Smoking tobacco increases the risk of respiratory disease in adults and children, but communicating the magnitude of these effects in a scientific manner that is accessible and usable by the public ...and policymakers presents a challenge. We have therefore summarized scientific data on the impact of smoking on respiratory diseases to provide the content for a unique resource, SmokeHaz.
We conducted systematic reviews and meta-analyses of longitudinal studies (published to 2013) identified from electronic databases, gray literature, and experts. Random effect meta-analyses were used to pool the findings.
We included 216 articles. Among adult smokers, we confirmed substantially increased risks of lung cancer (risk ratio (RR), 10.92; 95% CI, 8.28-14.40; 34 studies), COPD (RR, 4.01; 95% CI, 3.18-5.05; 22 studies), and asthma (RR, 1.61; 95% CI, 1.07-2.42; eight studies). Exposure to passive smoke significantly increased the risk of lung cancer in adult nonsmokers and increased the risks of asthma, wheeze, lower respiratory infections, and reduced lung function in children. Smoking significantly increased the risk of sleep apnea and asthma exacerbations in adult and pregnant populations, and active and passive smoking increased the risk of tuberculosis.
These findings have been translated into easily digestible content and published on the SmokeHaz website.
Climate change and environmental problems, increasing global energy demand, and uncertainties in energy supply have brought the production and use of sustainable energy resources to be crucial. ...Hydrogen, which is an important energy carrier, is being produced and used globally within the perspective of sustainable energy and environmental technologies. Public awareness is an important step toward the spread of hydrogen energy (HE). In the literature, while public awareness studies focus on renewable energy sources, no study that examines public awareness in the field of HE in a way that addresses different perspectives has come across. This pioneering study aims to explore public awareness of HE by analyzing survey data collected from individuals via basic statistical techniques. Findings indicate that individuals' awareness of hydrogen energy mainly varies according to their knowledge level, education level, and age group. The results of the study will provide an important perspective for all stakeholders on hydrogen energy. Especially the policymakers should consider these results to constitute the frameworks of policy without compromising any perspective of public awareness.
Climate extremes will be intensified and become more frequent. One of the regions where this is the case is the U.S. Gulf coast region. This region is susceptible to the impacts of climate extremes. ...This region has recently experienced large amounts of economic damages caused by high-impact hurricanes and floods. Meanwhile, drought can also pose serious risks once it occurs. By using a 2019 U.S. Gulf Coast survey combined with Standard Precipitation Index, we closely examined retrospective and prospective evaluations of drought and flood among coastal residents. Drawing upon literature on human-environment system, we were interested in how the objective conditions of past drought and flood influenced individual's perceptions of these hazards and how their retrospective evaluations were correlated with their prospective evaluations of future trends of these hazards. Coastal residents' retrospective evaluations of past drought and flood were found to be influenced by historic objective conditions. Higher drought frequencies were found to increase the probability of perceiving increasing trend of drought number in the past. Higher flood frequencies were found to decrease the probability of perceiving increasing trend of flood number in the past. Higher intensities of drought and flood were found to increase the probabilities of perceiving increasing trends of drought duration and flood amount in the past. Coastal residents' prospective evaluations of future drought and flood were found to be influenced by retrospective evaluations of these hazards, suggesting the temporal continuity in human judgment. Moreover, those who relied on a longer time span in reference to the future were found to be more likely to perceive increasing trends of drought and flood. We ended this paper by proposing a theoretical framework to guide future studies and discussing policy implications.
