Comments on Cancer Villages Map

Awareness truly can change the way people look at things. It's not just a cliche that knowing what reality is like in less privileged situations increases appreciation for what we do have when taken to heart.

Five years ago I learned about China's Cancer villages, and it has never left the "featured" list on this blog since. It is a terrifying, and moving report. But what I didn't know was that Deng Fei, a Chinese journalist, published a map of these cancer villages in China. Today, English-readers have a translated version of that map available to explore here:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1R70M9vbPN104K-YqFlUnK1xUDoY&hl=en_US&ll=30.187076758346265%2C112.28646500000013&z=5

If you zoom in and select specific villages, there is even a short description of their specific situation on the left.

Eg: (found at G106 / the southernmost point on the mainland)
"name

Shaoguan, Wengyuan Counties; Xinjiang Township, Shangba village and 5 others

description

Legal Daily: 2001 report

A large amount of mining wastewater flowed into Shangba village. The “village of fish and rice,” saw its arable land take on a brownish-red color. Reports say an increasing number of villagers are contracting skin disease, liver disease and cancer. As for ducks, the fastest death happens within 4 to 5 hours, and the slowest occurs within 3 to 4 days"

This visual had brought something to my attention that may or may not be relevant, that all the listed  villages fall within the Eastern half of China.

Why? To be honest I don't know. Maybe that is the "only" ground Deng Fei could cover. All the same, I'd want to thank him for bringing this to the world's attention because evidently what he did has started steps to clean things up.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23212-china-takes-steps-to-clean-up-cancer-villages/

Soggy Soccery Sympton: Changing Climate Affecting Soccer, Cricket, and Golf Games in UK

The change in climate has been affecting sport enthusiasts in soccer, cricket, and golf whose playing-scapes have been made too soggy to play on, and rising sea levels from melting ice in Greenland to the Himalayas are causing the erosion of coastal golf courses in Scotland.

The Weather Network posted a Reuters report yesterday that mentioned six out of the seven wettest years on record in the UK have been since the year 2000. Piers Forster who is a professor of climate change at University of Leeds contributed to the study told International News Agency, Reuters, "Britain is particularly susceptible to storms coming in from the North Atlantic."

Image A: Image credit: GISS NASA / Jack Cool, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

The above illustration shows the flow of the North Atlantic current, its branches, and the flow of water it crosses paths with off the coast of UK.

Despite all these things that may pique curiosity for climate geeks and potential research project on the horizon, clearly not everyone feels the same way about this information:

Ok, I'll admit a cry of "the soccer fields are soggy" sounds trivial on its own and may cause flashbacks of schoolkids disappointed with the "tarmack-only" recesses.

And to be honest I don't even like golf. (There, I said it.)

Nevertheless there is a point to acknowledging this. It just seems like an interesting climate-related observation that everyday people like you and I might actually be seeing. If you or I frequented such fields, and that is assuming you are an 'everyday person' like me which might not be true in this context, but anywho... you probably get where I'm going with this. It's readily observable, and helps contributes details to an ever-so-slightly bigger-picture perspective.

Sources
News: https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/soccer-cricket-and-golf-handicapped-by-uk-climate-change/95195/
Image A: GISS NASA / Jack Cool, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/legrande_01/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:North_Atlantic_Circulation.gif
Image B: Under GNU Free Documentation Licence
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Circulacion_termohalina.jpg