Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

You might think that 97% consensus among the scientific community would motivate our intelligent US public to demand some sensible changes to energy policies… BUT WAIT… 57% of the public is NOT yet ready to accept the science of man made global warming. Why not? Because of pseudonews organizations 

(Yes Fox and Drudge, I’m talking about you) promoting the fossil fuel funded, pseudo-science talking points designed to keep said 57% of the public slumbering on in a mind numbed delusional state of false security. And those same fossil fuel lobbyists get voters to keep their fossil fuel elected puppets in Washington to maintain oil, gas, coal, carbon based energy policies at status quo, choking the atmosphere with CO2 emissions at an unprecedented rate. Frack you if you don’t fall into line. Sunscreen anyone? Gas mask?

Quoting comment from the study, which you can read here.

"The public perception of a scientific consensus on man-made global warming is a necessary element in public support for climate policy (Ding et al 2011). However, there is a significant gap between public perception and reality, with 57% of the US public either disagreeing or unaware that scientists overwhelmingly agree that the earth is warming due to human activity (Pew 2012). Read the Pew study here.

Contributing to this 'consensus gap' are campaigns designed to confuse the public about the level of agreement among climate scientists. In 1991, Western Fuels Association conducted a $510 000 campaign whose primary goal was to 'reposition global warming as theory (not fact)'. A key strategy involved constructing the impression of active scientific debate using dissenting scientists as spokesmen (Oreskes 2010). The situation is exacerbated by media treatment of the climate issue, where the normative practice of providing opposing sides with equal attention has allowed a vocal minority to have their views amplified (Boykoff and Boykoff 2004). While there are indications that the situation has improved in the UK and USA prestige press (Boykoff 2007), the UK tabloid press showed no indication of improvement from 2000 to 2006 (Boykoff and Mansfield 2008).

The narrative presented by some dissenters is that the scientific consensus is '...on the point of collapse' (Oddie 2012) while '...the number of scientific "heretics" is growing with each passing year' (Allègre et al 2012). A systematic, comprehensive review of the literature provides quantitative evidence countering this assertion. 

The number of papers rejecting man-made global warming is a miniscule proportion of the published research, with the percentage slightly decreasing over time. Among papers expressing a position on man-made global warming, an overwhelming percentage (97.2% based on self-ratings, 97.1% based on abstract ratings) endorses the scientific consensus on man-made global warming."

References

Ding D, Maibach E W, Zhao X, Roser-Renouf C and Leiserowitz A 2011 Support for climate policy and societal action are linked to perceptions about scientific agreement Nature Clim. Change 1 462–5

Oreskes N 2010 My facts are better than your facts: spreading good news about global warming How Do Facts Travel? ed M S Morgan and P Howlett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) pp 135–66

Boykoff M T and Boykoff J M 2004 Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press Glob. Environ. Change 14 125–36

Boykoff M T 2007 Flogging a dead norm? Newspaper coverage of anthropogenic climate change in the United States and United Kingdom from 2003 to 2006 Area 39470–81

Boykoff M T and Mansfield M 2008 ‘Ye Olde Hot Aire’: reporting on human contributions to climate change in the UK tabloid pressEnviron. Res. Lett. 3 024002

CoEnzyme Q-10 for healthy teeth and gums!

CoEnzyme Q-10 for healthy teeth and gums!

Keeping your smile healthy may depend on antioxidants!

A new study on periodontal disease shows the importance of using the energy supplement CoEnzyme Q-10 on a daily basis. 

Researchers have found that coenzyme Q10 when applied topically to teeth for 28 days can reduce plaque induced gingivitis. 

The authors conclude "Promising results were obtained after the application of coenzyme Q10 as well as when it was used as an adjunct to scaling and root planing for treatment of plaque induced gingivitis".

Periodontal disease is an inflammatory disease process resulting from the interaction of a bacterial attack and host inflammatory response. Arrays of molecules are considered to mediate the inflammatory response at one time or another, among these are free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS).

Periodontal pathogens can induce ROS overproduction and thus may cause collagen and periodontal cell breakdown. When ROS are scavenged by antioxidants, there can be a reduction of collagen degradation.

Ubiquinol (a highly absorbable form of coenzyme Q-10) serves as an endogenous antioxidant which increases the concentration of Coenzyme Q-10 in the diseased gingiva and effectively suppresses advanced periodontal inflammation.

The pharmacology of coenzyme Q-10 indicates that it may be an agent for treatment of periodontitis. On the basis of on new concepts of synergism with nutritional supplements and host response, coenzyme Q-10 may possibly be effective as a topical and/or systemic role or adjunctive treatment for periodontitis either as a stand-alone biological or in combination with other synergistic antioxidants (i.e., vitamins C and E).

Read about the study here.

Over 5,000 Children's Products Contain Toxic Chemicals Linked to Cancer and Hormone Disruption.

Over 5000 children's products contain toxic chemicals linked to cancer, hormone disruption and reproductive problems, including the toxic metals, cadmium, mercury and antimony, as well as phthalates and solvents. A new report by the Washington Toxics Coalition and Safer States reveals the results of manufacturer reporting to the Washington State Department of Ecology. Read the whole report here.

