Daniel Salzler No. 1126
EnviroInsight.org Four Items November 26, 2021
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1. Researchers Unlock The Potential Of Trees For Managing Environmental Impacts In Cities. Individually grown urban trees capture, store, and release more stormwater back to the atmosphere at a rate of 3x compared to trees grown in clusters or patches. University of Maryland
Researchers have conducted an empirical field study and concluded that single urban trees, such as street trees, function differently than trees grown in clusters featuring significantly greater transpiration rates. This result offers a new understanding of how to manage the landscape in urban settings to reduce the harmful effects of stormwater runoff.
As the global climate change conversation intensifies and nations look to minimize environmental impacts in their own backyards, nature-based solutions are garnering new levels of interest. Trees are widely recognized for their role in sequestering carbon, and capturing and storing rainfall in their canopy to manage stormwater runoff, but to date there has been minimal research and clarity around how urban forests in particular can be used as practical stormwater management tools. Members of the academic community speculate that urban trees can help mitigate stormwater flows, but the actual amount of stormwater that trees remove through functions like transpiration, infiltration, and storage is not well established. To address this gap, University of Maryland researchers have conducted an empirical field study and concluded that single urban trees, such as street trees, function differently than trees grown in clusters featuring significantly greater transpiration rates. This result offers a new understanding of how to manage the landscape in urban settings to reduce the harmful effects of stormwater runoff.
“This work is important because urban trees are increasingly being considered as a stormwater management practice, but we don’t have much information about how trees function in different parts of the landscape,” explains Deb Caraco, senior watershed engineer with the Center for Watershed Protection. “Quantifying the impacts of urban trees affect different parts of the water balance, such as the evapotranspiration component, gives us a better understanding of the benefits of urban trees, and knowing where and how to plant and preserve them to achieve the greatest benefit.”
To better understand how the relationships between transpiration and environmental influences change within different tree management contexts, single trees over turfgrass and a cluster of trees over turfgrass.. They built and used sap flux sensors — which give a clearer picture of how trees access groundwater — installed in 18 mature red maple trees to continually monitor transpiration rates during the growing season. They also measured soil water content, air temperature, relative humidity, and precipitation at each site. Single trees had a much greater transpiration rate, and were more responsive to climate influences than closed canopy or cluster trees. This data presents important implications for the future.
“Cities can be hotter and drier for example. Our data can help make tree crediting policies better reflect the actual benefits of trees in urban landscapes because they interact with water and their environment differently in cities than they do outside cities. The next step is to take this data set on how each tree functions and scale it up to see how an entire stand or patch of trees mitigates stormwater flows.”
Some may envision a tree having the same characteristics regardless of where it is growing but we now see that the same tree species will function differently in different urban settings, and can1-facing issues.
This work emphasizes the importance of thinking about cities as not a homogenous thing that we’re trying to manage, but that environmental outcomes and benefits are going to vary within a city. A tree along a street isn’t the same as a tree in a patch or woodlot. Considering this variability is important in our future research — they are now modeling how these different settings may mitigate runoff from different sized rain storms for example.”
Practitioners are now able to better integrate urban trees into their stormwater green infrastructure network. These findings suggest that approaches to use urban trees and forests to mitigate urban stormwater runoff should rely on data that is derived from urban settings, rather than non-urban locations.”
The importance of trees to clean water, clean air, and provide shade resonates now more than ever as we look for ways to reduce urban heat islands, clean stormwater before it enters streams, and provide habitat for our wildlife, said Jana Davis, Executive Director of the Chesapeake Bay Trust.
Source: Materials provided by University of Maryland. Original written by Graham Binder. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
2. Researchers Air Out Suggestions For Avoiding Germs, Viruses While Doing Laundry. The pandemic has not been showing signs of slowing down in Arizona, and health care providers have also been warning about cold and flu season.
New research also shows there may be a household chore that we also need to be careful about, in terms of disease transmission: doing the laundry.
Chuck Gerba, a professor in the Department of Environmental Science at the University of Arizona, has studied the best ways to sort, handle and wash laundry to minimize the spread of germs and viruses.
Gerba and his fellow researchers, were brought together by the American Cleaning Institute, which represents companies in the cleaning products industry.
KJZZ’s “The Show” spoke with Gerba more about what he found, and how to avoid spreading disease through dirty clothes.
“In our studies, we found that the average pair of adult underwear contains about one-quarter of a Southwest Airlines peanut, by weight, of fecal matter.”
— Chuck Gerba
It’s rare that doing laundry feels life a lifesaving mission, but in the midst of the COVID 19 outbreak washing your clothes properly could be vital to your family’s health.
