You are invited to attend a public forum on climate change and its affect on public health tomorrow Thursday, March 1, from 5:30 pm- 7:00 pm at the Glickman Family Library, 7th floor, at USM, Portland campus.
A panel of three (3) experts will speak about how climate change affects public health. They are: Dr. Sydney Sewall, Jim Handy and Susan Elias.
“As the climate is warming at an alarming rate, public health is becoming more and more affected. Increases in air and water pollution, as well as changes in animal behavior from a warming climate are leading to an increase in public health issues. Mainers are experiencing increased rates of asthma, more vector borne diseases and health problems. We need to keep our climate clean and safe for the health of our children and our communities,” wrote Jacqueline Guyol, campaign organizer at Environment Maine in a press release recently.
“The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than any other body of its size in the world. When you have that sort of shift in temperature, all kinds of other things happen,” according to John Anderson, in a climate change in-depth article in the March/April issue of YANKEE magazine, Rising Seas. Anderson, a professor at the College of the Atlantic, takes the author of the article on an extensive tour of Maine islands predicting just how long they will be above water in the Gulf. Anderson’s predictions become more dire as the article continues and is important reading to anyone with interest in the subject of climate change and its long-term affects on us. Anderson also told the author, Howard Mansfield, that “softshell” is a death blow to lobsters. He acknowledges record catches of lobsters, but that there is a “decline in the number of youngest lobsters.” This series of articles in YANKEE is an excellent resource on climate change.
We all know what Trump’s EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, is doing to regulations in that department; he’s destroying the Department. Pruitt has conducted a massive campaign to rollback environmental protections. (Maybe that’s what he does in first-class air flights!) A campaign of destruction that some are wondering might exceed the rollbacks set in motion by former President Ronald Reagan.
Specifically, Pruitt plans on closing the National Center for Environmental Research according to a (fundraising) press release received this afternoon from Jeremy Marcus, Director, of the Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition (SEE PAC). The Center funds research into the effects of toxic chemicals on communities and especially children and Pruitt plans to get rid of it.
See environmentmaine.org