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Everything about life in the USA 🇺🇸 Buy ads: https://telega.io/c/american @Source_Ads ↪️ Feedback : @cobbl
Life is a ...
Continued...
At age 12, I had a severe allergic reaction to the Hepatitis B vaccine all students are required to have before they enter the 7th grade. It was the most life-changing moment I have (to this day) ever experienced. I would visit Dr. Chou every week with another strange problem, but even the best doctor in Southern Cali had no idea what was wrong with me. How would you like to feel that?
It was two weeks after my last visit with Dr. Chou when I noticed the bumps. They were hard like rocks, and seemed to be growing on the inside of both wrists. I cannot forget about the constant pain in not one, not two, but all of my joints. And, to top it off, I had this ugly white mark forming on my face and neck. Here we go again; another trip to the doctor and another 10 vials of blood. It was bad enough I had to quit golf. It was bad enough that fellow students called me names like granny hands, and duck because I waddled in pain from class to class.
My doctor diagnosed me first with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and then changed it to Lupus. Now the strange thing is that lupus is hereditary, and absolutely no one in our family had ever had it. My mother and I went from doctor to doctor trying to see if anyone had answers but we always came up short. Eventually, it was my mom that started putting everything together. All of my problems started happening after my hepatitis b shots. Every child had to receive them to enter the seventh grade. After the first set of shots I got hives, which is a huge reaction. Why didn’t the doctors tell us? I got hives twice and shingles after the third shots. Everything matches up with my conditions and the shots. Yeast is a huge part of the vaccine and I soon became allergic to it. Mercury is also a huge part of the vaccine and if you have an allergic reaction to that you can have extreme muscle inflammation. It all started making sense.
To this day, my body is in pain, but my spirit is higher than it has ever been.
I don’t want to bore you with any more negative stories so here is the point to my crazy journey of life. Who am I? I’m not sure. Who could I have been without those shots? I don’t know. But when I think about what I have been through, and what I have overcome, I know I was meant to be here. I know I was meant to share my story, and speak to those who have the same questions. Life is a journey. One that God set for you before you were even born. Live that journey to the best of your ability, keep your head held high, and share the love God instilled with everyone that crosses your path.
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Sense Of Time: Two Minutes To Quality Life
Today a friend sent me a link to DoNothing, with a picture of a beautiful sunset. A little timer on it said, "do nothing for 2 minutes." A few seconds on the automatic timer had already counted down by the time I thought, "I meditate and do nothing so this will be easy."
A peaceful and exquisitely calm feeling came over me as I felt my breathing deepen. Then I thought, "breathing deep is not doing nothing. I wonder if I am supposed to be focusing on my breathing or really doing nothing."
I tried not think and just breath naturally. Since I was sitting with my eyes closed, I started to think, "I wonder how much time has passed. I wonder if a little bell will ring when the two minutes is finished or if I will just open my eyes and it will have finished. Maybe I won't know how long I have been doing nothing."
So I opened my eyes. Just over one minute had passed. I took a few more seconds to appreciate the beauty of the red and gold sunset on the screen.
One minute had already passed, so I had a sense of how long that had taken. I closed my eyes again. Then started to laugh at the crazy thoughts going through my mind. The next time I opened my eyes, the screen said, "well done." Not a voice, just with words on the screen. There was no bell, just a sense from the universe that I had done a good thing.
That was the first time on my iPhone. The volume was down. I didn't hear the sound of the waves below the sunset.
The second time I listened on my computer only I wasn't really going to do it, I just wanted to share it on Facebook. The timer started just the same. When I went to look for the share button the screen flashed me a message, "failed." When I stopped moving the mouse, the timer started again.
Understanding, I meditated for two more minutes, wondering briefly whether the sound of the waves would stop at the end. They didn't. Life goes on but more wonderfully when we stop to look at a sunset or listen to ocean waves. The world seems brighter now. Two minutes can change the quality of your life.
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If you don't like your life, change it!
Sometimes you can’t help but wonder if all your worst fears about yourself will come true. Like, yes, you will get fat. Not totally obese but just enough for old friends to pity you when they run into you on the street. Just enough for people to seriously wonder if you’re going through a hard time and have turned to excessive eating to ease the pain.
