world’s Eastern Hemisphere, the moon will be offset toward the previous date.

Many of you may already know that Earth’s orbital axis tilts about 23.45^o relative to the ecliptic – Earth’s orbital plane. The inclination of Mars’ rotational axis is nearly the same, at just over 25^o.

But the rotational axes of the moon and Venus are almost perpendicular to the ecliptic. The moon is only about 1.54^o out of perpendicular to the ecliptic while Venus is about 2.64^o off.

That means the lunar terminator – shadow line between lunar day and lunar night – is nearly perpendicular to the ecliptic as well. Extending the lunar terminator in one direction guides you to the lunar north pole and the other direction to the lunar south pole.

Although you need a telescope to see the phases of Venus, the Venusian terminator (shadow line) acts as your guide to the Venusian poles as well. The Venusian terminator is almost perpendicular to the ecliptic, and extending the Venusian terminator in one direction takes you to Venus’ north pole and in the other direction to Venus’ south pole.

Look at the moon. The near side of the moon rotates from east to west (toward sunset) while the far side rotates from west to east (toward sunrise). In other words, if you had a bird’s-eye view of the north side of the solar system plane, you’d see the moon orbiting Earth in the same direction that the moon rotates on its axis: counterclockwise.

However, as seen from Earth, we only see one side of the moon. That’s because the moon rotates on its axis in the same period of time that it orbits the Earth. This is known as synchronous rotation.

Now look at Venus. The near side of Venus rotates from west to east (toward sunrise) and the far side rotates from east to west (toward sunset). Given a bird’s-eye view of the north side of the solar system plane, you’d see Venus orbiting the sun counterclockwise but rotating on its axis in a clockwise direction.

By the way, the Earth orbits the sun in the same direction that it rotates upon its axis: counterclockwise.

Image via Solar System Live. The inner solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) as viewed from the north side of the solar system plane on December 2, 2016. The planets orbit the sun in a counterclockwise direction and all the inner planets (with the exception of Venus) rotate on their axes in a counterclockwise direction. The blue part of the planetary orbit is to the north of the ecliptic.

By the “right hand” definition of north and south, the hemisphere of a planet that rotates counterclockwise is called the northern hemisphere and that which rotates clockwise is called the southern hemisphere. So, while the moon’s northern axis points north of the ecliptic, it’s Venus’s southern axis that points north of the ecliptic.

The north pole of a planet as defined by the right hand rule. Venus is sometimes called an “upside-down” planet because its northern hemisphere points south of the ecliptic.

Bottom line: On Friday evening – December 2, 2016 – watch after sunset for the moon and Venus in your western sky.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2gBI8M4

Tonight – December 2, 2016 – you won’t want to to miss the grand coupling of the moon and Venus at dusk and early evening! After all, the moon and Venus rank as the second-brightest and third-brightest celestial bodies, respectively, after the sun. Think photo opportunity.

Two other visible planets reside in the December 2016 evening sky: Mercury and Mars. It’ll be a challenge to catch the planet Mercury below the moon and Venus, and easier to view the red planet Mars above the moon and Venus. Mercury follows the sun below the horizon before nightfall, whereas Mars stays out until about 9 to 10 p.m. at mid-northern latitudes. At southerly latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere Mars stays out until very late evening.

From around the world, the waxing crescent moon will join up with Mars on the sky’s dome in a few more days. See the sky chart below.

The moon’s position relative to the planets Venus and Mars over the next several days, as viewed from North America. From the world’s Eastern Hemisphere, the moon will be offset toward the previous date.

Many of you may already know that Earth’s orbital axis tilts about 23.45^o relative to the ecliptic – Earth’s orbital plane. The inclination of Mars’ rotational axis is nearly the same, at just over 25^o.

But the rotational axes of the moon and Venus are almost perpendicular to the ecliptic. The moon is only about 1.54^o out of perpendicular to the ecliptic while Venus is about 2.64^o off.

That means the lunar terminator – shadow line between lunar day and lunar night – is nearly perpendicular to the ecliptic as well. Extending the lunar terminator in one direction guides you to the lunar north pole and the other direction to the lunar south pole.

Although you need a telescope to see the phases of Venus, the Venusian terminator (shadow line) acts as your guide to the Venusian poles as well. The Venusian terminator is almost perpendicular to the ecliptic, and extending the Venusian terminator in one direction takes you to Venus’ north pole and in the other direction to Venus’ south pole.

Look at the moon. The near side of the moon rotates from east to west (toward sunset) while the far side rotates from west to east (toward sunrise). In other words, if you had a bird’s-eye view of the north side of the solar system plane, you’d see the moon orbiting Earth in the same direction that the moon rotates on its axis: counterclockwise.

However, as seen from Earth, we only see one side of the moon. That’s because the moon rotates on its axis in the same period of time that it orbits the Earth. This is known as synchronous rotation.

