H1N1 Flu Still Around

  • This fall, the H1N1 vaccine will be combined with the regular flu shot. (Photo courtesy of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention)

You might think the flu season is over, but H1N1 flu is still around. Rebecca Williams reports health officials still want you to get vaccinated against the virus:

Transcript

You might think the flu season is over, but H1N1 flu is still around. Rebecca Williams reports health officials still want you to get vaccinated against the virus:

H1N1 flu peaked in the U-S last October and November.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates through the middle of January, 57 million Americans got sick and 12-thousand people died.

Right now, most of the people getting sick with H1N1 are in the Southeastern U-S.

Tom Skinner is with the CDC.

“We wouldn’t be surprised to see activity continue into the spring and early summer. How much activity we may see moving forward into the fall and winter it’s just hard to tell.”

He says anyone who hasn’t gotten the vaccine should. Especially people with the greatest risk of complications from the flu. Those are pregnant women, kids younger than 5 years old and adults older than 65.

This fall, the H1N1 vaccine will be combined with the regular flu shot.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Conversations With China About Climate Change

  • President Barack Obama addresses the opening session of the first U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Listening at left are Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan, center, and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo, left. (Photo by Chuck Kennedy, courtesy of the White House)

The Chinese are in Washington in high-level talks with the Obama administration about – among other things – energy and the environment. Lester Graham has more on that:

Transcript

The Chinese are in Washington in high-level talks with the Obama administration about – among other things – energy and the environment. Lester Graham has more on that:

Opponents of the climate change bill in the U.S. like to remind us that China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. China likes to point out the U.S. didn’t even sign the Kyoto Protocol.

“We’ve been each other’s biggest excuse for the past five, eight years about not acting on international commitments.”

That’s Jennifer Turner. She’s Director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Turner says things are changing.

Recently China and the U.S. started talking about how they can help each other. And, she says, while China’s not talking about climate change a lot, it is talking about energy efficiency.

“China has actually been doing a lot over the past eight years on lowering their CO2 emissions, pushing energy efficiency more, for trying to ensure their own energy security and to lessen the health impacts of pollution.”

While the U.S. has been stressing climate change.

The governments have figured out they’re working on the same problem, just looking at it a little differently.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Setting Traps for Emerald Ash Borer

The emerald ash borer has been destroying ash trees in Michigan, Ohio, Ontario, Virginia and Maryland – and the bug is spreading. Now, agricultural officials in Michigan are developing an early warning system. By detecting the insects early, they hope to slow or even prevent their spread. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

The emerald ash borer has been destroying ash trees in Michigan, Ohio,
Illinois, Maryland, and Ontario – and the bug is spreading. Now,
agricultural officials in Michigan are developing an early warning
system. By detecting the insects early, they hope to slow or even
prevent its spread. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton
reports:


Forestry agents will be designating a number of so-called trap trees in
every township in Michigan. The ash trees will act as sentinels. A
strip of bark will be removed from the trees, which stresses them and
makes them attractive to insects. A sticky substance called tanglefoot
will then be applied to the trees to catch the borers. Kara Bouchay is
with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.


“Part of the struggle with having a borer that you can’t see most of
time because it’s underneath the bark, is when it’s in a low level
population, it basically flies under the radar. So the trap tree is a
way to bring it to a single location to detect it.”


If borers are found on a tree, all ash trees within a half-mile will be
destroyed to contain its spread. Bouchay says if the early detection
system proves itself, it will likely be implemented in other states as
well.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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