Or maybe you’ll screw up one too many relationships and actually end up alone. It doesn’t seem too far-fetched, does it? If you want to get loved by someone, you have to be out there living life, acting all kinds of lovable. All that stuff about finding The One when you least expect it are lies. The people falling in love have always expected it or, at the very least, wanted it so badly to happen. The people who end up single are the ones that have successfully convinced themselves that they’d like to be alone.
All of these things could happen to you, right? There was a time not too long ago when you believed that the worst-case scenario was very unlikely. You kept it hanging there in the back of your mind only because you had to, because it often motivated you to go in the other, better direction. But then — you don’t know how or when — it changed. The worst-case scenario quickly was starting to look like the only scenario for you.
How?
When did the narrative change?
When did your actions have any kind of permanence?
When did you stop being able to change your luck in the course of a day?
You should be scared. That’s good. That’s what might ultimately save you from leading an unhappy life. Fear either prevents people from moving forward or allows them to keep going after what they want.
Don’t let any of it come true. If you don’t want your life to go in a certain direction, understand that you have the ability to change it. You might already. After all, “understanding something” and “deciding to do something about it” are two entirely different things. It’s amazing how long you can stay paralyzed for, isn’t it?
This might sound weird but it took me a long time to realize that I had control over the course of my life. In fact, I’m still not quite convinced that I’ve realized it completely but at least I know I’m getting there. For so long, I viewed my life as this thing that I could poke and prod like it was a foreign object. I was a baby licking batteries, sticking my fingers in things that I knew could hurt me but I didn’t care. That’s the point: I didn’t care if I got hurt. In my mind, nothing stuck anyway.
Until it did. I think eventually everyone has this moment where they realize that being in charge of your life is the most serious full-time job you’ll ever have. Of course, life immediately becomes less fun when you realize this because you’re old enough to know now that you can get hurt. You know that everything has consequences so you have to consciously live a healthier life which is, for lack of a better word, hard. But, in the end, it’s so much better.
Feeling invincible has its high points. Being naive and stupid and crazy definitely makes for an exciting life but it will burn you out so damn quickly. It will make you feel like the rawest of nerves, crying over silly inconsequential things and never leaving your apartment. Your brain will feel like scrambled eggs, your body like a jellyfish, You know this.
If you don’t like your life, change it. Yes, you’ve heard this adage before and it probably sounded like nails on chalkboard. But perhaps why it’s so annoying is because it’s true. Because you know you’re the one in control here. You might just not be ready to take ownership, which is fine. Everyone’s entitled to a downfall. Just don’t forget to come back up.
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A doctor entered the hospital in hurry after being called in for an urgent surgery. He answered the call asap, changed his clothes & went directly to the surgery block. He found the boy's father pacing in the hall waiting for the doctor. On seeing him, the dad yelled:
"Why did you take all this time to come? Don't you know that my son's life is in danger? Don't you have any sense of responsibility?"
The doctor smiled & said:
"I am sorry, I wasn't in the hospital & I came as fast as I could after receiving the call...... And now, I wish you'd calm down so that I can do my work"
"Calm down?! What if your son was in this room right now, would you calm down? If your own son dies now what will you do??" said the father angrily
The doctor smiled again & replied: "I will say what Job said in the Holy Book "From dust we came & to dust we return, blessed be the name of God". Doctors cannot prolong lives. Go & intercede for your son, we will do our best by God's grace"
"Giving advises when we're not concerned is so easy" Murmured the father.
The surgery took some hours after which the doctor went out happy,
"Thank goodness!, your son is saved!" And without waiting for the father's reply he carried on his way running. "If you have any question, ask the nurse!!"
"Why is he so arrogant? He couldn't wait some minutes so that I ask about my son's state" Commented the father when seeing the nurse minutes after the doctor left.
The nurse answered, tears coming down her face: "His son died yesterday in a road accident, he was in the burial when we called him for your son's surgery. And now that he saved your son's life, he left running to finish his son's burial."
Moral - Never judge anyone..... because you never know how their life is and what they're going through"
SPREAD HUMANITY.
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Living as expats for three years, David and Cathy have learned that the most important thing in expat life is to remain open and to be willing to change your mind. "Our children didn't get it at first," Cathy says. "All our kids came around after visiting and seeing our life here in Belize." The Thayers send their family an email update each week, telling them what they've done that week.