Now look at Venus. The near side of Venus rotates from west to east (toward sunrise) and the far side rotates from east to west (toward sunset). Given a bird’s-eye view of the north side of the solar system plane, you’d see Venus orbiting the sun counterclockwise but rotating on its axis in a clockwise direction.

By the way, the Earth orbits the sun in the same direction that it rotates upon its axis: counterclockwise.

Image via Solar System Live. The inner solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) as viewed from the north side of the solar system plane on December 2, 2016. The planets orbit the sun in a counterclockwise direction and all the inner planets (with the exception of Venus) rotate on their axes in a counterclockwise direction. The blue part of the planetary orbit is to the north of the ecliptic.

By the “right hand” definition of north and south, the hemisphere of a planet that rotates counterclockwise is called the northern hemisphere and that which rotates clockwise is called the southern hemisphere. So, while the moon’s northern axis points north of the ecliptic, it’s Venus’s southern axis that points north of the ecliptic.

The north pole of a planet as defined by the right hand rule. Venus is sometimes called an “upside-down” planet because its northern hemisphere points south of the ecliptic.

Bottom line: On Friday evening – December 2, 2016 – watch after sunset for the moon and Venus in your western sky.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2gBI8M4

December 2016 Open Thread [Deltoid]

More thread.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2fMjTeS

More thread.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2fMjTeS

From Scientists to Policymakers: Communicating on Climate, Scientific Integrity, and More [Significant Figures by Peter Gleick]

Among the different professional categories, scientists and engineers remain very highly respected by the public, at least compared to politicians, business leaders, the media, and even religious authorities. Part of this is due to the fact that success in the scientific enterprise depends on impartial analysis and independence from political ideology. And yet there are strong connections between science and policy: good policy without good science is difficult; good policy with bad science is impossible. Sure, there is plenty of bad policy made even in the face of contradictory scientific evidence, but that is the result of political failures, or, at times, poor scientific communication.

A perennial question facing scientists is when — and how — to participate in public communication and policy debates around issues of social concern. This is not a new question: as long as scientists have seen a connection between their work and major challenges facing society, some have acted on a sense of responsibility to contribute to debates about how science can be harnessed to improve the world. Scientists have little political power: they are small in numbers, rarely sufficiently financially wealthy to use money as a political tool, and often politically naïve or poorly networked.

As a result, until the past decade or so, when new tools of social media have made more direct communication between scientists and the public easier, scientists have had limited tools to communicate policy-relevant opinions. Congressional and legislative testimony at public hearings offered one avenue for the exchange of information between policymakers and scientists. I’ve personally provided testimony at nearly 40 state and federal hearings on climate, water, and broad environmental policy issues. In recent years, however, the hostility of some policymakers to scientific evidence and information – especially at the federal level — has decreased the number of such hearings and has turned them into events more akin to political theater than educational and informational opportunities.

Another approach was for scientists to work with television producers and film makers to produce high-quality products for the public. Early efforts of pioneers like Carl Sagan paved the way for more recent efforts, but they depended on scientists willing to put themselves forward as communicators and popularizers. Sagan, who wrote popular books and created the award-winning TV show “Cosmos,” was criticized by some colleagues at the time who felt this was not a proper role for scientists, though the more recent success of science communicators such as Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson have shown that this approach can be tremendously effective.

A simpler and more common approach has been for groups of scientists to reach out to policymakers and the public in open letters, expressing concerns about public policy, suggesting priorities for governments, and calling for actions around specific issues. Two early examples include the petition to the President of the United States in July 1945 from 70 scientists at the Manhattan Project calling on Truman to refrain from deploying the newly created atomic bomb, and the famous Russell-Einstein Manifesto, which called on world governments to banish war as a way to settle disputes because of the risks of global annihilation from nuclear weapons. That letter, signed by some of the most well-known scientists in modern history, stated:

“… There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.

Resolution:

We invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:

“In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”

The use of such letters has continued over the years, with appeals to policymakers around the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs, both pro and con), the accelerating destruction of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, why Brexit would be bad for science, strategies for protecting the planet from asteroid impacts, oversight of artificial intelligence research, and more.

In the last few years such letters have proliferated for three reasons: (1) the open hostility of some politically powerful groups to science and scientific findings is ringing alarm bells in the scientific community that cannot be ignored, (2) scientists now recognize that the dramatic and rapid alteration of the Earth’s very climate poses the second massive threat to the planet after nuclear annihilation, and (3) the ability to mobilize and collect signatures from scientists has greatly improved as networks of scientists have formed and social media tools have made it easier to organize around specific issues.

Whether or not such letters are useful, motivating to policymakers, or just feel-good efforts for scientists (or a combination of such things) cannot be known for sure. But scientist seem increasingly willing to speak out on issues at the intersection of science and policy because of their special knowledge and because of their belief that they have a social responsibility to help policy makers understand the nature of both scientific threats and opportunities.

