From the BBC:
A Russian jet fighter that intercepted a US Air Force reconnaissance plane on Friday did so in an “unsafe and unprofessional manner” over the Baltic Sea, the Pentagon has said.
It says the fighter performed a barrel roll plane over the American plane.
Wait, does this sound familiar?
This article about Jane Jacobs is most useful because it mentions all of her major works. It talks quite a bit about Dark Age Ahead. I read Dark Age Ahead, and yet it doesn’t stick in my mind. I am ashamed to admit that I have only read the first chapter of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and yet that first chapter sticks in my mind. I am lucky enough to live in one of the great American cities, and in fact a neighborhood that she visited and commented on. I had to spend a few years away from it to really come to understand how great a walkable street grid with a mix of homes, businesses, workplaces and green spaces really is, and how rare it unfortunately is. One day I’ll sit down on a bench in one of those green spaces and finish Death and Life.
Here’s a new study on green space and health, based on the large-scale nurses’s study. One interesting finding is that mental health explains around 30% of the total benefit.
Exposure to Greenness and Mortality in a Nationwide Prospective Cohort Study of Women
In models adjusted for mortality risk factors (age, race/ethnicity, smoking, and individual- and area-level socioeconomic status), women living in the highest quintile of cumulative average greenness (accounting for changes in residence during follow-up) in the 250m area around their home had a 12% lower rate of all-cause non-accidental mortality (95% CI 0.82, 0.94) compared to those in the lowest quintile. Results were consistent for the 1,250m area, although the relationship was slightly attenuated. These associations were strongest for respiratory and cancer mortality. Findings from a mediation analysis suggest that the association between greenness and mortality may be at least partly mediated by physical activity, particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers, social engagement, and depression.
Maybe this is not of interest to everyone, but I am always looking for new ways to analyze and communicate the results of alternatives and scenarios.
The new scenario framework developed by the climate change research community rests on the fundamental logic that a diversity of socio-economic pathways can lead to the same radiative forcing, and therefore that a given level of radiative forcing can have very different socio-economic impacts. We propose a methodology that implements a “scenario discovery” cluster analysis and systematically identifies diverse groups of scenarios that share common outcomes among a database of socio-economic scenarios. We demonstrate the methodology with two examples using the Shared Socio-economic Pathways framework. We find that high emissions scenarios can be associated with either high or low per capita GDP growth, and that high productivity growth and catch-up are not necessarily associated with high per capita GDP and high emissions.
The Royal Society says that the annual number of disease outbreaks and types of diseases causing them have both increased since 1980, although the fraction of the population affected has actually decreased. I assume this last trend has to do with population growth. I am not sure this should be comforting. If there are more outbreaks and more different types, it seems like there would be more potential for something really bad to emerge and then get out of control. But this article isn’t really about that, it’s just a presentation of the data.
Our analyses indicate that the total number of outbreaks and richness of causal diseases have each increased globally since 1980 (figure 1a). Bacteria and viruses represented 70% of the 215 diseases in our dataset and caused 88% of outbreaks over time. Sixty-five per cent of diseases in our dataset were zoonoses that collectively caused 56% of outbreaks (compared to 44% of outbreaks caused by human-specific diseases). Non-vector transmitted pathogens were more common (74% of diseases) and caused more outbreaks (87%) than vector transmitted pathogens (table 1). Salmonellosis caused the most outbreaks of any disease in the dataset (855 outbreaks reported since 1980). However, viral gastroenteritis (typically caused by norovirus) was responsible for the greatest number of recorded cases: more than 15 million globally since 1980.
It’s interesting how we tend to be less afraid of diseases that are more common and more afraid of ones that are less common, even though a given person would be more likely to suffer from a common disease. Of course, this analysis doesn’t take into account the severity of the disease and suffering caused, which should certainly be a factor in what kinds of controls and research we invest our efforts and money in.
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This paper proposes the idea of “ecosystem disservices” to address criticisms scientists have made of the ecosystem services concept.
Limitations of the Ecosystem Services versus Disservices Dichotomy
Ongoing debate over the ecosystem services (ES) concept highlights a range of contrasting views and misconceptions. Schröter et al. (2014) summarise seven recurring arguments against the ES concept, which broadly relate to ethical concerns, translation across the science—policy interface, and how the concept’s normative aims and optimistic assumptions affect ES as a scientific approach. In particular, recent criticism has focused on how the concept is unable to address ecological complexity due to the limitations of the economic stock–flow model that ES is based on (Norgaard 2010). Acknowledging ecosystem disservices (EDS) (i.e. outcomes of ecosystem functions that negatively affect human communities) has been suggested as a way to account for this ecological complexity (McCauley 2006; Lyytimäki 2015). The impact of EDS on communities (i.e. the ‘cost’ of the action) can be measured financially, or through changes in individual or social well-being. McCauley (2006) and Lyytimäki (2015) list EDS examples like pest damage to crops, or trees removing water from watersheds.
Here’s another attempt to link ecological and economic systems:
Integration of ecological-biological thresholds in conservation decision making
In the Anthropocene, coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) dominate and only a few natural systems remain without drastic human influence. Conservation criteria, such as many of those proposed by conservation biologists and ecologists with reference to areas of minimal human impact, are not relevant to much of the biosphere. On the other hand, conservation criteria delineated within economics are problematic with respect to their ability to arrive at operational indicators of well-being that can be applied in practice over multi-generational time spans. CHANS are subject to the process of economic development which, under current management structures, tends to afflict natural systems and transgress planetary boundaries. Hence, designing and applying conservation criteria applicable in real world systems where human and natural systems need to interact and sustainably coexist is essential. By both recognizing the criticality of satisfying basic needs as well as the great uncertainty over the needs and preferences of future generations, the current paper seeks to incorporate strict conservation criteria into economic evaluation. Specifically, these criteria require the conservation of environmental conditions such that the opportunity for intergenerational welfare optimization is maintained. In this direction, we propose the integration of ecological-biological thresholds into decision-making and use as an example the planetary boundaries approach. As such, both conservation biologists and economists must be involved in defining operational ecological-biological thresholds which can be incorporated into economic thinking and reflect the objectives of conservation, sustainability and intergenerational welfare optimization. As a result, we delineate the axioms of an operational framework of sustainability and hence set the basis for an interdisciplinary research agenda.
Now that it looks like electric cars may burst onto the scene in a big way, Planetizen says maybe trucks will be next.
Trucks are kind of a pet peeve of mine. They’re useful obviously, but they degrade the urban environment a lot through noise, air pollution, safety hazards, and just being in the way. Electric trucks would only solve a couple of these issues, but that would be welcome in my opinion. We just don’t need the big trucks downtown – they could drop goods off at warehouses on the outskirts and let smaller, safer, quieter trucks bring them in. Garbage trucks are particularly irritating – I like the idea of vacuum tubes to collect both sewage and garbage, although people often laugh at me for this idea (which already exists).
Here’s another article on soil management and carbon sequestration. Maybe the Rodale Institute is not completely unbiased, but there are serious scientific voices starting to say similar things.
Simply put, recent data from farming systems and pasture trials around the globe show that we could sequester more than 100% of current annual CO2 emissions with a switch to widely available and inexpensive organic management practices, which we term “regenerative organic agriculture.” These practices work to maximize carbon fixation while minimizing the loss of that carbon once returned to the soil, reversing the greenhouse effect.