Bans on single-use plastic shopping bags (SUPBs) are a popular policy to tackle plastic pollution. However, their success has been evaluated solely based on reduced SUPBs consumption, ignoring the ...impacts of substitutes. This article addresses this gap by analyzing the Chilean plastic bag ban law. Results show a reduction of ~249 kilotons of SUPBs consumed and a change in the materiality of shopping bags (mainly toward paper), but also an increase of more than 50% of bin liners after the enactment of the ban. Despite some undesired effects, an improvement in the environmental performance of the bag market is obtained in fifteen of the eighteen categories studied. The environmental impacts are on average 38% lower than in the counterfactual scenario. This suggests that the law is being effective in protecting the environment. The strictness of the ban and its rapid enforcement were positive aspects of its design, but ignoring the end-of-life of the bags could be limiting its impact. To reduce the environmental impact of substitutes, it is recommended to create design guidelines for shopping bags and bin liners.
A Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) dataset of a turbulent premixed propagating flame with an Arrhenius one-step chemistry in an input–output configuration is examined. Combustion takes place in the ...‘corrugated flamelets’ regime. Heat release causes the flow volumetric dilatation rate to be positive over most of the computational domain, with associated positive strain rates normal to iso-scalar surfaces and both positive or negative strain rates tangent to them. The normal propagation of convex and concave iso-surface infinitesimal area elements produces stretching and reduction, respectively, superposed to tangential flow strain rate effects. The normal propagation speed of iso-surfaces increases monotonically from ‘fresh gases’ to ‘hot products’, which draws two adjacent ones closer; this contribution, due to both chemistry and molecular diffusive transport, is much greater than that of the normal flow strain, and enhances mixing and chemical conversion. Many aspects of turbulent premixed flames traditionally explained in terms of tangential strain rates can likely be well understood using the normal ones.
Social acceptability is a determinant factor in the failure or success of the government's decisions about which electricity generation sources will satisfy the growing demand for energy. The main ...goal of this study was to validate a causal trust-acceptability model for electricity generation sources. In the model, social acceptance of an energy source is directly caused by perceived risk and benefit and also by social trust in regulatory agencies (both directly and indirectly, through perceived risk and benefit). Results from a web-based survey of Chilean university students demonstrated that data for energy sources that are controversial in Chilean society (fossil fuels, hydro, and nuclear power) fit the hypothesized model, whereas data for non conventional renewable energy sources (solar, wind, geothermal and tidal) did not. Perceived benefit had the greatest total effect on acceptability, thus emerging as a key predictive factor of social acceptability of controversial electricity generation sources. Further implications for regulatory agencies are discussed.
► We tested a causal trust-acceptability model for electricity generation sources in Chile. ► Data for controversial energy sources in the Chilean society (fossil fuels, hydro and nuclear power) fit the hypothesized model. ► Data for non conventional renewable energy sources did not fit the data. ► Perceived benefit showed the greatest total effect on acceptability.
It has been found that both preparedness for disasters and public response are significantly influenced by risk perceptions and trust in authorities and experts. Although Chile is a country with a ...long history of natural disasters, few studies have evaluated the risk perceptions of natural hazards or the degree of social trust. The aim of this study was to evaluate risk perception in Chile regarding various natural hazards and the degree of trust on authorities and institutions. A survey was conducted in five major cities in Chile during the year 2013 and was completed by a total sum of 2054 participants. We assessed risk perception of nine natural hazards and the level of trust in ten national institutions and authorities. According to declared levels of trust, the institutions and authorities included in this study were categorized into three groups: (1) low trust, which included governmental authorities and institutions; (2) medium trust, formed by institutions with educational and preparation roles; and (3) high trust, formed by institutions and authorities responsible for maintaining public order and conducting rescue and aid operations. Although our results show that earthquakes, tsunamis and wildfires were natural hazards of greatest concern to the national population, they also reflect that there are specific additional concerns in different cities that are coherent with their individual history of natural disasters. Implications for natural disaster risk preparedness are discussed.