Here, from just the past few years, are some of the key letters prepared by scientists and sent to policymakers on issues around scientific integrity, climate change, and public health:

Climate Change and the Integrity of Science, 2010

An early key letter on the issue of climate change and the integrity of science was published in Science magazine in mid-2010, signed by 255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences calling for action to reduce the risks of climate change and an end to harassment of scientists by politicians.

“For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet… We urge our policy-makers and the public to move forward immediately to address the causes of climate change, including the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels. We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.”

Letter from Leading Climate Scientists to the Wall Street Journal, 2012

On February 1, 2012, 38 world leading climate scientists published a letter in the Wall Street Journal  rejecting an earlier WSJ op-ed on climate as dangerously misleading and misinformed.

Letter to Congress from U.S. Scientific Societies on the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. 2016

In June 2016, a partnership of 31 leading nonpartisan scientific associations sent a consensus letter to U.S. policymakers that reaffirmed the reality of human-caused climate change, noting that greenhouse gas emissions “must be substantially reduced” to minimize negative impacts on the global economy, natural resources, and human health. These scientific organization represent practically the entirety of the geosciences expertise of the nation, including:

• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• American Chemical Society
• American Geophysical Union
• American Institute of Biological Sciences
• American Meteorological Society
• American Public Health Association
• American Society of Agronomy
• American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
• American Society of Naturalists
• American Society of Plant Biologists
• American Statistical Association
• Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography
• Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation
• Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
• BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium
• Botanical Society of America
• Consortium for Ocean Leadership
• Crop Science Society of America
• Ecological Society of America
• Entomological Society of America
• Geological Society of America
• National Association of Marine Laboratories
• Natural Science Collections Alliance
• Organization of Biological Field Stations
• Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
• Society for Mathematical Biology
• Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
• Society of Nematologists
• Society of Systematic Biologists
• Soil Science Society of America
• University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

Letter from Leading Australian Scientists to the Australian Government on Climate Change, 2016

In August 2016, 154 of Australia’s leading university and government scientists sent a letter to the Australian government stating “governments worldwide are presiding over a large-scale demise of the planetary ecosystems, which threatens to leave large parts of Earth uninhabitable.” The letter calls on the Australian government

“to tackle the root causes of an unfolding climate tragedy and do what is required to protect future generations and nature, including meaningful reductions of Australia’s peak carbon emissions and coal exports, while there is still time. There is no Planet B.”

An Open Letter on Climate Change From Concerned Members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 2016

On September 20, 2016, 376 members of the National Academy of Sciences, including 30 Nobel laureates, published an open letter to draw attention to the serious risks of climate change. The letter warns that the consequences of opting out of the Paris agreement would be severe and long-lasting for our planet’s climate and for the international credibility of the United States.

Letter of Concern about the Views of Donald Trump on Scientific Reality, 2016

A letter from a broad coalition of scientists was released in fall 2016 expressing concern that presidential candidate Donald Trump’s stated views on many topics are at odds with scientific reality and represent a dangerous rejection of scientific thinking.

Letter to President-Elect Trump and the 115th Congress, 2016

Thousands of scientists joined an open letter in November 2016 calling on the incoming Trump administration and 115th Congress to ensure that science continues to play a strong role in protecting public health and well-being and that scientists be protected from political interference in their work. The letter has been signed by thousands of scientists, including 22 Nobel Prize winners.

An Open Letter from Women of Science, 2016

http://ift.tt/2grzAc8

In November 2016, over 10,000 women of science signed an open letter noting that science plays a foundation role in “a progressive society, fuels innovation, and touches the lives of every person on this planet.” The letter expressed deep concern that

“anti-knowledge and anti-science sentiments expressed repeatedly during the U.S. presidential election threaten the very foundations of our society. Our work as scientists and our values as human beings are under attack. We fear that the scientific progress and momentum in tackling our biggest challenges, including staving off the worst impacts of climate change, will be severely hindered under this next U.S. administration. Our planet cannot afford to lose any time.”

The letter reaffirmed a commitment to build a more inclusive society and scientific enterprise, reject hateful rhetoric targeted at minority groups, women, LGBTQIA, immigrants, and people with disabilities, and attempts to discredit the role of science in our society. The signers also set out a series of scientific, training, support, and policy pledges.

Letter from All Major US Scientific Societies/Organizations to Trump Transition Team, 2016

Amidst the nationwide concern about future challenges facing a Trump Administration, the nation’s scientific, engineering, and higher education community wrote an open letter in November 2016 urging the quick appointment of a nationally respected presidential science advisor.

 

 

 

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2gDFGSL

Among the different professional categories, scientists and engineers remain very highly respected by the public, at least compared to politicians, business leaders, the media, and even religious authorities. Part of this is due to the fact that success in the scientific enterprise depends on impartial analysis and independence from political ideology. And yet there are strong connections between science and policy: good policy without good science is difficult; good policy with bad science is impossible. Sure, there is plenty of bad policy made even in the face of contradictory scientific evidence, but that is the result of political failures, or, at times, poor scientific communication.