Laundering clothes and linens safely is particularly important if you’re living with someone who has a suspected or confirmed case of the new coronavirus, someone with a compromised immune system, or someone who works in a hospital or another place where there may be exposure to the virus.
Keep Contaminated Laundry Separate
While experts don’t know exactly how long the new coronavirus (officially called SARS-CoV-2) remains infectious on clothes and other fabrics, early research shows the virus can survive on cardboard for no longer than 24 hours and on metal and plastic for up to 72 hours, says Jaimie Meyer, M.D., an infectious-disease specialist and assistant professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. So it’s possible that the virus may remain infectious on clothes for hours to days, though there is no data available on that yet.
If you’re caring for someone in the house who is sick or you’re cleaning the clothes of a family member who may have been exposed to the coronavirus, consider those clothes contaminated and keep them in a separate laundry bin until it’s time to do the wash.
Also, if you can, place a washable or disposable liner in that laundry bin so that you can either launder it or throw it away after you remove the dirty clothes.
“As a healthcare worker myself, I change clothes immediately after coming home and sequester them with other exposed clothes,” says Koushik Kasanagottu, M.D., an internal medicine resident at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore.
Handle Soiled Clothing Items With Care
When you handle the dirty laundry of someone who is sick or has been exposed to the coronavirus—especially if there are bodily fluids on the items—wear disposable gloves if possible, and throw them away after each use, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
You could also wear reusable gloves, but be sure to wear them only when cleaning and disinfecting items or surfaces that have been exposed to the virus. Then keep the gloves in a separate bag. After taking off the gloves, wash your hands for at least 20 seconds in soap and water.
After you’re done touching contaminated items. Also be extra mindful to keep your hands away from your face throughout this process.
While transferring items from the bin to the washer, don’t shake the laundry, which could disperse the virus through the air, according to the CDC.
But “it is okay to wash the laundry of someone who is ill along with the laundry of other members of the household,” Meyer says. As long as you take measures to safely handle contaminated items, there’s no need to do a separate load for those linens and clothes, according to the CDC.
Wash contaminated clothes and linens as you normally would, but “launder items using the warmest appropriate water setting for the items and dry items completely,” the CDC says.
While the CDC does not specifically recommend using a detergent plus bleach, the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene states that bleach may help inactivate viral microbes in the wash. So if you’re washing whites and light colors, you could add bleach to the load. Or you could use a detergent that contains a color-safe bleach if it’s appropriate for the fabric.
Also, while more research is needed to determine what temperature may inactivate the virus, Don Schaffner, Ph.D., a microbiologist and distinguished professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., explains that the entire washing process should rid fabrics of the coronavirus. It’s the combination of detergent, warm water, and physical agitation in the rinse and spin cycles that removes, inactivates, and washes away viral microbes.
Once the washing is done, using a dryer may be better than hanging the clothes to dry because the heat may also help inactivate any viral microbes. In addition, dry fabrics are less likely to transfer germs than wet ones.
3. Common Household Noises May Be Stressing Your Dog. Study shows people likely underestimate their dog’s anxietyNovember 10, 2021 University of California – Davis.
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have found that people may not recognize that their dog is stressed when exposed to common household noises. While it’s well-established that sudden loud noises, such as fireworks or thunderstorms, commonly trigger a dog’s anxiety, a new study finds even common noises, such as a vacuum or microwave can be a trigger. The study was published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science.
The research found that high-frequency, intermittent noises such as the battery warning of a smoke detector are more likely to cause a dog anxiety, rather than low-frequency, continuous noise.
“We know that there are a lot of dogs that have noise sensitivities, but we underestimate their fearfulness to noise we consider normal because many dog owners can’t read body language,” said lead author Emma Grigg, a research associate and lecturer at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
Signs of anxiety
Some common signs of a dog’s anxiety include cringing, trembling, or retreating, but owners may be less able to identify signs of fear or anxiety when behaviors are more subtle. For example, stressed dogs could pant, lick their lips, turn
their head away or even stiffen their body. Sometimes their ears will turn back, and their head will lower below their shoulders. Grigg suggests owners better educate themselves on anxiety-related behavior.
Researchers conducted a survey of 386 dog owners about their dogs’ responses to household sounds and examined recorded dog behaviors and human reactions from 62 videos available online. The study found that owners not only underestimated their dogs’ fearfulness, but the majority of people in videos responded with amusement rather than concern over their dog’s welfare.
“There is a mismatch between owners’ perceptions of the fearfulness and the amount of fearful behavior actually present. Some react with amusement rather than concern,” Grigg said. “We hope this study gets people to think about the sources of sound that might be causing their dog stress, so they can take steps to minimize their dog’s exposure to it.”
