Articles related to current events, not yet on the syllabus, will be used.
September 1, 2022 version. Year 2022 articles will be added as the Course Progresses.
Topic
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Topic, and Reading
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1 Intro
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10,000 years to 2008, Humans Become City Dwellers
· Urbanization, compiled by Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization
· Back in 2007, the projections, from: The Urban Millennium, selected pages from UNFPA State of the World Population, (the themes of this report are addressed in our class) http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2007/english/introduction.html
· Age of Megacities, interactive from National Geographic: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/interactive/age-megacities/
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1 Intro
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Introduction: Cities are Ecosystems? The Anthropocene.
· Text: Articles by Crutzen, Carey, Steffen all in Moodle
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1 & 2
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Human Population
Sept 2022: since Covid 19 and related social/economic measures, world population is showing interesting diversions from the trends predicted in year 2020. The trends are being observed now. For this class: learn the main terms used to measure population and its changes.
· Lancet, World Population, 2020 and Pew Research, World Population, 2019 [Moodle]
· Article: C. Haub and J. Gribble, “The World at 7 Billion,” Population, Bulletin 66, no. 2. This is professional level article, but readable for our class. Concentrate on the vocabulary. There are also specific country examples. The article is from 2011, so it’s interesting to think what projections were correct.
Article: Norman Myers, “How we covered the world at 5 billion…” These are two short articles, interesting from the recent historical perspective, since we are now approaching 8 billion. (Moodle)
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Assignment 1: Population
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3 ES, CC, Commons
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Ecosystem Services, Carrying Capacity, and “The Commons”
· Text: “The Tragedy of the Commons,” by Garrett Hardin, a classic from 1968, <http://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full>, and Perspectives on Commons [Moodle]
· “Carrying Capacity concept”, see http://www.csus.edu/indiv/l/loom/lect%2031-32%20s07.htm
· Text: ESA Definition of Ecosystem Services https://www.esa.org/esa/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ecosystemservices.pdf (this is just one page). A longer explanation for a general audience, and written by key researchers of the topic (Daily, Alexander, Ehrlich,... Schneider, Tilman, Woodwell) is Ecosystem Services: Benefits Supplied to Human Societies by Natural Ecosystems, 1997, at https://www.esa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/issue2.pdf
· in class: Constanza et al., 1997 (Moodle and at http://www.esd.ornl.gov/benefits_conference/nature_paper.pdf )
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4 Water Supply
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Intro to Water Supply: groundwater, rainwater, glaciers, & rivers, precipitation (mean, anomaly)
· Text: The USGS Water Science school at https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/a-comprehensive-study-natural-water-cycle?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects [emphasis Surface Water and Groundwater tabs]
· Text: excerpts from IPCC WG1 2021 Summary for Policymakers at www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/ (and also in Moodle)—read sections A.1.4, A.3.2 to A.3.5 (in Moodle), Figure SPM.3 for observed changes, and for a projected change, look at Figure SPM.6
· How NYC gets its water: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/24/nyregion/how-nyc-gets-its-water-new-york-101.html
· Optional, the UN SDG and MDG viewpoints: read WESTRATE, ORTIGARA and BISWAS articles, in the Moodle folder, for an introduction to the Policy of the UN with respect to water goals.
· Optional: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_the_United_States
· Just keyword search, e.g. <nytimes water supply> !!
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Assignment 2: Water Quality & Exposure Pathway
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4 Groundwater Supply
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Transboundary Water
· Read Famiglietti: “Global Groundwater Crisis,” Nature, 2014 [Moodle]
· Read Libya_USMidwest GWater [Moodle]
· Read: M Rodell, JS Famiglietti, “Emerging trends in global freshwater availability ...” 2018. This is a research article, it updates the Famiglietti 2014 article and is a large review on current groundwater knowledge, and is likely difficult to read [Moodle].