A perennial question facing scientists is when — and how — to participate in public communication and policy debates around issues of social concern. This is not a new question: as long as scientists have seen a connection between their work and major challenges facing society, some have acted on a sense of responsibility to contribute to debates about how science can be harnessed to improve the world. Scientists have little political power: they are small in numbers, rarely sufficiently financially wealthy to use money as a political tool, and often politically naïve or poorly networked.

As a result, until the past decade or so, when new tools of social media have made more direct communication between scientists and the public easier, scientists have had limited tools to communicate policy-relevant opinions. Congressional and legislative testimony at public hearings offered one avenue for the exchange of information between policymakers and scientists. I’ve personally provided testimony at nearly 40 state and federal hearings on climate, water, and broad environmental policy issues. In recent years, however, the hostility of some policymakers to scientific evidence and information – especially at the federal level — has decreased the number of such hearings and has turned them into events more akin to political theater than educational and informational opportunities.

Another approach was for scientists to work with television producers and film makers to produce high-quality products for the public. Early efforts of pioneers like Carl Sagan paved the way for more recent efforts, but they depended on scientists willing to put themselves forward as communicators and popularizers. Sagan, who wrote popular books and created the award-winning TV show “Cosmos,” was criticized by some colleagues at the time who felt this was not a proper role for scientists, though the more recent success of science communicators such as Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson have shown that this approach can be tremendously effective.

A simpler and more common approach has been for groups of scientists to reach out to policymakers and the public in open letters, expressing concerns about public policy, suggesting priorities for governments, and calling for actions around specific issues. Two early examples include the petition to the President of the United States in July 1945 from 70 scientists at the Manhattan Project calling on Truman to refrain from deploying the newly created atomic bomb, and the famous Russell-Einstein Manifesto, which called on world governments to banish war as a way to settle disputes because of the risks of global annihilation from nuclear weapons. That letter, signed by some of the most well-known scientists in modern history, stated:

“… There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.

Resolution:

We invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:

“In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”

The use of such letters has continued over the years, with appeals to policymakers around the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs, both pro and con), the accelerating destruction of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, why Brexit would be bad for science, strategies for protecting the planet from asteroid impacts, oversight of artificial intelligence research, and more.

In the last few years such letters have proliferated for three reasons: (1) the open hostility of some politically powerful groups to science and scientific findings is ringing alarm bells in the scientific community that cannot be ignored, (2) scientists now recognize that the dramatic and rapid alteration of the Earth’s very climate poses the second massive threat to the planet after nuclear annihilation, and (3) the ability to mobilize and collect signatures from scientists has greatly improved as networks of scientists have formed and social media tools have made it easier to organize around specific issues.

Whether or not such letters are useful, motivating to policymakers, or just feel-good efforts for scientists (or a combination of such things) cannot be known for sure. But scientist seem increasingly willing to speak out on issues at the intersection of science and policy because of their special knowledge and because of their belief that they have a social responsibility to help policy makers understand the nature of both scientific threats and opportunities.

Here, from just the past few years, are some of the key letters prepared by scientists and sent to policymakers on issues around scientific integrity, climate change, and public health:

Climate Change and the Integrity of Science, 2010

An early key letter on the issue of climate change and the integrity of science was published in Science magazine in mid-2010, signed by 255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences calling for action to reduce the risks of climate change and an end to harassment of scientists by politicians.

“For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet… We urge our policy-makers and the public to move forward immediately to address the causes of climate change, including the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels. We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.”

Letter from Leading Climate Scientists to the Wall Street Journal, 2012

On February 1, 2012, 38 world leading climate scientists published a letter in the Wall Street Journal  rejecting an earlier WSJ op-ed on climate as dangerously misleading and misinformed.

Letter to Congress from U.S. Scientific Societies on the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. 2016

In June 2016, a partnership of 31 leading nonpartisan scientific associations sent a consensus letter to U.S. policymakers that reaffirmed the reality of human-caused climate change, noting that greenhouse gas emissions “must be substantially reduced” to minimize negative impacts on the global economy, natural resources, and human health. These scientific organization represent practically the entirety of the geosciences expertise of the nation, including:

• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• American Chemical Society
• American Geophysical Union
• American Institute of Biological Sciences
• American Meteorological Society
• American Public Health Association
• American Society of Agronomy
• American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
• American Society of Naturalists
• American Society of Plant Biologists
• American Statistical Association
• Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography
• Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation
• Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
• BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium
• Botanical Society of America
• Consortium for Ocean Leadership
• Crop Science Society of America
• Ecological Society of America
• Entomological Society of America
• Geological Society of America
• National Association of Marine Laboratories
• Natural Science Collections Alliance
• Organization of Biological Field Stations
• Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
• Society for Mathematical Biology
• Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
• Society of Nematologists
• Society of Systematic Biologists
• Soil Science Society of America
• University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

Letter from Leading Australian Scientists to the Australian Government on Climate Change, 2016

In August 2016, 154 of Australia’s leading university and government scientists sent a letter to the Australian government stating “governments worldwide are presiding over a large-scale demise of the planetary ecosystems, which threatens to leave large parts of Earth uninhabitable.” The letter calls on the Australian government

“to tackle the root causes of an unfolding climate tragedy and do what is required to protect future generations and nature, including meaningful reductions of Australia’s peak carbon emissions and coal exports, while there is still time. There is no Planet B.”