Last year, in response to one of the email updates, their daughter wrote to say, "I'm so happy for you guys, for what you've found for yourselves. I hope that sometime in the not-too-distant future I can find something as great for my own life." The support of their children made their new adventure even better. "I have to admit that that made us feel a little proud," Cathy says. "We're having the best time of our lives, and now we also feel like we're blazing a new trail of example for our children."
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What are the older folks up to now days?
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Agroforestry
Agroforestry is the intentional integration of trees and shrubs into crop and animal farming systems to create environmental, economic, and social benefits. It has been practiced in the United States and around the world for centuries.
For a management practice to be called agroforestry, it typically must satisfy the four "i"s:
Intentional,
Intensive,
Integrated, and
Interactive.
There are five widely recognized categories of agroforestry in the United States:
Agroforestry Farming Systems
Silvopasture combines trees with livestock and their forages on one piece of land. The trees provide timber, fruit, or nuts as well as shade and shelter for livestock and their forages, reducing stress on the animals from the hot summer sun, cold winter winds, or a downpour.
Alley cropping
Alley cropping means planting crops between rows of trees to provide income while the trees mature. The system can be designed to produce fruits, vegetables, grains, flowers, herbs, bioenergy feedstocks, and more.
Forest farming
Forest farming operations grow food, herbal, botanical, or decorative crops under a forest canopy that is managed to provide ideal shade levels as well as other products. Forest farming is also called multi-story cropping.
Windbreaks
Windbreaks shelter crops, animals, buildings, and soil from wind, snow, dust, and odors. These areas can also support wildlife and provide another source of income. They are also called shelterbelts, hedgerows, or living snow fences.
Benefits of Agroforestry
The benefits created by agroforestry practices are both economic and environmental. Agroforestry can increase farm profitability in several ways:
the total output per unit area of tree/ crop/livestock combinations is greater than any single component alone
crops and livestock protected from the damaging effects of wind are more productive
new products add to the financial diversity and flexibility of the farming enterprise.
Agroforestry helps to conserve and protect natural resources by, for example, mitigating non-point source pollution, controlling soil erosion, and creating wildlife habitat. The benefits of agroforestry add up to a substantial improvement of the economic and resource sustainability of agriculture.
Key Traits of Agroforestry Practices
Agroforestry practices are intentional combinations of trees with crops and/or livestock which involve intensive management of the interactions between the components as an integrated agroecosystem. These four key characteristics - intentional, intensive, interactive and integrated - are the essence of agroforestry and are what distinguish it from other farming or forestry practices. To be called agroforestry, a land use practice must satisfy all of the following four criteria:
Intentional:
Combinations of trees, crops and/or animals are intentionally designed and managed as a whole unit, rather than as individual elements which may occur in close proximity but are controlled separately.
Intensive:
Agroforestry practices are intensively managed to maintain their productive and protective functions, and often involve annual operations such as cultivation, fertilization and irrigation.
Interactive:
Agroforestry management seeks to actively manipulate the biological and physical interactions between the tree, crop and animal components. The goal is to enhance the production of more than one harvestable component at a time, while also providing conservation benefits such as non-point source water pollution control or wildlife habitat.
Integrated:
The tree, crop and/or animal components are structurally and functionally combined into a single, integrated management unit. Integration may be horizontal or vertical, and above- or below-ground.
Such integration utilizes more of the productive capacity of the land and helps to balance economic production with resource conservation.
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If you don't like your life than change it.
You always have a choice.
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William Shakespeare the greatest dramatist of all time:
There is documentary proof that Shakespeare was baptised on 26th April 1564, and scholars believe that, in keeping with the traditions of the time, he would have been baptised when he was three days old, meaning Shakespeare was probably born on April 23rd.
Shakespeare married his wife Anne Hathaway when he was 18. She was 26 and three months pregnant with Shakespeare’s child when they married. Their first child Susanna was born six months after the wedding.
Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway had three children together – a son, Hamnet, who died in 1596, and two daughters, Susanna and Judith. His only granddaughter Elizabeth – daughter of Susanna – died childless in 1670. Shakespeare therefore has no descendants.
Few people realise that apart from writing his numerous plays and sonnets, He was also an actor who performed many of his own plays as well as those of other playwrights.
During his life Shakespeare performed before Queen Elizabeth I and, later, before James I who was an enthusiastic patron of his work.