Display omitted
•Retrospective evaluations of drought and flood are influenced by historic objective conditions.•Higher drought frequencies increase perceptions of increasing drought number.•Higher flood frequencies decrease perceptions of increasing flood number.•Higher intensities of drought and flood increase perceptions of increasing drought duration and flood amount.•Prospective evaluations of future drought and flood are influenced by retrospective evaluations of these hazards
This study reports a new and significantly enhanced analysis of US flood hazard at 30 m spatial resolution. Specific improvements include updated hydrography data, new methods to determine channel ...depth, more rigorous flood frequency analysis, output downscaling to property tract level, and inclusion of the impact of local interventions in the flooding system. For the first time, we consider pluvial, fluvial, and coastal flood hazards within the same framework and provide projections for both current (rather than historic average) conditions and for future time periods centered on 2035 and 2050 under the RCP4.5 emissions pathway. Validation against high‐quality local models and the entire catalog of FEMA 1% annual probability flood maps yielded Critical Success Index values in the range 0.69–0.82. Significant improvements over a previous pluvial/fluvial model version are shown for high‐frequency events and coastal zones, along with minor improvements in areas where model performance was already good. The result is the first comprehensive and consistent national‐scale analysis of flood hazard for the conterminous US for both current and future conditions. Even though we consider a stabilization emissions scenario and a near‐future time horizon, we project clear patterns of changing flood hazard (3σ changes in 100 years inundated area of −3.8 to +16% at 1° scale), that are significant when considered as a proportion of the land area where human use is possible or in terms of the currently protected land area where the standard of flood defense protection may become compromised by this time.
Plain Language Summary
We develop a method to estimate past, present, and future flood risk for all properties in the conterminous United States whether affected by river, coastal or rainfall flooding. The analysis accounts for variability within environmental factors including changes in sea level rise, hurricane intensity and landfall locations, precipitation patterns, and river discharge. We show that even for a conservative climate change trajectory we can expect locally significant changes in the land area at risk from floods by 2050, and by this time defenses protecting 2,200 km2 of land may be compromised. The complete dataset has been made available via a website (https://floodfactor.com/) created by the First Street Foundation in order to increase public awareness of the threat posed by flooding to safety and livelihoods.
Key Points
First complete high‐resolution flood hazard analysis of conterminous US flood risk from all major sources (fluvial, pluvial, and coastal)
In validation tests the model achieved Critical Success Index scores of 0.69–0.82, similar to many local custom‐built 2D models
By 2050, flood hazard increases for the Eastern seaboard and Western states, but decreases or changes little for the center and South‐West
People often think of paper as an environmentally harmful product because trees are cut down to make it. A new generation that has grown up in today’s digital society may think that the use of ...digital devices is a waste-free way to protect our environment. Although the pulp and paper industry is making various efforts to preserve the environment, it has not been properly recognized. Developing new technologies to produce better products at lower cost while protecting our environment is important. But it is also important to enhance the image of the pulp and paper industry in the eyes of the public. The pulp and paper industry’s efforts to reforestation for raw materials and to expand the recycling of waste paper should be more widely introduced.
Prior to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, antibiotic resistance was listed as the major global health care priority. Some analyses, including the O'Neill report, have predicted that deaths due to ...drug-resistant bacterial infections may eclipse the total number of cancer deaths by 2050. Although fungal infections remain in the shadow of public awareness, total attributable annual deaths are similar to, or exceeds, global mortalities due to malaria, tuberculosis or HIV. The impact of fungal infections has been exacerbated by the steady rise of antifungal drug resistant strains and species which reflects the widespread use of antifungals for prophylaxis and therapy, and in the case of azole resistance in Aspergillus, has been linked to the widespread agricultural use of antifungals. This review, based on a workshop hosted by the Medical Research Council and the University of Exeter, illuminates the problem of antifungal resistance and suggests how this growing threat might be mitigated.