An Open Letter on Climate Change From Concerned Members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 2016

On September 20, 2016, 376 members of the National Academy of Sciences, including 30 Nobel laureates, published an open letter to draw attention to the serious risks of climate change. The letter warns that the consequences of opting out of the Paris agreement would be severe and long-lasting for our planet’s climate and for the international credibility of the United States.

Letter of Concern about the Views of Donald Trump on Scientific Reality, 2016

A letter from a broad coalition of scientists was released in fall 2016 expressing concern that presidential candidate Donald Trump’s stated views on many topics are at odds with scientific reality and represent a dangerous rejection of scientific thinking.

Letter to President-Elect Trump and the 115th Congress, 2016

Thousands of scientists joined an open letter in November 2016 calling on the incoming Trump administration and 115th Congress to ensure that science continues to play a strong role in protecting public health and well-being and that scientists be protected from political interference in their work. The letter has been signed by thousands of scientists, including 22 Nobel Prize winners.

An Open Letter from Women of Science, 2016

http://ift.tt/2grzAc8

In November 2016, over 10,000 women of science signed an open letter noting that science plays a foundation role in “a progressive society, fuels innovation, and touches the lives of every person on this planet.” The letter expressed deep concern that

“anti-knowledge and anti-science sentiments expressed repeatedly during the U.S. presidential election threaten the very foundations of our society. Our work as scientists and our values as human beings are under attack. We fear that the scientific progress and momentum in tackling our biggest challenges, including staving off the worst impacts of climate change, will be severely hindered under this next U.S. administration. Our planet cannot afford to lose any time.”

The letter reaffirmed a commitment to build a more inclusive society and scientific enterprise, reject hateful rhetoric targeted at minority groups, women, LGBTQIA, immigrants, and people with disabilities, and attempts to discredit the role of science in our society. The signers also set out a series of scientific, training, support, and policy pledges.

Letter from All Major US Scientific Societies/Organizations to Trump Transition Team, 2016

Amidst the nationwide concern about future challenges facing a Trump Administration, the nation’s scientific, engineering, and higher education community wrote an open letter in November 2016 urging the quick appointment of a nationally respected presidential science advisor.

 

 

 

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2gDFGSL

The Freshwater Cycle in the Marshall Islands

By Christina Burchette

At just three to six feet above sea level and surrounded by the rising tides of the North Pacific, citizens of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) are vulnerable to some of the most impending climate change impacts. They’re threatened by limited freshwater resources, persistent drought conditions, and the rising sea level. The need and desire to safeguard against these impacts is strong, but due to their very isolated location, there aren’t a lot of resources or expertise readily available to help the islanders adapt to their changing environment.

Dr. Bill Shuster (middle row, sitting) and the embassy staff. Photo credit: US Embassy – Majuro

Research hydrologist Dr. Bill Shuster went on detail as an Embassy Science Fellow to the US Embassy on Majuro, the most populous atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, to support the embassy on science and technology matters and share his scientific expertise to improve the island’s freshwater resource management.

The people of Majuro rely on a limited number of freshwater sources: a reservoir fed by runoff from the airport runways, freshwater lenses (freshwater that floats on a saltwater table), tanks that collect runoff from roofs, imported water, and volume from reverse-osmosis units that convert seawater to potable water. Since the islands are low-lying, the reservoirs, lenses, and runoff tanks can become polluted or structurally damaged by over-wash of saltwater during storms. In addition, extreme drought conditions mean that managing and monitoring freshwater gains and losses are all critical to improving the island’s water security and drought resilience.

To help the island take steps toward security and resilience, Dr. Shuster worked through the Embassy with local government agencies, students, and residents to identify gaps in water resources data and barriers to filling these gaps. He also led a team of students and RMI Environmental Protection Authority staff to measure and understand the role that the soils play in the local freshwater cycle.

What they found is that different areas of the island yielded different results about water quality. For instance, Dr. Shuster and colleagues showed how the freshwater lens located in the urban, east side of Majuro had little freshwater due to a lack of recharge, and any pumping would have drawn sea water in. On the other hand, the more productive freshwater lens on the rural, west side of the island, was situated under deep soils, allowing for freshwater recharge and making the lens a viable freshwater supply. Yet, the viability of this lens was threatened by over-pumping, saltwater intrusion, and pollution leaching in from agricultural development.

