Video: National Guard drops water on the wildfire in Lake County, California over the weekend. Video by Storyful Editor

nytimes.com - August 3rd, 2015 - Christine Hauser

National Guard forces dropped water along the edges of a raging wildfire over the weekend as more than 2,000 firefighters in Northern California tried to contain a blaze that has already scorched 60,000 acres.

The wildfire, nicknamed the Rocky Fire, started on Wednesday. It is the largest in the drought-parched state, where more than 9,000 firefighters are struggling to contain it and 20 other active wildfires, some caused by lightning strikes, according to a statewide summary published on Sunday.

The Rocky Fire has now spread to three counties — Colusa, Lake and Yolo — and prompted the mandatory evacuation of about 12,000 people.

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By William Yardley, LA Times, June 23, 2015 | Photo: Jim Cole, Associated Press

EPA report cites benefits of reducing emissions, including at power plants, and of limiting climate change. This coal-fired plant is Merrimack Station in Bow, N.H.  (Jim Cole / Associated Press)

Reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change could prevent tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of billions in economic losses in the United States, according to a new study by the Environmental Protection Agency.

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New network expands US ability to respond to outbreaks of severe, highly infectious diseases

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES            June 12, 2015

WASHINGTON -- To further strengthen the nation’s infectious disease response capability, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has selected nine health departments and associated partner hospitals to become special regional treatment centers for patients with Ebola or other severe, highly infectious diseases.

HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) has awarded approximately $20 million through its Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP) to enhance the regional treatment centers’ capabilities to care for patients with Ebola or other highly infectious diseases. ASPR will provide an additional $9 million to these recipients in the subsequent four years to sustain their readiness...

The nine awardees and their partner hospitals are:

Image: Governer Jerry Brown.

huffingtonpost.com - April 29th 2015 - Kate Sheppard

California Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order Wednesday directing the state to cut is greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, the toughest proposed cuts of any state in the nation.

The 2030 target will ensure that California can meet its emissions target for the middle of this century, which calls for an 80 percent cut by 2050, Brown said. The state is already on pace to meet its goal of bringing heat-trapping emissions down to 1990 levels by 2020, a target set under a 2006 state law.

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FOREIGN POLICY  by Siobhán O'Grady                        April 13, 2015
When the Ebola virus spread from Guinea to Sierra Leone and Liberia last spring, the initial international response was labeled a failure. By the time President Barack Obama ordered troops to the affected countries in September, more than 2,400 people were dead.

But in the United States, where major hospitals prepared for an outbreak, there were only four in-country diagnoses, one of which resulted in a death. And some see the urgency of that response as a lesson in how the government can prepare for another public health hazard: a bioterrorist attack.

Arizona Rep. Martha McSally chairs a House subcommittee that will examine over the next few months the threat of bioterrorist attacks and U.S. preparedness to respond to them. She told Foreign Policy that even if a disease outbreak and the use of a biological agent in a coordinated attack are not completely analogous, the response strains similar systems.

“We can learn lessons from other outbreaks that are naturally occurring,” she said. “We can identify weaknesses in our response and even if it wasn’t terrorism, it presses the system at the same level....”

PUBLIC RADIO INTERNATIONAL  by Andrea Crossan                 April 7, 2015

...for those in hospitals suffering, all they see are masks and robot-looking suits of doctors and nurses caring for them. The medics must wear those protective suits to stop them from coming in contact with a patient. But some humanity is stripped away with the intimidating get-up.

Until now.

                      Jianjay Potter and Grace Zardon in Monrovia, Liberia.Credit: Marc Campos

Los Angeles-based artist Mary Beth Heffernan saw the Ebola suits on news reports. She thought about how isolating it was for the patients. And she came up with the idea of taking photos of health workers that could be attached to their protective clothing.

In late February, Heffernan travelled to Monrovia, Liberia to do just that.

She brought cameras, six printers, ink cartridges and sticky labels to print the photos on.

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) announced a sweeping executive order that imposes mandatory water restrictions as the state copes with a historic drought and water shortage. (AP)

washingtonpost.com - by Reid Wilson - April 1, 2015

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) announced strict new curbs on state water use Wednesday to combat a worsening drought affecting more than 50 million people in the western United States.

The executive order imposes mandatory water reductions across California to reduce water usage by 25 percent.