Risk perception is considered the primary motivator for taking preparedness actions. But people with prior experience and a high‐risk perception are not necessarily more prepared. This relationship ...is even more complex when assessing preparedness levels for hazards with different characteristics. These inconsistent findings can be explained by how preparedness has been measured and the influence of other factors, such as trust and risk awareness. Thus, the main goal of this study was to analyze the role of risk awareness and trust in authorities on risk perception and intention to prepare for natural hazards in a coastal city in Chile. A representative sample of the city of Concepción, located in the center‐south zone of Chile (n = 585), completed a survey. We measured risk awareness, risk perception, trust in authorities, and intention to prepare for two hazards: earthquakes/tsunamis and floods. Through structural equation models, we tested five hypotheses. We found that the perception of risk maintained a direct and positive influence on the intention to prepare for both hazards. The results showed that awareness and risk perception influence the intention to prepare and should be considered different concepts. Finally, trust did not significantly influence risk perception when faced with known hazards for the population. Implications for understanding the relationship between risk perception and direct experience are discussed.
In January 2017, hundreds of fires in Mediterranean Chile burnt more than 5000 km², an area nearly 14 times the 40-year mean. We contextualize these fires in terms of estimates of global fire ...intensity using MODIS satellite record, and provide an overview of the climatic factors and recent changes in land use that led to the active fire season and estimate the impact of fire emissions to human health. The primary fire activity in late January coincided with extreme fire weather conditions including all-time (1979–2017) daily records for the Fire Weather Index (FWI) and maximum temperature, producing some of the most energetically intense fire events on Earth in the last 15-years. Fire activity was further enabled by a warm moist growing season in 2016 that interrupted an intense drought that started in 2010. The land cover in this region had been extensively modified, with less than 20% of the original native vegetation remaining, and extensive plantations of highly flammable exotic Pinus and Eucalyptus species established since the 1970s. These plantations were disproportionally burnt (44% of the burned area) in 2017, and associated with the highest fire severities, as part of an increasing trend of fire extent in plantations over the past three decades. Smoke from the fires exposed over 9.5 million people to increased concentrations of particulate air pollution, causing an estimated 76 premature deaths and 209 additional admissions to hospital for respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. This study highlights that Mediterranean biogeographic regions with expansive Pinus and Eucalyptus plantations and associated rural depopulation are vulnerable to intense wildfires with wide ranging social, economic, and environmental impacts, which are likely to become more frequent due to longer and more extreme wildfire seasons.
Equations for the absolute value of the scalar gradient and for the infinitesimal distance,
between two adjacent iso-scalar non-material surfaces are obtained. 'Effective' strain rate normal to the ...iso-surfaces, which includes flow and physicochemically 'added' contributions, is shown to be an essential variable, causing either enhancement or destruction of scalar gradients and reduction or growth of distances between surfaces. Two DNS datasets for turbulent premixed flames, one simulating a statistically planar propagating front in an inflow-outflow configuration and the other computing a jet of a methane-air mixture, surrounded by a coflow of hot products, have been examined. DNS are used to estimate the relative importance of different processes determining the gradients fate. The flow normal strain rate apparently scales with the inverse of the Kolmogorov time microscale. Using as characteristic time,
, and length,
, where
and
are the laminar flame thickness and propagating velocity, a dimensionless equation for the time rate of change of
depends on five dimensionless parameters, among them the Karlovitz number,
; the contribution of every term in the rate equation depends on the magnitude of
compared to the other dimensionless groups. The chemically 'added' normal strain rate dominates the time evolution of
in the burning and a good share of the preheat regions of the statistically planar flame, whereas 'added' and flow normal strain rates are comparable in the turbulent jet flame. Large values of some of these dimensionless parameters hint at the likely importance of accounting for Reynolds and/or Damhöhler numbers dependencies in future work. A consistent definition of an average premixed turbulent flame thickness is presented and its computed values are compared to a previous proposal. Some suggestions to model the molecular mixing term in the context of the scalar PDF transport methodology are discussed. It is hypothesized that the characteristic mixing time should be proportional to the inverse of the 'effective' normal strain rate.