After gathering this sort of data, Dr. Shuster worked with staff at the Majuro and Sewer Company to identify gaps in an overall water balance model to plan for drought management and adaptation and develop strategies to manage and close data gaps.

While his trip to the islands was only seven weeks long, Dr. Shuster and his colleagues’ research efforts brought awareness to the island’s water resource issues and will help residents make data-based decisions that contribute to water security and a sustainable future on this remote atoll.

About the Author: Christina Burchette is an Oak Ridge Associated Universities contractor and writer for the science communication team in EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/2fWmfWZ

By Christina Burchette

At just three to six feet above sea level and surrounded by the rising tides of the North Pacific, citizens of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) are vulnerable to some of the most impending climate change impacts. They’re threatened by limited freshwater resources, persistent drought conditions, and the rising sea level. The need and desire to safeguard against these impacts is strong, but due to their very isolated location, there aren’t a lot of resources or expertise readily available to help the islanders adapt to their changing environment.

Dr. Bill Shuster (middle row, sitting) and the embassy staff. Photo credit: US Embassy – Majuro

Research hydrologist Dr. Bill Shuster went on detail as an Embassy Science Fellow to the US Embassy on Majuro, the most populous atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, to support the embassy on science and technology matters and share his scientific expertise to improve the island’s freshwater resource management.

The people of Majuro rely on a limited number of freshwater sources: a reservoir fed by runoff from the airport runways, freshwater lenses (freshwater that floats on a saltwater table), tanks that collect runoff from roofs, imported water, and volume from reverse-osmosis units that convert seawater to potable water. Since the islands are low-lying, the reservoirs, lenses, and runoff tanks can become polluted or structurally damaged by over-wash of saltwater during storms. In addition, extreme drought conditions mean that managing and monitoring freshwater gains and losses are all critical to improving the island’s water security and drought resilience.

To help the island take steps toward security and resilience, Dr. Shuster worked through the Embassy with local government agencies, students, and residents to identify gaps in water resources data and barriers to filling these gaps. He also led a team of students and RMI Environmental Protection Authority staff to measure and understand the role that the soils play in the local freshwater cycle.

What they found is that different areas of the island yielded different results about water quality. For instance, Dr. Shuster and colleagues showed how the freshwater lens located in the urban, east side of Majuro had little freshwater due to a lack of recharge, and any pumping would have drawn sea water in. On the other hand, the more productive freshwater lens on the rural, west side of the island, was situated under deep soils, allowing for freshwater recharge and making the lens a viable freshwater supply. Yet, the viability of this lens was threatened by over-pumping, saltwater intrusion, and pollution leaching in from agricultural development.

After gathering this sort of data, Dr. Shuster worked with staff at the Majuro and Sewer Company to identify gaps in an overall water balance model to plan for drought management and adaptation and develop strategies to manage and close data gaps.

While his trip to the islands was only seven weeks long, Dr. Shuster and his colleagues’ research efforts brought awareness to the island’s water resource issues and will help residents make data-based decisions that contribute to water security and a sustainable future on this remote atoll.

About the Author: Christina Burchette is an Oak Ridge Associated Universities contractor and writer for the science communication team in EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/2fWmfWZ

Solid Waste Law Helps Keep Water Clean

by Mike Giuranna

The Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act deservedly get much of the credit for protecting the water you drink, but there’s another law you made not have heard of that’s no slouch either when it comes to keeping your water clean – the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, often referred to as RCRA.

How so?  At EPA my specialty is landfills, so let’s start there. Before RCRA, which marks its 40^th Anniversary this year, open dumps were a common method of waste disposal.  It sounds hard to believe now, but back then we did not have widely-recognized systems in place for managing landfills, making it easy for leaks to occur, and our water and land to become contaminated.  Many dumps were responsible for polluting water sources and soils, causing potential harm to public health.  As a result, numerous landfills and dumps became Superfund sites needing cleanup.

In 1991, Congress passed Subtitle D of RCRA, establishing a protective, practical system for disposing of trash in municipal solid waste landfills.  These federal standards had major benefits including a decline in the total number of landfills nationwide from an EPA estimate of 20,000 in the 1970s to less than 2,000 in 2014.

Under RCRA, states have stepped up to the plate in taking the primary responsibility for enforcing landfill regulations.  My job is to make sure the states understand the requirements, providing support and sharing experiences from other states along the way.  Here are some of the water-related protections we review:

• Making sure that landfills are operating away from seismic fault lines, flood plains or other restricted areas.
• Using multiple liners like compacted clay and flexible membranes to protect groundwater and underlying soil from any liquid releases from the landfill (known as leachate).
• Providing guidance on the installation of groundwater monitoring wells to determine whether waste materials have escaped from the landfill.
• Developing corrective action processes for controlling and cleaning up if landfill releases occur.
• Monitoring groundwater once a landfill is properly closed after reaching capacity.