Some sounds painful for dogs
Grigg said because dogs have a wider range of hearing, some noises could also be potentially painful to a dog’s ears, such as very loud or high-frequency sounds. She said minimizing exposure may be as simple as changing batteries more frequently in smoke detectors or removing a dog from a room where loud noises might occur.
“Dogs use body language much more than vocalizing and we need to be aware of that,” said Grigg. “We feed them, house them, love them and we have a caretaker obligation to respond better to their anxiety.”
Story Source:Materials provided by University of California – Davis. Original written by Amy Quinton. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
4. Plan Your 2021 Taxes Now—Or Else. Or else what? Or else risk missing out on a large stimulus payment, or face a surprise bill at tax-filing time, or forgo a charitable deduction.
Year-end tax planning always matters, but new or temporary tax-code changes make it different this year.
“There are so many new variables, and they bring opportunities for saving—if you plan,” says Jeffrey Porter, a CPA who practices in Huntington, W.Va.
Here’s a dramatic but not far-fetched example of how strategizing could save a young family at east $7,600 this year.
Say that a married couple has a new baby plus two children ages six and eight. They think their 2021 adjusted gross income will be $162,000, which is below their 2020 income because one spouse temporarily left the workforce this year.
But see what happens if this couple rearranges their 2021 income so it’s below $150,000. They become eligible for $7,000 of stimulus payments, and they’ll get $600 in new child tax credits for 2021 that they would have lost due to a separate phaseout.
How could this couple reduce their reported income to qualify for these benefits? By making pretax contributions to 401(k) retirement plans, SEP IRAs, health-savings accounts or flexible spending accounts for 2021, among other things. Business owners could defer income or accelerate deductions, if possible.
What won’t help is deductions for charitable contributions, mortgage interest, state taxes and other items on Schedule A. Those don’t reduce adjusted gross income.
Such 2021 strategies aren’t just for families with children. A retired couple might qualify for $2,800 in stimulus payments by deferring income or timing investment gains and losses. There are also special breaks for charitable giving this year.
Here are tax wrinkles to be aware of for 2021.
This benefit phases out quickly, beginning at $150,000 and ending at $160,000 of adjusted gross ncome for most couples filing jointly. The range is $75,000 to $80,000 for most singles and $112,500 to $120,000 for most heads of households.
However, people who didn’t receive third-round stimulus payments or else got partial ones can be eligible for more money based on their 2021 income. For some filers, relatively small reductions in income could bring big benefits.
Stimulus payments due will be claimed on 2021 tax returns. They aren’t taxable income.
Child tax credit for 2021
Just for 2021—unless Congress extends the law—there’s a new child tax credit of up to $1,600 per child under 6 and $1,000 per child under 18 at year-end. That’s in addition to the existing child credit of up to $2,000 per child, which this year applies to dependents under 18 at year-end, versus under 17 in other years.
The two credits have different phase-outs. Recipients lose $50 of the new credit per $1,000 of income, starting at $150,000 of adjusted gross income for joint filers, $75,000 for singles and $112,500 for heads of households. For the existing credit, the phaseout begins at $400,000 for joint filers and $200,000 for single and head-of-household filers.
The upshot: child tax credits don’t phase out as quickly as stimulus payments, but lower income can bring higher benefits this year.
Refund issues with the child tax credit
When Congress expanded the child tax credit in March, it told the IRS to make monthly advance payments to taxpayers of up to half their total credit, based on existing tax records.
These payments will lower expected refunds or raise taxes due for many filers on their 2021 returns. So those who are getting monthly checks should be aware of this issue and either adjust their expectations or raise paycheck withholding.
The IRS has a portal for opting out of the monthly payments, although there’s only one left this year. The deadline is Nov. 29.
Charitable giving
This year taxpayers who don’t itemize deductions on Schedule A can deduct charitable donations of cash up to $600 for joint filers and $300 for single filers.
Unlike last year’s $300 deduction for non-itemizers, this one is “below the line,” so it reduces taxable income but not adjusted gross income. As usual, the donor often must have a notice from the charity before filing a return that records the donation amount and whether anything of value was received.
What about givers who don’t itemize, but donate IRA assets through so-called qualified charitable distributions? They can still take the $300 or $600 deduction for cash donations.
There’s also a benefit for people who give large amounts relative to their income this year. Usually taxpayers can deduct cash donations only up to 60% of their income, although they can use up the excess over five years. For 2021, donors can deduct cash gifts up to 100% of income.
Source: November 20,2021The Wall Street Journal – by Laura Saunders
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