PUBH 6001-Study Guide for Midterm Latest (Questions And Answers).

PUBH 6001-Study Guide for Midterm Latest (Questions And Answers). 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summer) Hydro fracking has made cheaper • Coal - 14% has been shrinking and been replaced by natural gas.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. • Hydraulic Fracturing • How it works: Once a site has been identified, drill a mile below surface past water aquifers, steel casing inserted and cement is pumped through out bottom and btw casing and the hole to serve as a barrier btw well and water. Drilling continues to kick-off pt. Where they start drilling at an angle until horizontal. More cement added. After this drilling rig is removed and valve is put at surface. Water and gel is used to clean out well bore w/ a bit. Perforating guns go to predetermined depth creating perf tunnels that are about 30 in long and in diameter. ⅓ Fleet of pump trucks then used to send water/sand mixture deep into well-bore and out into perf tunnels. This fractures the rock, & when pressure is relieved fractures can grow 2 • 200-400 ft. Fractures provide trapped natural oil or gas an easy path into well-bore. Process of perforation repeated entire length of pipe/horizontal part • Health Implications: Takes a lot of diesel trucks that add air and noise pollution. Also produces methane emissions and methane is an extremely strong GHG. Additionally, flowback water is salty, full or chemicals and radiological waste, and is too dirty to put anywhere. Shale industry 4.1 times more lethal than others • Infrastructure changes: needs to be moved by rail, but is more explosive than conventional crude oil (oil spill and explosions on the rise w/ unconventional oil) • Explain how water is used in electricity production • In most of all electricity production, we just boil water. We take steam (water explosion) through a turbine, and the steam turns a turbine and creates electricity. This study source was downloaded by from CourseH on :12:38 GMT -05:00 • Use ethics and evidence to discuss limitations and benefits of renewable energy in developed and developing nations • Benefits: The benefits of renewable energy in both developed and developing nations is that its safer, cleaner, and more abundant than fossil fuels. Multiple forms of renewable energy exist(hydro, solar, wind, geothermal etc.) Also allows countries to work towards energy independence. Also brings in lots of jobs. • Limitations: Not every form of energy is commercially viable. Many forms of energy are location-specific and therefore some countries would not have the environments to generate energy in that form. Requires a huge capital output and a lot of space that a lot of developing countries are not able to invest in. Additionally, if you don’t have access to energy period, your concern is not whether it’s sustainable or not just whether or not you can get access to it. Week 2: Air Pollution • Explain global weather patterns and why most all the earth’s rainforests are at the equator. • Global Weather Patterns • Hadley Cells: In the Hadley cell, air rises up into the atmosphere at or near the equator, flows toward the poles above the surface of the Earth, returns to the Earth’s surface in the subtropics, and flows back towards the equator. • Deserts:As warm air keeps rising from the equator, it pushes the cooler air away. The cool air moves north and south before falling back toward the ground at around 30 to 50 degrees north and south of the equator. With warm air rising above the equator and the cooled air falling to the north and south, two circular patterns of air movement are created around the equator. These patterns of air circulation are called Hadley cells. When the cool air begins to fall back toward the ground, or descend, it starts to warm up again. This warm, dry air can hold a lot of water, so the air starts to suck up what little water is around. At 30 to 50 degrees north and south of the equator, this falling air makes dry air drier. It also turns the land below it into a desert. • Why are Rainforests near the equator? - Equatorial sun heats the ocean(humidified air) this hot air rises and cool, and then water vapor condenses from colder air and it rains a lot = rainforest • Describe lung physiology and particle clearance with macrophage and the mucociliary escalator • Lung Physiology- Lungs are made of trachea that branch into smaller airways called bronchi that branch into bronchioles that finally divide into small grape-like clusters called alveoli (this is where oxygen is exchanged for CO2) • Mucociliary Escalator: A moving carpet of mucus. IT’s a mucous layer bc it has to stay together/ so sticky, Cilia layer beats mucus layer up and out of the lungs. Happens throughout your upper tracheal broncheal tree. This process is continuous and how particles are cleared out of the lungs • Macrophage: when PM2.5 are able to get past mucociliary escalator and get into alveolar region of the lungs. Since there is no mucus or cilia in alveoli region, there is no true clearance mechanism. What happens instead is small particles are removed w/ alveolar macrophages. Macrophages are a type of white blood cell that goes around and finds foreign particles that get to the alveolar region, and consumes them and digests them with acid. • Describe each of the 6 criteria air pollutants to include how they are emitted, their human health effects and general corrective actions taken to mitigate each air pollutant • Ozone- Tropospheric ozone is bad! There is a small amt naturally occuring, but humans have exacerbated it. • How is it emitted? Not actually emitted by anything. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) - anything from perfume to gasoline vapors (anything w/ a carbon backbone and NOx +heat = increased ozone) • Human Health Effects: Leads to airway reactivity esp. In ppl w/ asthma. • Corrective Actions: We can’t control ozone, so we control VOCs (reduce gas vapors) and NOx(better gas mileage...haven't gotten good at controlling agriculture and run off yet • SOx • How is it emitted? Is mainly emitted through the burning of fossil fuels (coal), Industrial processes, and petroleum refinement and production of paper and cement • Human Health Effects: Huge role in acid rain, acidified lakes, kills fish and eats away at cement. Its a huge irritant to the lungs • Corrective Actions: Use of coal air scrubbers to cut SOx emissions. Also use coal from west w/ less sulfur. No more appalachian coal. • NOx • How is it emitted? NOx is emitted from cars and combustion (7species) and agriculture • Human Health Effects: Causes irritation of eyes, lungs, nose and throat. Also increased disease vulnerability. • Corrective Actions: Creating cleaner cars w/ greater gas mileage, agriculture not as well controlled • Carbon Monoxide • How is it emitted? Result of inefficient combusion...should go to CO2 • Human Health Effects: CO binds v. tightly to hemoglobin in red blood cells and prevents them from carrying CO2. If levels are high enough you get chemical asphyxiation • Corrective Actions: Creating more efficient cars.