RCRA ensures that landfills are contained and operating with public health in mind.  Next time you throw something away, think about all of the work that goes on behind the scenes to make sure your trash is handled properly and your water is kept clean. But better yet, always remember to reduce, reuse, and recycle whenever you can!

 

About the Author: Mike has been with EPA since 1983. He has worked in various EPA programs including Air and Superfund.  For the last 20 years he has worked in solid waste, recycling, landfill regulation and composting

from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/2fK0NFS

by Mike Giuranna

The Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act deservedly get much of the credit for protecting the water you drink, but there’s another law you made not have heard of that’s no slouch either when it comes to keeping your water clean – the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, often referred to as RCRA.

How so?  At EPA my specialty is landfills, so let’s start there. Before RCRA, which marks its 40^th Anniversary this year, open dumps were a common method of waste disposal.  It sounds hard to believe now, but back then we did not have widely-recognized systems in place for managing landfills, making it easy for leaks to occur, and our water and land to become contaminated.  Many dumps were responsible for polluting water sources and soils, causing potential harm to public health.  As a result, numerous landfills and dumps became Superfund sites needing cleanup.

In 1991, Congress passed Subtitle D of RCRA, establishing a protective, practical system for disposing of trash in municipal solid waste landfills.  These federal standards had major benefits including a decline in the total number of landfills nationwide from an EPA estimate of 20,000 in the 1970s to less than 2,000 in 2014.

Under RCRA, states have stepped up to the plate in taking the primary responsibility for enforcing landfill regulations.  My job is to make sure the states understand the requirements, providing support and sharing experiences from other states along the way.  Here are some of the water-related protections we review:

• Making sure that landfills are operating away from seismic fault lines, flood plains or other restricted areas.
• Using multiple liners like compacted clay and flexible membranes to protect groundwater and underlying soil from any liquid releases from the landfill (known as leachate).
• Providing guidance on the installation of groundwater monitoring wells to determine whether waste materials have escaped from the landfill.
• Developing corrective action processes for controlling and cleaning up if landfill releases occur.
• Monitoring groundwater once a landfill is properly closed after reaching capacity.

RCRA ensures that landfills are contained and operating with public health in mind.  Next time you throw something away, think about all of the work that goes on behind the scenes to make sure your trash is handled properly and your water is kept clean. But better yet, always remember to reduce, reuse, and recycle whenever you can!

 

About the Author: Mike has been with EPA since 1983. He has worked in various EPA programs including Air and Superfund.  For the last 20 years he has worked in solid waste, recycling, landfill regulation and composting

from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/2fK0NFS

It’s a bird, plane … tiniest asteroid!

Radar imaging of asteroid 2015 TC25 from University of Arizona on Vimeo.

Arizona astronomers are reporting this week on observations made a year ago of what they say is the smallest asteroid yet observed and characterized in detail. Asteroid 2015 TC25 is only 6 feet (2 meters) in diameter – about the height of a man – and so, as they said in their November 30, 2016 statement:

… the tiny space rock is small enough to be straddled by a person in a hypothetical space-themed sequel to the iconic bomb-riding scene in the movie Dr. Strangelove.

These are the kinds of things astronomers think about, apparently, late at night in those dark telescope domes. Kidding aside … 2015 TC25 passed by Earth on October 13, 2015 at a distance of about 0.3 lunar-distances (about a third the distance between us and the moon). Astronomers were estimating a 5-meter diameter for the asteroid at the time.
128,000 kilometers
It missed us, of course, by approximately 80,000 miles (128,000 km), and astronomers had said at the time that – even if it had been on a collision course with Earth – 2015 TC25 would have burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, as so many other space rocks do.

Read more: 26 atom-bomb scale asteroid impacts since 2000

The smallest observed asteroid – 2015 TC25 – passed within 0.3 times the moon’s distance from Earth on October 13, 2015.

The group from Arizona now report that asteroid 2015 TC25 is also one of the brightest near-Earth asteroids ever discovered. Using data from four different telescopes, a team of astronomers led by Vishnu Reddy, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, says that 2015 TC25 reflects about 60 percent of the sunlight that falls on it. Their November 30 statement said:

Discovered by the UA’s Catalina Sky Survey last October, 2015 TC25 was studied extensively by Earth-based telescopes during a close flyby that saw the micro world sailing past Earth at 128,000 kilometers, a mere third of the distance to the moon.

In a paper published in The Astronomical Journal, Reddy argues that new observations from the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility and Arecibo Planetary Radar show that the surface of 2015 TC25 is similar to a rare type of highly reflective meteorite called an aubrite. Aubrites consist of very bright minerals, mostly silicates, that formed in an oxygen-free, basaltic environment at very high temperatures. Only one out of every 1,000 meteorites that fall on Earth belong to this class.