Many Chilean cities suffer from high air pollution from industrial, mobile, and residential wood-burning sources. Several studies have linked PM
air pollution exposure to higher mortality risk from ...cardiovascular, pulmonary, and lung cancer causes. In recent years, Chile has developed an extensive air pollution monitoring network to enforce air quality standards for PM
, allowing the study of the medium-term association between PM
and mortality.
A negative binomial regression model was used to study the association between 3-year average PM
concentrations and age-adjusted mortality rates for 105 of the 345 municipalities in Chile. Models were fitted for all (ICD10 A to Q codes), cardiopulmonary (I and J), cardiovascular (I), pulmonary (J), cancer (C), and lung cancer (C33-C34) causes; controlling for meteorological, socioeconomic, and demographic characteristics.
A significant association of PM
exposure with cardiopulmonary (relative risk for 10 µg/m
PM
: 1.06; 95% confidence interval = 1.00, 1.13) and pulmonary (1.11; 1.02, 1.20) age-adjusted mortality rates was found. Cardiovascular (1.06; 0.99, 1.13) and all causes (1.02; 0.98, 1.07) were positive, but not significant. No significant association was found between cancer and lung cancer. The positive associations remained even when controlling for multiple confounding factors, model specifications, and when considering different methods for exposure characterization. These estimates are in line with results from cohort studies from the United States and European studies.
Three-year average PM
exposure is positively associated with the age-adjusted mortality rate for cardiopulmonary and cardiovascular causes in Chile. This provides evidence of the medium-term exposure effect of fine particles on long-term mortality rates.
Background Factors affecting vulnerability to heat-related mortality are not well understood. Identifying susceptible populations is of particular importance given anticipated rising temperatures ...from climatic change. Methods We investigated heat-related mortality for three Latin American cities (Mexico City, Mexico; São Paulo, Brazil; Santiago, Chile) using a case-crossover approach for 754 291 deaths from 1998 to 2002. We considered lagged exposures, confounding by air pollution, cause of death and susceptibilities by educational attainment, age and sex. Results Same and previous day apparent temperature were most strongly associated with mortality risk. Effect estimates remained positive though lowered after adjustment for ozone or PM10. Susceptibility increased with age in all cities. The increase in mortality risk for those ≥65 comparing the 95th and 75th percentiles of same-day apparent temperature was 2.69% (95% CI: −2.06 to 7.88%) for Santiago, 6.51% (95% CI: 3.57–9.52%) for São Paulo and 3.22% (95% CI: 0.93–5.57%) for Mexico City. Patterns of vulnerability by education and sex differed across communities. Effect estimates were higher for women than men in Mexico City, and higher for men elsewhere, although results by sex were not appreciably different for any city. In São Paulo, those with less education were more susceptible, whereas no distinct patterns by education were observed in the other cities. Conclusions Elevated temperatures are associated with mortality risk in these Latin American cities, with the strongest associations in São Paulo, the hottest city. The elderly are an important population for targeted prevention measures, but vulnerability by sex and education differed by city.
The literature on the use of mobile diagnostic units for the adult population is limited. This is a report for the first time in Colombia (Latin America) on the use of mobile diagnostic units for ...patients in rural areas and resolution of complex cases through telemedicine.
Telemedicine is an alternative because it takes advantage of advances in telecommunications and technology for the provision of health services to patients in rural areas of a country.
A pilot program for mobile patient diagnosis was developed in three rural areas of central Colombia. The mobile unit was named Mobile dIagnostiC Unit (MICU). The unit includes a medical stretcher, dresser, washbasin, computer, videoconference equipment, satellite connectivity, and digital medical equipment: electrocardiogram, stethoscope, oximeter, and thermometer.
The number of patients attended during the 3 days of activity was 108, ∼36 each day. None of the patients (100%) was familiar with digital diagnostic tools and telemedicine. The entire population who attended (100%) was satisfied with the care, health education, and diagnosis received.
Our case report shows that the use of MICUs with the support of telemedicine offers benefit to the rural population in the geographic zone chosen in Colombia.
With greater coverage and access for patients to health services via mobile telemedicine units, it is possible to increase the quality of care.
PDF