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5 WaterQuality
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Awareness about Water Quality
· Read/Get to Know the site: US EPA perspective on Contaminants (Policy based on Science) in its Drinking Water Regulations: https://www.epa.gov/dwreginfo/drinking-water-regulations
· Optional Reading: A. Biswas, “Urban water security for developing countries” 2022 https://doi.org/10.1002/rvr2.11 [open access https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/rvr2.11]
· Optional, the EU perspective: website https://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-drink/index_en.html or <EU Drinking Water> and try the research Wujits et al., 2021 article “Protection of drinking water resources from agricultural pressures...” [Moodle]
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5 Water Quality focus LEAD and Arsenic
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Water Quality, continued
· Read: “Flint’s Water Crisis and the ‘Troublemaker’Scientist” by D Hohn, 2016, (NYTimes online site, JCU has access to NYT), and
· “Before Flint: D.C.’s drinking water crisis …” by NAugenstein, WTOP, April 4, 2016 [Moodle] and
· updates (from Sultan, Denchak, and more) on the Lead in drinking water situation. These articles are high quality secondary sources—go to Moodle folder
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5 & 6
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What is an Exposure Pathway?
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6 Air Pollutants, introduction
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Air Pollutants, introduction
· Explore & Compare: World's Air Pollution: Real-time Air Quality Index http://waqi.info/ and European Air Quality Index https://airindex.eea.europa.eu/Map/AQI/Viewer/
· Required reading, the Opinion piece by David Wallace-Wells, “Air Pollution Kills 10 Million People a Year. Why Do We Accept That as Normal?” NYTimes, 2022, lists many sites with Air pollution data (excerpt in Moodle, Frohring subscription for full article).
· Other <News Articles Air Pollution>, try N Chestney and B Lewis, “Europe’s toxic air” [Moodle News Articles folder]
· Optional: WHO’s portal for ambient air pollution, you could start here: WHO>Environment and Health>Air Pollution PORTAL which is https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/air-pollution/ambient-air-pollution
· Optional: WHO air quality databases strengths and weaknesses by D. H. Schwela and G. Haq, 2020, at https://aaqr.org/articles/aaqr-19-11-oa-0605
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MIDTERM
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6 Air Pollutants
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Air Pollutants continues after Midterm, into Weeks 8 & 9, depending on Current Events
· Reading: You Read and Review the Sites, Articles, Visualized Databases, just above (pre Midterm).
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Assignment 3: Energy and its Air Pollutant
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6 Air Pollutants: PMs
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Particulate Matter Articles and Sites
· Look at Background Air Quality in Italy, real time: https://www.iqair.com/us/italy , and then look at your Developed and Developing Country. Memorize the patterns and think of the sources.
· Look at the “European city air quality viewer” at https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/air/urban-air-quality/european-city-air-quality-viewer
· Read the June 21, 2021 news release, “Air pollution in many EU cities ... “ https://euobserver.com/climate/152190
· Read “Air Quality Index” at https://www.euronews.com/weather/copernicus-air-quality-index
· Read this 2021 News Release: “These are Europe’s air pollution hotspots” from WEF, at https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/air-pollution-health-europe-urban/
· Read the Guardian article—“More than half of Europe’s cities still plagued by dirty air, report finds” by Fiona Harvey, June 2021—and compare it with the previous WEF article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/16/europe-cities-still-plagued-dirty-air-report-finds
· Read BACKGROUND section, Table 1 and Table 4 in Giannadaki, D., Lelieveld, J. & Pozzer, A. Implementing the US air quality standard for PM2.5 worldwide can prevent millions of premature deaths per year. Environ Health 15, 88 (2016), at https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-016-0170-8
Question: How is the Index related to Concentration? Can you determine any cities Not covered by the EU indices? Which air quality viewer would you use in the future, and why?
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6 Transboundary
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Transboundary Air Pollution, emphasis Forest and Peat Fires
· Read: News on Southeast Asia fires, articles up to year 2017 [Moodle]
· Read: News and Interactive Maps on Wildfires in North America, as of August 2021 [Moodle].
· August 2021 note: Wildfires became a global issue in years 2018+, so I/we see will try learn about them, from Air Pollution and Ecosystem viewpoints. The information changes fast.
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6 Air Pollutants, Lead
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Air Pollution: the case of Leaded Gas
· Read: “Lead Blood Level & Map Petrol” docx [Moodle] which contains Adler’s summary of blood lead levels, and the UNEP maps of leaded petrol phaseout.
