Air Pollution Levels Rise Over the Last Two Years

Air pollution levels have gotten worse since 2016 as the last two years have seen an increase in small particulates affecting air quality. In 2018 alone, eroding air quality was linked to nearly 10,000 additional deaths in the US relative to the 2016 benchmark, the year in which small-particle pollution reached a two-decade low, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

Scientists believe there are multiple reasons for the spike in pollution, including increased use of natural gas, more people driving SUVs, and the increased number of forest fires throughout the country. Included in that list is the rollback of regulatory enforcement by the Environmental Protection Agency. Clean Air Act enforcement actions fell in the first two years of the Trump administration, and last year, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler disbanded the expert academic panel that reviewed and advised the agency on its standards for small-particle air pollution. The committee has since convened independently, citing the need to keep the public fully informed of their work.

From 2009 to 2016, average levels of these particulates in the ambient air in the U.S. plummeted by 24.2 percent. From 2016 to 2018, average levels jumped by 5.5 percent. As a result of that increase, 4,900 Americans died prematurely in 2017, and 9,700 died prematurely in 2018, according to the government’s own estimates of the likely effects of exposure to fine particulate matter. From www.iflscience.com we read, “Eighty percent of the burden of air pollution is felt by the elderly, but its impacts can be felt across all ages. A study published earlier this year found that air pollution now kills more people than smoking and has been linked to a variety of health effects, including obesity, miscarriage, and autism.”

Photo credit: Environmental Protection Agency via The Washington Post


Merlian News October 2019 Newsletter

Missed an article? Here’s a quick round up of some of our favorites from this month! As always, we look forward to presenting you with up to date news and information about holistic events, health and well being from both the scientific and the spiritual perspectives, nutrition, vegan lifestyles, and more.

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A Machine To Help Lower Blood Pressure

I happened to be reading Andrew Weil’s website when I came across information on a small machine called RESPeRATE that actually helps lower blood pressure through paced breathing. Doing some additional research I found it had been favorably reported on NBC nightly news and had the stamp of approval from a number reliable sources. i.e. The Mayo Clinic, John Hopkins, Harvard Medical School, and AARP. This got me interested in finding out more about this little gadget not much bigger than a CD player.

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Cataracts: an Integrative Medical Approach, Part Two by Marc Grossman, OD, LAc

There is a strong correlation between the risk of cataract onset and the patient’s diet. Subjects who ate the most meat had the highest rate of cataracts, and those who ate fish but not meat had a lower rate. Vegetarians had a lower rate and vegans had the lowest rate of cataract incidence.

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Neither Wolf Nor Dog by Kent Nerburn – 25th Anniversary Edition

| by Cheryl Shainmark

Neither Wolf Nor Dog is one of those profoundly moving books that makes a lifetime impression on the reader. If you don’t believe me, read the preface added for this newly re-released 25th edition. This book has changed the course of rivers, lifted the hearts of prisoners, and more intimately, unburdened one man of a lifetime of sadness. The author, Kent Nerburn, has written many books on spirituality and Native American themes, but this one is a stand out, and garnered its author the Minnesota Book Award.

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Reconcile Conflict and Create More Love by Serina Aramaki

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It is normal in life to have very strong and special emotional bonds with our parents, siblings, children, friends, and partners. But as fulfilling as these relationships are, our emotional attachments can also cause distress, upheaval and worry. Children get into trouble. Husbands and wives go astray. Friends do unreasonable, even hurtful things. And, if you’re a normal human being, there just seem to be some people—bosses, next door neighbors, ex-lovers—that arrive in your life seemingly destined to cause trouble and heartbreak.

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Cataracts: an Integrative Medical Approach, Part One by Marc Grossman, OD, LAc

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The holistic and Eastern Medicine approach seeks to look at each person as a unique individual so treatment strategies can often vary from person to person even with the same diagnosis. By combining the medical approaches of the East and West along with other alternative health modalities, we may be able to achieve better health with less cost and greater success in helping patients preserve vision.

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Tuning into the Silence by Paul Mulliner

Consciousness in all of us is a single experiencing-space, a cosmic field. As we reach inward with a focus of attention, we can intuitively realize a conscious awareness which exists as one experiencing-space inside all of us, a single spatial-consciousness connecting us into the whole Universe. Our thoughts are transient patterns in the still surface of this fluid cosmic consciousness.

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The Great Mysteries: Believing, Knowing, & Proving

Growing up, I never thought twice about whether there was an afterlife, or if it was possible to see into the past or the future, or how one could see things and events at a remote distance. My mother was a psychic, as was her mother and her mother’s mother before her. I knew as a child that I had inherited the “second sight”…. As a result, when people asked me whether I believed in things such as life after death, the paranormal, distance healing, or the mind’s ability to affect matter, I would tell them, “I don’t believe it, I know it.”

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The Unlikely Vegan Rides Again by Phil Shainmark

| by Phil Shainmark
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My good friend’s riding club was having an event and I was invited. They were hosting a “St. Paddy’s Day in Summer” event. It was a BLAST, and my friend. (being the main cook for her club), made me vegan shepards pie. I think she used Beyond Beef as the filling, and it was delicious. Here’s yet another entree I LOVED before I became vegan, and really thought I’d never eat again. I can’t express how nice it was to have an amazing vegan version of a food I love.

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