Shakespeare lived a double life. By the seventeenth century he had become a famous playwright in London but in his hometown of Stratford, where his wife and children were, and which he visited frequently, he was a well known and highly respected businessman and property owner.
During his lifetime Shakespeare became a very wealthy man with a large property portfolio. He was a brilliant businessman – forming a joint-stock company with his actors meaning he took a share in the company’s profits.
On his death Shakespeare made several gifts to various people but left his property to his daughter, Susanna. The only mention of his wife in Shakespeare’s own will is: “I gyve unto my wief my second best bed with the furniture”. The “furniture” was the bedclothes for the bed.
Shakespeare’s burial at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford Upon Avon is documented as happening on 25th April 1616. In keeping with traditions of the time it’s likley he would have been buried two days after his death, meaning Shakespeare likely died 23rd April 1616 – his 52nd birthday.
Shakespeare penned a curse for his grave, daring anyone to move his body from that final resting place. His epitaph was:
Good friend for Jesus’ sake forbear,
To dig the dust enclosed here:
Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.
Though it was customary to dig up the bones from previous graves to make room for others, the remains in Shakespeare’s grave are still undisturbed.
Although Catholicism was effectively illegal in Shakespeare’s lifetime, the Anglican Archdeacon, Richard Davies of Lichfield, who had known him wrote some time after Shakespeare’s death that he had been a Catholic.
During his life, Shakespeare wrote at least 37 plays, 154 sonnets and a number of poems! that we know of. In addition there are a number of “lost plays” and plays that Shakespeare collaborated on. This means Shakespeare wrote an average 1.5 plays a year since he first started writing in 1589.
Shakespeare is most often referred to as an Elizabethan playwright, but as most of his most popular plays were written after Elizabeth’s death he was actually more of a Jacobean writer. His later plays also show the distinct characteristics of Jacobean drama.
Shakespeare has been credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with introducing almost 3,000 words to the English language. Estimations of his vocabulary range from 17,000 to a dizzying 29,000 words – at least double the number of words used by the average conversationalist.
According to Shakespeare professor Louis Marder, “Shakespeare was so facile in employing words that he was able to use over 7,000 of them – more than occur in the whole King James Version of the Bible – only once and never again.”
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William Shakespeare is acknowledged as the greatest dramatist of all time. He excels in plot, poetry and wit & his talent encompasses the great tragedies of Hamlet, King Lear, Othello
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Life is a Journey
Resting in the cold, stark, waiting room with a Band-Aid covering the vein on my arm, I watched the doctor mumbling words I could not hear to my mom. I assumed the results were in from my latest round of blood tests. It was the third time that week I had been in that waiting room, and I was getting both nervous and scared. No one likes to watch twenty-three vials of blood flowing from their veins. It gives one the feeling that if they are taking that much, there must be something seriously wrong. That is what I thought, and as it turned out, I was right.
Many people say it gets worse before it gets better. In my case that statement held true.
As a young girl, I was always very active. Playing outside in the yard was a favorite of mine, and I always found time to walk with my golf clubs to the driving range. I can remember chasing the ducks that sat by the lake with my brother, not having a care in the world. Virginia is where we lived, and we loved every minute of the hot summer sun, green grass, and fireflies.
As the doctor spoke to my mom, I had so many questions I wanted answered, but was I ready to hear them? What was wrong with me? I should not be going through this at twelve. My thoughts were soon cut short by Dr. Chou’s soft, quiet voice. “You really are in pain aren’t you?” I did not know whether to stay quiet or answer in a way that would seem sarcastic. I can’t even walk up stairs! Of course I’m in pain! “What did the blood tests show?” It was all I could think to say. “Your EPR level, which measures the inflammation in your muscles, is off the charts!” He went on the explain that in a normal person their EPR level is 1 to 20, but when something is wrong, it is much higher. In my case, my level was at a whooping 100! Dr. Chou could not believe it.
When I turned 9, my family decided to take a move out west, and revisit their old community of Silver Lakes in Southern California. It was love at first sight. Two weeks later, we moved into a two-story home right on the golf course. Heaven for my brother and I. We use to hop the fence every chance we got to play as much golf as we could before the ranger spotted us. I think the neighbors called us in every time. My mom became a substitute teacher which quickly led to her homeschooling my brother and I. Apparently she wasn’t fond of the California public school system; however, even as a homeschooled student, you still had to receive a few immunizations for kids my age.