Geotourism is one of the newest concepts within tourism studies today. The popularity of geotourism has likewise grown rapidly over the past few decades. This rapidly growing popularity and the ...growing body of research on geotourism create the need for a comprehensive review of existing literature on the subject. The present study aims to systematically review scientific literature on geotourism published over the past two decades by identifying what knowledge has been produced on geotourism in the scientific literature and by analyzing the evolving research trends in geotourism during the same time period. The results reveal that researchers are placing an increasing focus on geotourism. A geographical analysis of the study areas indicates a true global distribution, encompassing studies of 53 countries altogether. Most of the research focusses on identifying, describing, and assessing the geoheritage of the areas in question together with their geotourism potential. The volume of research on these topics is growing at a rapid pace. Other common research topics as regards geotourism include management of geotourism and geoheritage, new geosite/geomorphosite assessment models, together with other methodological approaches. The results further indicate that researchers are less interested in geotourism stakeholders such as tourists and local communities, and that only a very small number of studies examine geotourism in the context of sustainable development. The vast majority of the studies utilize empirical data as the basis of the research or for the testing of proposed models and methodology. The present review identifies a need for a larger body of empirical research focusing on (i) sustainability of geotourism, including actual impacts of geotourism on the geoheritage and on the ecosystems of geotourism areas, (ii) knowledge on effective management of the main challenges of geotourism, as well as (iii) on stakeholders and their complex interrelations, including the effects of geotourism on local communities and their well-being.
While heightening public awareness through social media can enhance wildlife conservation and management efforts, the influence of media content and quality in relation to these efforts is poorly ...understood. In this study, online news and related public comments on the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin (Sousa chinensis), one of China's flagship species, was collected and evaluated to determine the performance of media news releases in strengthening public awareness. Media releases on the incidents of dolphins straying into freshwater systems at Dongping, Beijiang, and Baisha Rivers, in the Pearl River Delta of China were examined. WeChat, the largest social networking platform in China, was used as the data source. Generalized linear model (GLM) was used to test the news popularity by publisher type, title tone, picture counts, and word counts. Content analysis (CA) was used for mining wildlife conservation information in articles and identifying public opinions. GLM results showed that three publishers (traditional, governmental and private) as well as articles with more pictures attracted greater online readerships. CA results showed that articles were unable to popularize wildlife conservation knowledge, and the public was highly doubtful about conservation efforts by the government and experts. The finding here suggests that greater attention is needed for depicting and delivering conservation knowledge (e.g., rescue methods, biological features), negative impact on wildlife by diverse human behavior, and detailed proper descriptions to promote public awareness on wildlife conservation using multi-faceted thinking so as to reduce public misunderstanding of policymakers and experts. A suggested concerted framework could help strengthen wildlife management through social media.
•The emerging social media is a promising means of strengthening public awareness.•Quantitative method was used to analyze spread effects of social media news.•Concise but lively news is powerful for improving public environmental education.•Traditional publishers have the power to influence public response in social media.•Multifaceted public perception should be guided for reducing misunderstanding.
Planning authorities worldwide are increasingly employing e-participation to facilitate and strengthen public engagement in decision-making processes. However, little is known about the prospects of ...using Information and Communication Technology to foster public participation in urban planning in conservative Arab societies. This study investigates public willingness to participate in the urban planning process through the Internet and smartphones in Saudi Arabia. Data was collected through a questionnaire survey of residents of Dammam city and analyzed using descriptive (frequency distribution) and inferential statistics (z-tests and Chi-square). The study finds that most participants across all social and demographic groups are aware of e-participation in urban planning and have a significantly positive attitude towards it. Furthermore, they indicate more willingness to e-participate in planning at the local level or on issues that directly affect them. Also, in all stages of preparing urban plans, most participants preferred e-participation over the traditional mode through public hearings and seminars. The paper sheds light on the diffusion of ICT and its potential to facilitate public participation in urban planning in conservative and patriarchal developing countries. Integrating e-participation in urban planning can facilitate public engagement and collaboration with planning authorities to better serve the competing public interests and ensure inclusive urban development.
•E-participation can facilitate and strengthen public engagement in decision-making processes•Understanding public willingness to e-participate in urban development is important•There is good prospect of public e-participation in urban planning in Saudi Arabia•The public is more willing to e-participate in planning at local level or issues directly affecting them•E-participation can facilitate public engagement and collaboration with planning authorities to foster inclusive development
PDF