Don't frack our food and farms!

PETITION STATEMENT
California is the largest producer of food in the U.S. Fracking and farming cannot co-exist. If we frack California's farms, we put the entire country's food supply at risk. Please stop auctioning off California's public lands to the oil and gas industry for fracking.
Sign Here

Petition Background

You may not live in California, but chances are a lot of the food you buy, including organic produce, is grown there. California is the largest producer of food in the U.S. In 2011, the state's 81,500 farms and ranches had sales of $43.5 billion. What happens to our food if we frack and poison the groundwater that irrigates California’s farms?
In a move that a federal judge says violated environmental law, the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has already auctioned off 1,750 square miles of California’s public lands to oil companies intent on extracting oil, using a controversial technology called hydraulic fracturing – or fracking. In May, the BLM plans to auction off even more of California’s Monterey Shale, a geological formation that extends from northern California to Los Angeles, and is home to cattle ranches, dairy farms, vineyards and organic farms.
Fracking and farms cannot co-exist, as we’ve heard over and over from farmers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Dakota, West Virginia and Colorado. Farmers whose lives and farms have been ruined by fracking’s methane emissions and toxic chemicals. As one farmer explained, “We depend on good water for our cows, our crops and our own health. Once you mess up your groundwater, you can’t fix it.”
The oil and gas industry argues that it’s fine to pump huge amounts of cancer-causing chemicals deep into the earth, because we’ll never use that water. U.S. environmental regulators agree – which is why fracking is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, and why the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued more than 1,500 permits for companies to pollute aquifers in some of the country’s driest regions. But as our population grows, and temperatures rise, we may find ourselves doing what Mexico City has already been forced to do: drawing water from mile-deep aquifers that until now would not have been tapped for drinking water.
We all depend on California for our food. California’s unique Mediterranean climate allows the state to grow over 450 different crops. Some of these crops are exclusive to California: almonds, artichokes, dates, figs, kiwifruit, olives, persimmons, pomegranates, pistachios, prunes, raisins, clovers, and walnuts.
Fracking is bad for our water, bad for our air, bad for our health, bad for the climate. Without clean air and clean water, there are no farms. Without farms, there is no food.
Please sign this petition to the Bureau of Land Management asking officials there to stop auctioning off California’s public lands for fracking.

Taken from and in complete support of:

Sign up for Organic Bytes Here

Take Back the Tap Guide to Safe Tap Water

Do you drink bottled water? Do you think it is safer than tap water? So did I until I began to do some investigating.
Turns out I was wrong...and I was paying a lot of money for water that is tested less often and less extensively than my own tap water.
Tap water is tested more frequently for safety concerns than bottled water, but the water quality reports issued by local utilities can be confusing to read. Use this guide, the Take Back the Tap Guide to Safe Tap Water to help understand these reports and why they are important. Then get tips on finding the right filter for your household tap water based on the water quality in your area. 

Get the Facts. Bottled water is not safer than tap water. Despite the marketing, bottled water is not safer than tap water. In fact, tap water is subject to more stringent regulation that bottled water. Tap water is regulated by the EPA, while bottled water is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Perpetually under-funded and short-staffed, FDA has a poor record of protecting consumer health and safety. FDA sends inspectors to bottling plants once every two to three years. Read this: Bottled Water: Illusions of Purity and then resolve to reduce your bottled water consumption.
You can download a nifty app for your smartphone called Tap Buddy to find water fountains in your area, and you can visit Food & Water Watch's website to see what you can do to support access to safe food and water.

Vitamin D deficiency increases risk of type 2 Diabetes.

This study investigated whether baseline vitamin D level is associated with the incidence of type 2 diabetes in high-risk subjects for up to 5 years of follow-up, independently of obesity, baseline insulin resistance, and β cell function. Participants were 1080 nondiabetic Korean subjects based on the presence of one or more risk factors for type 2 diabetes, including obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and/or family history of type 2 diabetes. Of the participants, 10.5% had a serum vitamin D deficiency (<10 ng/mL), 51.6% had an insufficiency (10.0-19.9 ng/mL), and 38.0% had a sufficiency (≥20 ng/mL), and the incidence of type 2 diabetes at 32.3 months declined accordingly: 15.9%, 10.2%, and 5.4%, respectively. After adjustment for age, sex, blood pressure, lifestyles, family history, season, parathyroid hormone, and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, the participants with vitamin D deficiency had an increased risk of type 2 diabetes (106% increase for vitamin D levels 10-19.9 ng/mL compared with ≥20 ng/mL and 223% for vitamin D level <10 ng/mL compared with ≥20 ng/mL) independently of BMI, HOMA2-IR, and insulinogenic index. The authors conclude "The current prospective study suggests that vitamin D metabolism may play a role in type 2 diabetes pathogenesis independently of known risk factors".

Lim S, Kim MJ, Choi SH, Shin CS, Park KS, Jang HC, Billings LK, Meigs JB. Association of vitamin D deficiency with incidence of type 2 diabetes in high-risk Asian subjects. Am J Clin Nutr. 2013 Mar;97(3):524-30.