At last, finally someone actually believed I was in pain. Up to that point, my mom just kept thinking my legs hurt so badly because I was experiencing growing pains. My family does not get sick, and if we do there is an unspoken rule to buckle up and tough it out. I learned a long time ago that sympathy in my house is not an option. So for a long time I suffered in silence. To actually have Dr. Chou standing before my mom and I acknowledging I was sick seemed like a dream.
The daydreams started while I listened to him speak words too big for a twelve-year-old to understand. I started wondering if I would be going home that day or if I would become one of the patients I saw passing me on gurneys. I wondered if this is what a hospital feels like when you are one of the patients. At that moment, I did not recognize it as a place for saving a life or giving one, but rather a place to question life. Was I going to sit there and die or fight to stay alive? Obviously, since I am able to write this, you realize I chose to fight. I wanted to figure out what was going wrong with me and fix it. I just did not know how hard it was actually going to be. I did not know then, that things would get worse before they would get better.
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My Barber
At the appointed time on the appointed day, my brothers and I went down to the barber.
Wise. Handsome. Tall. Athletic. Strong, yet with the gentle touch and dexterous hands of a surgeon.
To cut the hair on the far side of my head, he didn’t spin the stool, and he didn’t walk around the chair either. Rather, he snuggled my head over against his chest so he could reach over to the far side, Working from above.
I could hear his breathing. I could feel his breathing.
I could feel his heart.
When the whim struck, he blew away the loose hairs from my neck or face with a burst of his own breath.
Once finished, my barber would stand back, gaze proudly at his work, and then proclaim ‘not bad for an amateur!’
How the years went rushing by!
Looking back past all those years, I wish my dad still cut my hair.
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If you don't like your life than change it.
You always have a choice.
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This is Belize, a retirement heaven for American aging baby boomers. @american
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Three years ago, David and Cathy Thayer moved from northern Idaho to Cayo, Belize. In Idaho, the Thayers had nine months of winter each year. In Cayo, they have 12 months of summertime.
Despite the promise of eternal summer, Cathy did not immediately embrace the prospect of packing up and leaving her U.S. life behind. "When David first got this idea of moving to another country into his head, I humored him," Cathy says. "He'd start talking about moving to a new country, and I'd listen. To his face I'd say, 'Ah, that's interesting, dear.' To everyone else I was saying, 'No way!'"
When her husband came to her with the notion that the couple retire overseas, Cathy hadn't traveled anywhere other than Paris. When David told her he'd bought tickets for them to travel to Belize, she was shocked. "I didn't know anything about Belize at the time, but I knew one thing," she says. "I knew that Central America is nothing like Paris."
However, David realized that if he had any chance of realizing his dream of life in a new country, he needed to get his wife on board. Reluctantly, Cathy agreed to take the trip. "I agreed to travel to Belize because I told myself it'd be a nice vacation. That was the extent of my commitment at first," she says. "However, I have to admit that I found I liked two things about Belize right away. First, I could communicate with everyone, because English is the language here. And, second, it was warm."
Initially, the couple thought they wanted to live on the ocean. But, after two days on Ambergris Caye, one of the Caribbean islands offshore from mainland Belize, David and Cathy realized the beach life wasn't for them.
David suggested they take a look at Cayo as an alternative. "I'm not a jungle girl," Cathy says. "When I think of jungle, I think of snakes and bugs the size of your head." However, she agreed to go see Cayo with David with the condition that if they didn't find a place to live that they both liked within three weeks they would finally give up on the whole idea.
Their last day in Cayo, the day before their return flight to the U.S., David and Cathy walked into a house available for rent, and Cathy knew she'd found the place where she wanted to live. "I knew the minute I walked onto the property," she says. "I could just see myself living there."
The couple has been living in Cayo ever since. Today, Cathy is as enthusiastic about their decision to make the move as her husband. "One of my favorite things about being in Belize are the other expats," Cathy says. "We're all different, quirky in our own ways, but we have one big, important thing in common. We all left home, left the States, to come somewhere completely new. It's no small thing. It's a pretty amazing and cool thing."