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PALO ALTO WEEKLY by My Nguyen                      March 6, 2015
PALO ALTO, California -- 

...Malan and Philip Joubert, brothers from South Africa who recently moved to Palo Alto to expand their app-development company, Journey, saw the demand for mobile solutions, so they created the Ebola Care app to help aid organizations in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. 

 The app has several core functions, including contact tracing, which identifies and diagnoses people who may have come into contact with an infected person; quarantine management, which tracks and manages the 21-day quarantine period of a patient; psychological assessments to determine the well-being of health workers; social work to build case files for orphaned children; survivor surveys, which are assessments of Ebola survivors upon leaving treatment centers; verification that supplies have been distributed; and event feedback, which captures thoughts from the community after educational events.

submitted by Albert Gomez

The long and severe drought in the U.S. Southwest pales in comparison with what’s coming: a “megadrought” that will grip that region and the central Plains later this century and probably stay there for decades, a new study says.

Thirty-five years from now, if the current pace of climate change continues unabated, those areas of the country will experience a weather shift that will linger for as long as three decades, according to the study, released Thursday.

Researchers from NASA and Cornell and Columbia universities warned of major water shortages and conditions that dry out vegetation, which can lead to monster wildfires in southern Arizona and parts of California.

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CLICK HERE - NASA - Study Finds Carbon Emissions Could Dramatically Increase Risk of U.S. Megadroughts

Image: U.S. Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell, left, tours the plant during the power-on ceremony at Desert Sunlight Solar Farm in Desert Center, Calif., on Feb. 9, 2015

time.com - February 10 2015 - Helen Regan

The world’s largest solar-power plant officially opened in the Riverside County desert, in California, on Monday.

The 550-megawatt Desert Sunlight Solar Farm will produce enough energy to power 160,000 California homes, reports USA Today.

Governor Jerry Brown has called on the state to increase its renewable-energy use to 50% of the total by 2030, up from 33% by 2020.

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Image: Cattle roam dirt-brown fields on the outskirts of Delano, in California’s Central Valley. Scientists predict future droughts will be far worse than the one in California. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images

theguardian.com - February 12 2015 - Suzanne Goldenberg

The US south-west and the Great Plains will face decade-long droughts far worse than any experienced over the last 1,000 years because of climate change, researchers said on Thursday.

The coming drought age – caused by higher temperatures under climate change – will make it nearly impossible to carry on with current life-as-normal conditions across a vast swathe of the country.

nrdc.org

Across the nation, climate change is making hot summer days hotter and stretching their numbers into heat waves that never seem to end. And the heat is causing more than just discomfort - as temperatures rise, so are the number of illnesses, emergency room visits, and deaths.

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Throngs of visitors travel down Disneyland's Main Street USA in this file photo.
(Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

latimes.com - January 10, 2015

Measles has become a growing concern among California health officials. Before the December cases, 2014 was already the worst year for measles cases in California in nearly two decades.

The rise of these diseases come as a smaller percentage of California's kindergartners are getting a full set of immunizations by the time they enter school.

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REUTERS                                                                                                 NOV. 20, 2014
By Sarah N. Lynch

U.S. regulators on Thursday suspended trading in four small over-the-counter stocks of companies that they said have been touting the development of products to prevent or treat the Ebola virus, and warned investors to beware of similar scams.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said it had suspended trading in the shares of New York-based Bravo Enterprises Ltd, California-based Immunotech Laboratories Inc, Canada-based Myriad Interactive Media Inc and Wholehealth Products Inc, which is also located in California.

The SEC also issued a warning that "con artists" may be soliciting investors and claiming to be developing treatments or medicine to prevent the deadly virus.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/20/us-sec-ebola-scams-idUSKCN0J41V820141120

SFGATE                                                    NOV. 14, 2014

By Carolyn Jones      

California has adopted some of the nation’s strongest regulations to protect doctors, nurses and other health workers treating patients with Ebola.

The regulations, announced Friday by the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration, require the state’s 300 or so acute-care hospitals to provide hazardous material suits, respirators, isolation rooms and extensive training to those working with patients suspected of having the Ebola virus.

Nurses hailed the regulations as a model for the rest of the country.

 The regulations are more comprehensive than those put forth by the Centers for Disease Control, which the state’s hospitals have been following until now. California has not had any Ebola cases.

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http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/California-adopts-tough-Ebola-protection-rules-5894274.php