PUBH 6011 - Midterm Study Guide.

Week 1: How Energy Impacts Our Health • Explain how energy influences human health • The more energy usage a person has, generally the better they are living. Also generally extends our lives. • Energy protects form a lot of things...i.e. Refrigerator has temperature control protecting us from types of contamination that readily killed people a few 100 years ago. • Energy can also influence human health depending on the types of energy. Sustainable energy improves public health, reduces air/water pollutants (cancer, asthma, mercury in fish) , industrial accidents, economic and health impacts of fossil depletion, and climate change (heat wave deaths, disease, crop loss). Fossil fuel burning can lead to air pollution etc. • Define ethical considerations on what is meant by sustainable development • Some ethical considerations are that sustainable development means living in a way that does not compromise the future generations ability to lice • Explain how each major energy source is used and their percent contribution in the US energy mix • Petroleum - 37% mostly used for transportation fuels, asphalt, plastics etc. • Natural Gas- 29% - Natural gas is mostly utilized for electricity, agriculture (fertilizer), and building heated w/ NG. Cyclical use in nature (winter>summer) Hydro fracking has made cheaper • Coal - 14% has been shrinking and been replaced by natural gas. • Nuclear - 9% • Hydro - 3% (possibly shrinking due to droughts and the fact that we’ve dammed most of big rivers already. • Renewable - 8% (Biomass, Wind,Solar, Geothermal) • Using systems thinking to evaluate the health impacts of fossil fuel use at the local and global level • Health impacts of fossil fuel on a local level include decreased air quality and an increase of the NAAQS 6 criteria air pollutants which can lead to many pulmonary and cardiovascular issues. • Globally: Excessive fossil fuel usage is increasing amount of carbon emissions and leading to climate change. As the health of the world deteriorates, drought, wildfires, etc. are leading to decreased health of populations as a whole. • Explain health impacts of unconventional extraction (e.g., Tar Sands, Mountaintop Removal, Hydro Fracturing) as well as changes to infrastructure (e.g., pipelines, rail) • Canadian Tar Sands (CTS) - oily sand scooped by trucks & boiled to separate oil derivative from sand (water floats the oil to the top) • Health Implications: Climate change: causes erosion and deforestation. Also soil is a living object full of microbes and nutrients, so after this process, hard for things to grow in sand, stripped soil. Adds to carbon emissions and climate change • Infrastructure Changes: CTS is very hard to move, so limited, would require a pipeline to effectively export to other nations • Mountaintop Removal • How it Works: Blowing the top off a mountain in order to go after coal • Health Implications: Mountain tops are usually acidic and have arsenic/ mercury accumulations. When the mountain top is used to fill a valley, these harmful compounds may enter the water supply.