Reddy added:

This is the first time we have optical, infrared and radar data on such a small asteroid, which is essentially a meteoroid.

You can think of it as a meteorite floating in space that hasn’t hit the atmosphere and made it to the ground — yet.

Astronomers nowadays watch for and discover near-Earth asteroids such as 2015 TC25 frequently, but not very much is known about them as they are difficult to characterize. By studying such objects in more detail, astronomers hope to better understand the parent bodies from which these meteorites originate.

In their decades-long effort to understand how our solar system formed, astronomers have come to see asteroids as the remaining fragments from solar system formation. Most of the asteroids we know orbit the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, but some do pass near Earth and cross Earth’s path. So far, more than 15,000 near-Earth asteroids have been discovered.

Scientists are interested in objects like this in part for the pure science they offer; they can give us insights into our solar system’s birth and history.

Increasingly, however, astronomers have come to study near-Earth asteroids because these are the objects that have potential to strike Earth.

Read more about 2015 TC25 from University of Arizona

Read more: Arizona-based Astronomers Characterize One of the Smallest Known Asteroids

Bottom line: Arizona astronomers report this week on observations made a year ago of 2015 TC25, which they say is the smallest asteroid yet observed and characterized in detail. Asteroid 2015 TC25 is about 6 feet (2 meters) in diameter.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2fJV2bg

Radar imaging of asteroid 2015 TC25 from University of Arizona on Vimeo.

Arizona astronomers are reporting this week on observations made a year ago of what they say is the smallest asteroid yet observed and characterized in detail. Asteroid 2015 TC25 is only 6 feet (2 meters) in diameter – about the height of a man – and so, as they said in their November 30, 2016 statement:

… the tiny space rock is small enough to be straddled by a person in a hypothetical space-themed sequel to the iconic bomb-riding scene in the movie Dr. Strangelove.

These are the kinds of things astronomers think about, apparently, late at night in those dark telescope domes. Kidding aside … 2015 TC25 passed by Earth on October 13, 2015 at a distance of about 0.3 lunar-distances (about a third the distance between us and the moon). Astronomers were estimating a 5-meter diameter for the asteroid at the time.
128,000 kilometers
It missed us, of course, by approximately 80,000 miles (128,000 km), and astronomers had said at the time that – even if it had been on a collision course with Earth – 2015 TC25 would have burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, as so many other space rocks do.

Read more: 26 atom-bomb scale asteroid impacts since 2000

The smallest observed asteroid – 2015 TC25 – passed within 0.3 times the moon’s distance from Earth on October 13, 2015.

The group from Arizona now report that asteroid 2015 TC25 is also one of the brightest near-Earth asteroids ever discovered. Using data from four different telescopes, a team of astronomers led by Vishnu Reddy, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, says that 2015 TC25 reflects about 60 percent of the sunlight that falls on it. Their November 30 statement said:

Discovered by the UA’s Catalina Sky Survey last October, 2015 TC25 was studied extensively by Earth-based telescopes during a close flyby that saw the micro world sailing past Earth at 128,000 kilometers, a mere third of the distance to the moon.

In a paper published in The Astronomical Journal, Reddy argues that new observations from the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility and Arecibo Planetary Radar show that the surface of 2015 TC25 is similar to a rare type of highly reflective meteorite called an aubrite. Aubrites consist of very bright minerals, mostly silicates, that formed in an oxygen-free, basaltic environment at very high temperatures. Only one out of every 1,000 meteorites that fall on Earth belong to this class.

Reddy added:

This is the first time we have optical, infrared and radar data on such a small asteroid, which is essentially a meteoroid.

You can think of it as a meteorite floating in space that hasn’t hit the atmosphere and made it to the ground — yet.

Astronomers nowadays watch for and discover near-Earth asteroids such as 2015 TC25 frequently, but not very much is known about them as they are difficult to characterize. By studying such objects in more detail, astronomers hope to better understand the parent bodies from which these meteorites originate.

In their decades-long effort to understand how our solar system formed, astronomers have come to see asteroids as the remaining fragments from solar system formation. Most of the asteroids we know orbit the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, but some do pass near Earth and cross Earth’s path. So far, more than 15,000 near-Earth asteroids have been discovered.

Scientists are interested in objects like this in part for the pure science they offer; they can give us insights into our solar system’s birth and history.

Increasingly, however, astronomers have come to study near-Earth asteroids because these are the objects that have potential to strike Earth.

Read more about 2015 TC25 from University of Arizona

Read more: Arizona-based Astronomers Characterize One of the Smallest Known Asteroids

Bottom line: Arizona astronomers report this week on observations made a year ago of 2015 TC25, which they say is the smallest asteroid yet observed and characterized in detail. Asteroid 2015 TC25 is about 6 feet (2 meters) in diameter.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2fJV2bg