"Back in Idaho, I had a fine life, but a small life. I had my work, my home. I had Target. I shopped for entertainment. I was happy, but I had no idea how much I was missing out on," Cathy says. "Making this move has opened up the whole world to me. Now I see how small and fearful my perfectly fine life really was. I was afraid of moving outside my comfort zone, but I didn't even realize it. I made this move for my husband, but I think I'm the one who has really benefited."
Of course, the past three years reinventing their lives from Idaho to Belize have not been without struggle for the Thayers. The two biggest challenges at first were the internet and the roads. However, the couple reports that both of these things have improved dramatically since they've been living in Cayo.
The biggest change for the better has been personal. "The fears I had moving here have been replaced by confidence," Cathy says. "In the beginning, I was afraid of Belize City. Now I travel to Belize City on my own, walk around, shop, speak with people I meet. Belize City doesn't scare me anymore.
@american
What are the older population of the US up to nowadays? Where do they live and what do they do in their retirement years?
The population is aging rapidly as the baby boomers begin to enter the retirement years. The median age of U.S. residents grew from 35.3 years in 2000 to 37.2 years in 2010, according to recently released Census Bureau data. In some communities, more than half of the population is over age 40.
"The aging of the baby boom population is contributing to the increase in the median age," says Lindsay Howden, a Census Bureau statistician and co-author of the report. "Other contributing factors are improvements in mortality and a stable birth rate."
Those on the verge of retirement make up the country's fastest-growing group of people. There are now 81.5 million Americans between ages 45 and 64, up 32 percent since 2000. The proportion of people age 65 and older climbed 15 percent to 40.3 million. By contrast, the number of people under age 18 has grown just 3 percent since the beginning of the decade, to 74.2 million.
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4. The health system as a whole. The U.S. government and other donors are finally recognizing and addressing health systems as whole, complex entities, rather than reducing them to series of disease-specific services. There’s even a first-of-its-kind bill pending in the U.S. Congress devoted to strengthening health systems as part of foreign aid, and global health security and planning is becoming a greater priority for the U.S. and the global community.
3. Politics and power shifts. The stakes are high for global health and development during any U.S. presidential election year, and this one will be no different. The U.S. is slated to contribute $37.9 billion in foreign aid during fiscal year 2016. But changes in the White House determine development policies and funding, and certain public health topics become highly politicized targets (reproductive health and family planning come to mind). For all countries – rich or poor – powerful data and up-to-date information are crucial when it comes to advocating for health investments.
2. The enduring wealth gap. Globally, the percentage of people living at or below $1.90 per day dropped from 44 percent in 1981 to 12.7 percent in 2012. Despite this remarkable progress, the wealth gap is growing. New Oxfam research indicates that the world’s 62 richest billionaires possess as much wealth as the 3.65 billion people who make up the poorer half of the human population. This inequality goes beyond wealth disparities; it means health disparities as well, as the poor are more likely to suffer chronic health problems, more likely to fall into financial hardships because of health costs, and less likely to have access to health care.
1. There are more than 59.5 million refugees today. That’s more than at any time in human history, even at the end of World War II. The movement of people – not just of those exiting Syria, but of all who are on the move worldwide – has huge implications for health systems around the world. The challenges of providing care to so many who’ve been displaced are staggering. And what about the families and friends they’ve left behind? Any mass exodus is sure to include skilled health workers, particularly as they and their facilities are common targets during wartime. And when health workers are forced to flee, their home towns are left without care. As the numbers shift in 2017, we’ll see the true public health implications of such a massive population of vulnerable human beings.
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GLOBAL HEALTH
The persistent wealth gap worldwide is growing. Some global health threats take us by surprise, sparking fires we never expected to fight. Take Ebola, for instance – the world couldn’t have foreseen the 2014 outbreak, particularly in West Africa, which had never before experienced it. Other fires, though, have been smoldering quietly for decades, and are now building strength and becoming difficult to contain.
What many global development organizations do this year and how we do it:
10. Ebola’s unprecedented survivors. Never before have there been so many survivors of the virus. Survival, it turns out, is both a boon and a burden – many now face a lifetime of social exile and chronic health problems. Ebola survivors will present new health-care challenges in 2017 as health workers learn to care for their unique needs.
9. Mental health for trauma survivors. In 2016, the mental health consequences of war, displacement, Ebola, gender-based violence, natural disasters and other traumas will become more and more apparent. Today’s global health workforce isn’t ready for these challenges – there are too few social service workers and others trained to provide complex, specialized mental health care, and far too few are based where the need is greatest. In fact, there just aren’t enough health workers right now to go around – period.
