1. Wildfires in AZ. What Does Arizona Do To .Reduce The Rish.
When it Comes to Your Home – Wildfires Don’t Have to be a Disaster
The Department of Forestry and Fire Management participates in National Fire Protection Association’s Firewise USA™ program. The program teaches people how to adapt to live with wildfire. As a homeowner, there are simple things you can do to reduce the risk of your property from wildfire.
The NFPA’s mission is to promote community-wide responsibility in the use of technology, policy, and practices that minimize the loss of life and property to wildland fire independent of firefighting efforts. Please read Living With Wildfire to learn how you can work toward reducing the wildfire threat in your area. For more information on the Firewise USA™ program, you can check out their website.
Is your community Firewise USA™ recognized? Check out the list of Arizona’s recognized and certified communities!
Map List
It takes all of us to do our parts to reduce the risk of devastating wildfires from threatening our homes and our Arizona communities. A home and a community thaclear defensible space is more likely to survive a wildfire, plus it keeps our firefighters on the ground safe when they are working to save your property.
Acres Lost to wildfires in AZ
Since 2010 2,427,550 acres
Since 2000 4,936,005
Since 1990 6,072,583
Average size of a wildfire
1999 113,657 acres
2000-2009 250,645 acres
2010-2017 303,443
2. Action Films Watched At Home On TV May Cause You To Over Eat. Cornell University researchers say that study participants who watched action films at home ate nearly twice as much food by weight, and 65 percent more calories than those who watched the interview show, “Charlie Rose.” A fast pace film may distract you causing you to eat more than you should. Source: Cornell university
3. Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) 2018 GUIDE TO BUG REPELLENTS.
Although the summer is sort of past us, the rains from the monsoons will be breeding in your back yard or your camp ground. The alarm over the Zika epidemic has diminished since last summer, but the risk of contracting bug-borne diseases remains high.
According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tick- and insect-transmitted diseases, which can have serious health impacts and may even lead to death, are on the rise. While the agency has reported no cases of Zika transmission in the U.S. in 2018, it warns that pest-borne diseases are “a large and growing public health problem in the United States.”
The CDC reports that cases of disease from mosquito, tick and flea bites more than tripled in the U.S. from 2004 to 2016, and the rate of emergence of new or newly recognized pathogens is increasing. Since 2004, nine new germs spread by mosquitoes and ticks have been discovered or introduced in the U.S, including the mosquito-borne viruses Zika and chikungunya.
Tick-borne diseases, primarily Lyme disease, account for much of the increase. The incidence of Lyme disease has nearly doubled since 2004, with 36,429 cases reported in 2016.1 The problem is likely much larger because the actual number of Lyme disease cases may be 10 times higher, affecting 300,000 people annually.
Experts predict bites and infections will continue to rise because of a warming climate that expands the habitat of species such as ticks and mosquitoes. With the increased need for protection, it is important to recognize that there is no perfect and completely safe way to prevent bug bites.
Many people are concerned about the possible drawbacks of common repellent active ingredients, like DEET. EWG researchers have analyzed the science in depth and found that, with proper application and precaution, our recommended active ingredients – Picaridin, DEET, and IR3535 – effectively reduce risk from life-altering disease and have very low toxicity concerns.
The Environmental Protection Agency regulates insect repellents and requires companies to submit data to verify their claims of repellency. The problem for consumers is that a product may not provide as many hours of protection as listed on the product label. This is for many reasons, including different test conditions, different types of mosquitoes tested and the differences in repellency for different individuals. EWG recommends using an EPA-registered repellent. When vector-borne disease is a concern, start with the repellents that have most tests showing efficacy in different situations. Start with repellent ingredients that EWG found to be top picks:
- Picaridin
- DEET (at less than 30 percent)
- IR3535 (at 20 percent)
Other effective options:
- Oil of Lemon Eucalyptus and its synthetic derivative PMD
- 2-Undecanone
These repellents offer a high level of protection from a variety of biting insects and ticks, have good safety profiles, and are registered with the EPA, so they must provide data on both efficacy and toxicity. If a product is not working for you or your family, we recommend trying one with a different active ingredient. The EPA maintains an online repellent search tool to help you find products that it has reviewed.
DEET’s safety profile is better than many people assume. It has a long history of use, is very effective in reducing bites and has minimal safety concerns. DEET isn’t a perfect choice, nor the only choice. But weighed against the consequences of a life-changing disease, such as West Nile virus, we believe it is a reasonable choice.
In the 60 years DEET has been for sale to the public, there have been few reported cases of toxicity. Concerns have often been raised about DEET’s potential to be neurotoxic to children. But follow-up studies have not linked DEET to neurotoxicity. A 2003 report concluded that evidence does not support increased risk of adverse toxic effects in young children, and a recent 2017 report also found it unlikely that DEET causes neurotoxicity. 2,3
While products based on botanical extracts do not make our top picks, they may be worth trying if bug-borne diseases are not known to be a problem where you are going. But many of these products contain allergens in highly concentrated forms. Effectiveness varies widely.
