A Little Light Weekend Reading – The National Academy of Science’s TCE Report

In its introduction, the NAS committee strikes a note of urgency with regard to assessing TCE risks:

The committee found that the evidence on carcinogenic risk and other health hazards from exposure to trichloroethylene has strengthened since 2001. Hundreds of waste sites in the United States are contaminated with trichloroethylene, and it is well documented that individuals in many communities are exposed to the chemical, with associated health risks. Thus, the committee recommends that federal agencies finalize their risk assessment with currently available data so that risk management decisions can be made expeditiously.

One of the controversial elements of EPA's 2001 risk assessment was the hazard identification, or the compilation of evidence used to determine if TCE posed a threat to human health. EPA relied on a meta-analysis of the available epidemiological studies, prepared by Daniel Wartenberg at Rutgers. Another meta-analysis had been presented to the NAS in 2005 (which looks to have been industry-funded based on the authorship). The NAS concluded that both had limitations, that neither should be used in the TCE risk assessment, and recommended preparing a new meta-analysis of the epidemiological data. You'll probably hear opinions to the contrary, but this may not be terribly significant for the risk assessment. The NAS seemed persuaded by the evidence that TCE poses a kidney cancer risk (see below).

The NAS committee noted that TCE has been shown to be toxic to the kidneys, both in laboratory animal studies and in humans. It concluded that TCE was a potential kidney carcinogen, based on laboratory animal studies, mechanistic studies of the metabolism of TCE, and epidemiological studies. It observed that kidney cancer in animals was preceded by kidney toxicity and more pronounced in male rats than female rats, and absent in mice. TCE requires metabolic activation to produce kidney cancer both in animals and humans (in other words, a metabolite of TCE is the carcinogenic agent). You may hear arguments that the studies in animals are not compelling, because the cancer in rats is an artifact of aged male rats, and that the metabolic pathways in rats are not significant in humans - suggesting TCE is not a human kidney cancer risk. Again, it sounds as if the NAS seemed persuaded by the evidence that TCE poses a kidney cancer risk. The details may be in the body of the report (this commentary is drawn from the executive summary).

The NAS committee noted that susceptibility to kidney cancer risk may be related to variability in levels of a key enzyme that metabolizes TCE, and with the occurrence of mutations in the von Hippel-Landau (VHL) tumor suppressor gene. Could these factors point to a population that is potentially sensitive to kidney cancer risks from TCE exposure? The NAS doesn't say that in so many words, but other investigators (here and here) suggest that might be the case.

The NAS committee concluded that humans were much less susceptible to liver and lung cancer from TCE exposure, compared with laboratory animals, due to the differences in metabolism between the species. It observed that animal and epidemiological studies suggested that TCE may be associated with reproductive and developmental toxicity, including male and female infertility and cardiac malformations, though the relevance of some of animal study results to humans was unclear. The NAS committee also noted mixed results (in other words, some positive, some negative) in epidemiological studies of congenital defects in heart valves in communities exposed to TCE, but that the heart valve defects observed were the same in laboratory animal and the epidemiological studies.

Susceptibility to TCE toxicity was a major issue in EPA's TCE risk assessment. For example, the NAS committee observed that several factors can contribute to an individual’s susceptibility to the toxic effects of TCE, including disease states and differences in the expression of enzymes involved in TCE metabolism. These include conditions such as alcoholism, obesity, and diabetes, which are known to induce the expression of the CYP2E1 enzyme; that's the oxidative enzyme primarily responsible for converting TCE to toxic metabolites. While there are methods for addressing variability in populations in a risk assessment, it's clear we still don't understand susceptibility very well yet. Regardless of the method selected to quantify the risk from TCE, and develop cleanup levels for it, there will always need to be the awareness that these levels may not be protective for a certain portion of an exposed population. However, it's an open question of how sizeable that portion might be. For example, CDC reports that 33 states show rates of obesity in the population ranging from 20-24 percent, with 9 states with rates over 25 percent. In addition, CDC reports that the nationwide incidence of diabetes is 7 percent in individuals of all ages.

One last thing: The NAS committee stated that none of the existing epidemiologic data is suitable as a primary means of quantifying cancer risks, which should put to rest the "TCE is 40-times more carcinogenic than previously believed" meme that was running around the internets earlier this year.

My sense of the overall story so far:

As always there are uncertainties in the evidence, however the principal health concern with TCE may be kidney cancer. Other concerns include possible developmental toxic effects, particularly cardiac valve defects. The risk of adverse effects may be more significant for susceptible populations; some of the factors contributing to potential susceptibility, such as obesity and diabetes, are relatively common in the U.S. population. TCE exposures are widespread across the U.S., and the NAS is encouraging agencies to finish up the TCE risk assessment so that risk management decisions can be made expeditiously.