8. A reversal in the health worker shortage. According to the World Health Organization, there’s a global shortage of 7.2 million doctors, nurses and midwives. As we begin the first full year of our new Sustainable Development Goals, more countries will be working toward universal health coverage and to meet their health-related targets through stronger, more equitably distributed health workforces that include community health workers, widespread access to technology and a health team approach to bringing care to those in need. And for the first time ever, there'll be a global strategy to achieve it.
7. Air pollution. A study last year linked air pollution to 6 million deaths per year in China. Last month, Beijing issued its first red alert for smog. And smoking, which contributes to poor air quality, continues to rise in China, where it may cause about 20 percent of all adult male deaths during this decade. But air pollution is even worse in the United Arab Emirates, where the air contains 80 micrograms of pollutants per cubic meter, compared to China’s 73 and India’s 32. Health workers and systems around the world should be preparing for a rise in respiratory and other related health troubles.
6. Emerging and waning health threats. Polio and HIV are two of the most devastating diseases of our time – but they’re waning or, in the case of polio, on the verge of eradication. At the same time, Zika virus, Ebola flare-ups and other unexpected threats will make headlines in 2017, and pose challenges to global health security. For many health systems around the world, these dangers are already in the back yard.
5. Climate change. More extreme weather and rising sea levels, temperatures, and carbon dioxide levels could usher in a wide array of human health effects, the CDC warns – from asthma to chikungunya to mental illness. Will countries begin to make progress in curbing carbon emissions after the Paris climate accord of 2016? Or will the commitments made there fall by the wayside? And will progress come in time to protect the most vulnerable countries, such as the low-lying Marshall Islands, which are already disappearing as sea levels rise?
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Global Health: According to the World Health Organization, there’s a global shortage of 7.2 million doctors, nurses and midwives.
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Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare
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The planet is warming, from North Pole to South Pole. Since 1906, the global average surface temperature has increased between 1.1 and 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit (0.6 to 0.9 degrees Celsius)–even more in sensitive polar regions. And the effects of rising temperatures aren’t waiting for some far-flung future–signs of the effects of global warming are appearing right now.
The heat is melting glaciers and sea ice, shifting precipitation patterns, and setting animals on the move.
The planet is already suffering from some impacts of global warming.
Ice is melting worldwide, especially at the Earth’s poles. This includes mountain glaciers, ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland, and Arctic sea ice.
Many species have been impacted by rising temperatures. For example, researcher Bill Fraser has tracked the decline of the Adélie penguins on Antarctica, where their numbers have fallen from 32,000 breeding pairs to 11,000 in 30 years.
The sea level has been rising more quickly over the last century.
Some butterflies, foxes, and alpine plants have moved farther north or to higher, cooler areas.
Precipitation (rain and snowfall) has increased across the globe, on average.
Some invasive species are thriving. For example, spruce bark beetles have boomed in Alaska thanks to 20 years of warm summers. The insects have chewed up 4 million acres of spruce trees.
GLOBAL WARMING could do more than just melt polar ice. It could change our maps, and displace people from cities and tropical islands.
Other effects could take place later this century, if warming continues.
Sea levels are expected to rise between 7 and 23 inches (18 and 59 centimeters) by the end of the century, and continued melting at the poles could add between 4 and 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters).
Hurricanes and other storms are likely to become stronger.
Floods and droughts will become more common. Rainfall in Ethiopia, where droughts are already common, could decline by 10 percent over the next 50 years.
Less fresh water will be available. If the Quelccaya ice cap in Peru continues to melt at its current rate, it will be gone by 2100, leaving thousands of people who rely on it for drinking water and electricity without a source of either.
Some diseases will spread, such as mosquito-borne malaria (and the 2016 resurgence of the Zika virus). Ecosystems will change: Some species will move farther north or become more successful; others won’t be able to move and could become extinct.
Wildlife research scientist Martyn Obbard has found that since the mid-1980s, with less ice on which to live and fish for food, polar bears have gotten considerably skinnier. Polar bear biologist Ian Stirling has found a similar pattern in Hudson Bay. He fears that if sea ice disappears, the polar bears will as well.
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