Before traveling, check the CDC’s Zika travel map for up-to-date Zika information. Source: EWG.COM
4. Recycling Glass – Easy or Not? Glass presents some tough recycling problems—including lack of end markets, contamination, and transportation costs—partly because it weighs about 10 times as much as a similar volume of plastic or aluminum. It busts up easily, which makes it hard on equipment and increases maintenance costs. Also, glass fragments easily mix with paper and cardboard in single-stream recycling, reducing the value of these products.
In much of Arizona, glass is recycled when municipalities provide bins just at their landfills or Material Recycling Facilities (MRF – pronounced as “Merf”). The homeowner, bar or restaurant has to conduct the initial separation of glass from other recyclable material or putrescible material by taking the glass to the MRF (usually a $0.00 cost to recycle glass).
When creating the Arizona solid waste laws (early 1990’s), the legislature removed glass from the recycling lists because the legislation did not want broken glass on the roads. Some communities have solved the problem associated with broken glass and other recyclable goods. Why not make it the law?
The 11 states with bottle deposit laws recycle at a rate of 66 percent, compared to the mere 24 percent in states without the laws. Urge your State Representative and Senator to enact a bottle law during this election season. Source: “Green Life”
5. Meteor Showers This Weekend
August is the time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the free show overhead. The Perseid meteor shower is one of the most prolific annual meteor showers and the only one that occurs in the summer. The Perseids can produce up to 100 meteors an hour at their peak, which is around August 11/12. Skies will be nice and dark thanks to a new moon on August 11, which will make it easier to see even the faintest streaks. Find a location away from trees, buildings, and light pollution, and look up to catch the fast-moving meteors as they burn up upon contact with our atmosphere. These meteors come from the Great Comet of 1862, Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle.
6. Administration Wants To Cripple The Endangered Species Act.
Last week, the Interior Department proposed fundamental changes to the Endangered Species Act, essentially weakening a law that has protected wildlife for the last 45 years. The proposal shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the current administration has aggressively pushed a deregulation agenda on behalf of free enterprise.
Congress passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973 to stop the decline and extinction of plants and animals. Many iconic American species have survived thanks to the ESA—the bald eagle, the American alligator, and the grizzly bear, among others. The act has received overwhelming support in the past on both sides of the political spectrum.
Here are just a few species that could be adversely affected by a weakened Endangered Species Act.
Greater Sage-grouse Approximately 200,000 sage-grouse live in the heart of the American West, a small fraction of previously recorded population numbers. But the sage-grouse, characterized by its complex courtship displays and prized by hunters, has had a hard time making the endangered species list. The high desert bird relies on sagebrush country for nesting and feeding, which means that the sage-grouse has long found itself at the center of public lands debates between conservationists and farmers, ranchers, and oil and gas developers in western states.
Just this week, a defense-bill provision stipulated that sage-grouse be kept off the endangered species list for the next 10 years, no matter the damage to its habitat, citing military readiness.
“The supposed rationale is that protections for these species limits the use of lands important to the military,” wrote Audubon digital editor Andrew Del-Colle. “That reasoning, it turns out, is hogwash.” Earlier this week, lawmakers excluded this provision. But either way, under the current administration, the sage-grouse has an uphill battle ahead to receiving federal protection.
Bull Trout
The historic range of bull trout has been cut in half by mining, dams, and other causes of habitat fragmentation. These prized trout depend on clear, flowing waters free of sediment. The Fish and Wildlife Service designated the species as threatened, which under the Endangered Species Act grants them certain protections.
North Atlantic Right Whale
The right whale on our eastern seaboard has been listed as an endangered species since 1970, though its initial drastic decline in population can be attributed to the 18th-century whaling industry. We’ve curbed whaling in the Atlantic, but that hasn’t saved the right whale from certain industrial harms. In 2008, when scientists designated the North Atlantic right whale as its own species— differentiating it from other right whale populations—the species was already on track to going extinct. According to a study by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, between 1970 and 2006, humans were responsible for nearly half of the 73 documented North Atlantic right whale deaths.
Gray Wolf
The gray wolf narrative in North America is considered a wildlife success story. Manifest destiny and the settlement of the West in the 19th and 20th centuries engendered federal and state-sponsored wolf extermination. On behalf of predator control, the gray wolf was virtually extinct in the contiguous United States. In the 1990s, ecologists recognized the gray wolf as a keystone species and reintroduced it into protected areas, particularly in the Northern Rockies. Today the gray wolf has recovered.
But this success story is far from over. The gray wolf still has its enemies, and even though wolf populations have increased in the long-term, scientists and wildlife advocates have questioned moves by the Interior Department to delist certain populations, leaving them susceptible to unregulated killing. Under the c current administration, this trend will most likely continue. Congress has proposed amendments to the Endangered Species Act that would strip protections for certain wolf populations while arguably lowering the scientific standard used to make regulatory decisions.
7. Hey Guys, Can You Fix Your Fat Tire?
Even though U.S. obesity rates are stabilized, wastelines are still expanding, say CDC researchers. Between 1999 and 2012, the proportion of men with too much fat around the middle rose from 37.1 percent to 43.5 percent. Belly fat – a.k.a. visceral fat has been linked to cancer, diabetes and heart disease, according to study author, Earl Ford, M.D.,M.P.H.
Source: American Medical Association