· Read: J Kitman, Secret History of Lead, 2000 [online at The Nation, and Moodle has a copy]
· Optional: Nevin, “Understanding international crime trends: The legacy of preschool lead exposure,” 2007 [Moodle]
· Optional: Reyes, Jessica, “Environmental policy as social policy? the impact of childhood lead exposure on crime,” 2007 [Moodle]
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7 Global Health
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Intro to Global Health
· READ, the WHO year 2020 “World Health Statistics, a visual Summary” at https://www.who.int/data/gho/whs-2020-visual-summary Learn: communicable vs. non communicable, major pathogenic diseases, regional differences.
· An overall view of life expectancy, disease, and injuries: Chapter 2 of “World Health Statistics 2022” published by WHO with link at https://www.who.int/data/gho/publications/world-health-statistics
· Look at some of the data at this WHO Global Health Observatory site https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/topics/topic-details/GHO/world-health-statistics . Be patient, the Visualisations take seconds to load.
· Summary of the paper, Case and Deaton, "Rising Morbidity and Mortality in Midlife Among White non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st Century," PNAS, Nov 2 2015 from EurekAlert News and in Moodle.
· Mortality in the US, 2015 and 2019: NHCS Briefs online (keyword search) and in our Moodle folder.
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Assignment 4
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7 Health, the Microbiome
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The Human Microbiome
· See <Human Microbiome Articles> in Moodle
· Fast Facts About The Human Microbiome, U Washington [Moodle]
· Lloyd-Price et al., “The healthy human microbiome,” Genome Medicine (2016) 8:51. DOI 10.1186/s13073-016-0307-y [Moodle]
· American Academy of Microbiology, 2013, Human Microbiome FAQ [Moodle]
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7 Health, Bacteria: Cholera
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Examples of Epidemics caused by a Bacteria
· Reading: You have a choice between the high quality news article (Deborah Sonntag, 2012) or the research news article by Orata (PLOS, 2014). Sonntag delves more into the situational and political errors. [all in Moodle]
· Read: Katz, 2016--this is the news announcement by UN--its role in the cholera epidemic.
· Optional: News on Antibiotics in Livestock [Moodle]
· Optional: E. coli outbreak in Germany, 2011 [Moodle]
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7 Health, Viruses
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Influenza and SAR-CoV-2 virus--theInfectious Diseases
· WHO definition of Influenza pandemic/epidemic [Moodle]
· Covid 19 and the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, have much similarity from the public health perspective (although the context of the two pandemics differs). Here is one research article which explains, and it’s written at a comprehensible level for non-science majors. “Lessons to be learnt from 100 year old 1918 influenza pandemic viz a viz 2019 corona pandemic with an eye on NTEP” by Matta et al., online here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7543972/ Alternatively, here is a news article, still high quality: by Richard Evans, “What can we learn from the 1918 pandemic?” in The Nation, December 2020 https://www.thenation.com/article/society/1918-covid-catharine-arnold/
· Spiegel article on 2009 Swine Flu Panic [Moodle]
· Visit and look around the WHO FLUNET site. FluNet is a global web-based tool for influenza virological surveillance first launched in 1997. https://www.who.int/tools/flunet
· 2013: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/feb/19/coronavirus-how-easily-spread
· The 2019 SAR-CoV 2 began to eclipse all other pathogenic diseases, starting in 2020. We will look at the available information online, given the class time restraints.
· Optional: Ebola Virus, see Moodle Folder: Ebola articles
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8 A
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Natural Hazards and Cities
· Text: The Economist, “Natural Disasters versus Natural Hazards” 2012 (Moodle)
· Munich Re Lost Events
· Munich Re Geophysical Events [Moodle]
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8 A Tectonics
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Natural Hazards and Cities
Case Studies: Tokyo and Fukushima, New York City and Sandy
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8B
Biodiversity
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Baum, D. (2008) Reading a Phylogenetic Tree: The Meaning of Monophyletic Groups. Nature Education 1(1):190 [Moodle]
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FINAL—the date set by JCU Registrar. NOTE that the FINALS period is in the first part of December! We must take our Final on the scheduled day and time.
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