Sunday, January 25, 2009

Teach Yourself Baby Sleep or Climate Chaos

Teach Yourself Baby Sleep

Author: Andrea Grac

Help your baby sleep easier and get the rest you need, too


Colic, sleep apnea, and night terrors are just a few of the problems babies face during the sleep hours. Teach Yourself Baby Sleep provides you with practical tips and case studies to help you empower yourself and conquer these seemingly insurmountable issues.




New interesting textbook: Direzione ed amministrazione di professione d'infermiera: Una guida pratica

Climate Chaos: Your Health at Risk: What You Can Do to Protect Yourself and Your Family

Author: Cindy L Parker MD

Why should we care about climate chaos and global warming? Because, among other risky outcomes, they may seriously harm our health! Scientists around the world are in agreement that global warming, more aptly named climate change, is occurring and human activity is the primary cause. The debate now is in the scientific and policy worlds about just how harmful climate change will be and what are the best ways to stop it. One of those scientists is author Cindy Parker, who believes climate change is the most health-damaging problem humanity has ever faced. Parker has thus immersed herself during the past ten years in educating the public and health professionals about how climate change will affect our well-being. Here, she and husband, Steve Shapiro, a psychologist and former journalist, describe what we can expect if climate change continues unabated. The authors explain our possible physical and mental responses to such climate change factors as heat stress, poor air quality, insufficient water resources, and the rise of infectious diseases fueled by even minor increases in temperature. They also show how other changes that may result from climate change-including sea level rise, extreme weather events, and altered food supplies can harm human health. Parker and Shapiro have found, however, that just talking about the problem is not enough. Actions that can prevent or reduce climate change's harm are presented in each chapter.

To illustrate how much global warming will affect our lives, Parker and Shapiro begin their book with a chapter showing the worst-case scenario if climate change continues without intervention, and end the book with the best case scenario if we act now. Their eye-opening work will appeal to everyone who wants to remain healthy as we challenge this world-altering problem of our own making . While written for a lay audience in a manner that limits technical terminology, the book will also appeal to students and professionals of public health, medicine, environmental psychology, and science who will find the focus on health and the extensive referencing useful.



Table of Contents:
Series Foreword     xi
A Climate Change Tale     1
Climate Chaos: What May Come     10
What This Book Is About     11
What's Happening to Our Climate     12
Why the Climate Is Changing     13
The Greenhouse Effect     15
Greenhouse Gases and Temperature     15
Sea Level Rise     18
Dangerous Climate Change     19
The Most Worrisome Greenhouse Gases     20
The Speed of Climate Change     20
Greenhouse Gas Emissions across Nations     22
Peak Petroleum     24
The Book's Outline     26
Temperature: Home Is Getting Hotter     30
It Could Get Hot     31
Heat and Our Health     32
The Most Vulnerable to Heat Stress     34
Poverty: Another Risk Factor for Heat Stress     35
Geography Matters     36
Gender Considerations     37
Race and Ethnicity     39
Fewer Deaths from Cold Weather?     39
Global Warming and Behavior     40
Solutions     41
Air: Breathing Harder     45
The Climate-Air Pollution Connection     46
Ozone andHealth     47
Who Is Most Vulnerable to Ozone Effects?     48
Children     48
Other Vulnerable Populations     49
Particulate Matter     50
Forest Fires and Breathing     50
Dust     51
Other Air Toxins     52
Pollen and Climate Change     53
Who Decides How Clean Our Air Will Be?     53
Air Quality and Your Mental Health     55
Solutions     56
Water: Water, Water Everywhere or Neverthere     62
Risks to Our Water     63
How We Use Water     64
Where Our Water Comes From     65
How Much Water We Need     66
Droughts Affect Health     67
Droughts and Infectious Disease     67
Droughts and Fires     68
Floods Affect Health     69
Climate Change and Water Availability     69
Melting Snowpack     70
Melting Glaciers     71
Desalination     72
Bottled Water     73
Water Conservation-More Than Just Personal Virtue     74
Water Scarcity, Conservation, and Mental Health     74
Solutions     76
Cataclysmic Events: Pounding People and the Planet     78
A Cavalcade of Harm     79
Floods and Inundations     80
Floods, Contamination, and Disease     81
Floods, Mold, and More     83
Storm Surge     84
Saltwater Contamination of Wells     84
Erosion     85
Other Effects of Cataclysmic Events on Health     86
Risk to Infrastructure and Health     87
Displaced People     88
Conflict     89
Cataclysmic Events and Mental Health     90
The Science of a Rise in Sea Level     91
Thermal Expansion     91
Melting Inland Glaciers     91
Greenland's Melting Ice     92
Melting Arctic Sea Ice     92
Melting Antarctica     94
Melting Ice = Sea-Level Rise     94
The Science of Hurricanes and Other Storms     94
Solutions     96
Infectious Disease: Bacteria, Viruses, and Parasites, Oh My     99
The Relationship between Climate and Infectious Disease     100
Malaria and Climate Change     100
Other Diseases Mosquitoes Carry     102
Diseases from Other Insects     103
Diseases Carried on Ocean and Wind Currents     105
Foodborne Diseases     106
What's Next?     107
Infectious Disease and Mental Health     107
Solutions     108
Food: Nature's Bounty Bashed     111
Plants, Climate Change, and Our Food Supply     112
How Crops Grow     113
Heat's Harm to Crops     114
Climate Change and Pesticide Use on Crops     115
Soil, Erosion, and Climate Change     116
Plants and Ozone     117
After Peak Oil and Its Effect on Food     117
Aquatic and Marine Food Supply     119
Climate Change and Food Toxins     120
How Much of An Effect?     121
Meat: What We Eat Drives Climate Change     122
Other Contributors to Climate Change     123
Biofuels     124
Climate, Food, and Mental Health     125
Solutions     126
Ecosystem Health: Cycles of Life ... Or Death     129
Ecosystems and Our Health     131
Farms and Prairies     131
Mountains     132
Forests and Biodiversity     133
Coastal Wetland Ecosystems and Storm Buffers     134
Marine Ecosystems     135
Marine Dead Zones     136
Biodiversity Loss and Infectious Disease     137
Biodiversity Loss = Extinction     138
Energy and Ecosystem Health     138
Coal's Damage to Ecosystems     139
Oil's Damage to Ecosystems     140
Reducing the Impact of Fossil Fuels on the Climate and Ecosystems     140
Energy Efficiency     140
Geoengineering     141
Alternatives to Fossil Fuels     142
Renewable Energy     142
Nuclear Energy     144
A Final Word on Ecosystems     145
Solutions     145
Human Behavior: Choice to Change     147
Where Human Behavior and Climate Change Meet     148
How We Come to Behave     149
How We Change Our Behavior     150
Individuals and Climate Change     151
Brains and Behavior     151
Environmental Concern and Emotions     154
Thinking: Beyond Concern to Attitudes, Beliefs, Values....     157
Personal Responsibility and Self-Efficacy     159
Risk Perception and Fear     161
Sociodemographic Variables     164
Hope for Individual Behavior      166
Community Factors and Climate Change     166
Economics     167
Government and Institutional Policies     168
Media and Communications     172
Social Identity: Norms, Connections, and Movements     174
Place     175
Other External Factors     176
Hope for the Meeting of Individual and Community Factors     177
Solutions     178
Epilogue     182
References     186
Index     214

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