More on TCE later. This was just from the executive summary.

Release of the National Academy of Sciences TCE Report

Today, the National Academy of Sciences has released it's report of EPA's reassessment of TCE health risks. I'll be reviewing the NAS's report in more detail and providing updates, but the significant result appears to be that NAS concurs with EPA that TCE poses a kidney cancer risk.

WASHINGTON -- A new report from the National Academies' National Research Council recommends research to improve understanding of how the environmental contaminant trichloroethylene causes cancer and other adverse health effects, but adds that enough information exists for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to complete a credible human health risk assessment now.

In 2001 EPA issued a draft risk assessment on trichloroethylene, a solvent widely used as a degreasing agent that is contaminating air, soil, and water at several military installations and hundreds of waste sites around the country. The release of the draft risk assessment was followed by much debate about the quality of evidence on trichloroethylene and how that evidence should be assessed. This prompted an interagency group to request that a Research Council committee review issues related to assessing the health risks from exposure to trichloroethylene, commonly referred to as TCE. The committee was not asked to conduct a risk assessment of its own.

The evidence on cancer and other health risks from TCE exposure has strengthened since 2001, the committee found. It pointed out that research, including studies of human populations, supports the conclusion that TCE is a potential cause of kidney cancer. Research shows that the chemical may cause other kidney problems as well, but the level of exposure needed to produce kidney damage is not clear. Animal data indicate that relatively high doses of TCE are needed to induce liver toxicity and cancer. Some epidemiology studies indicate a higher incidence of liver cancer among populations exposed to TCE, but the evidence is inconsistent. Studies of people exposed to TCE at work do not show a strong association between exposure and lung tumors, the report notes.

Animal research and human population studies suggest that TCE exposure may also be associated with other health effects, such as reproductive and developmental problems, impaired neurological function, and autoimmune disease. The committee recommended studies to advance understanding of the mechanisms by which TCE causes cancer and other health problems; which populations are most sensitive to TCE's effects; and how exposure to a mixture of TCE and other chemicals affects human health.

A large body of epidemiological data on TCE and cancer is available, but a new analysis of that data is needed to better characterize the hazard that TCE presents to humans, the committee said. It found several weaknesses in the analysis that EPA used in its draft risk assessment, as well as in an analysis developed by researchers since the draft was issued. To overcome these weaknesses, the new analysis should establish clear criteria for including epidemiological studies based on objective characteristics, the committee said. It added that it would be appropriate for EPA to use a model jointly developed with the U.S. Air Force to simulate how the body metabolizes TCE, although the model does not resolve uncertainty about the mechanisms by which the chemical causes cancer.

A model is being used to extrapolate from animal studies an estimate of the cancer risk posed by TCE at low doses. The risk is extrapolated below a "point of departure," which is associated with an incremental effect, such as 5 percent more cancers. EPA should consider a range of points of departure in its risk assessment, the committee recommended. Because there is not enough evidence on how TCE triggers cancer to choose the best model for relating the body's response to different dose levels -- a so-called dose-response model -- it is appropriate under EPA's cancer guidelines to extrapolate the risk using a linear model, in which cancer risk rises in proportion to dose.

The committee's report was funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Energy, and NASA. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice under a congressional charter.

Dioxin for the 21st Century

Just about the time we’ve studied dioxin to death, as well as started seeing reductions in exposure, something else comes along to take its place. Environmental Health News provided this link to a forthcoming study in Environmental Health Perspectives that evaluates the dietary exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). PBDEs have some similarities to dioxins in that meat, fish and dairy products are the largest sources of dietary exposure. However, the authors speculate that diet isn’t the only important source, and suggest that sources such as house dust (?) are also significant. That’s a topic needing further study in my mind, but it might be the impetus to vacuum your carpet more thoroughly. What was the more interesting conclusion from the exposure study was the result that PBDE intake from food was estimated at 307 ng/kg-day for nursing infants, and varied from 2 ng/kg-day at age 2-5 for both males and females to 0.9 ng/kgday in adult women. The occurrence of PBDEs in breast milk helps explain the elevated infant exposures.

We’re a bit behind the eight-ball with regard to PBDEs. The health impact isn’t well understood and the adverse effects of concern (neurobehavioral deficits), if truly significant, don’t bode well for future generations. A quick check of EPA’s IRIS database shows that the Reference Dose values for different PBDE isomers are all old, and not based on the critical adverse effects – essentially, we don’t really understand yet what the no adverse effect levels are in humans for the neurobehavioral effects. More recent studies in laboratory animals (here and here) lead me to wonder if there is much of a margin of safety between exposure levels in infant and the no adverse effect levels. Let’s hope it doesn’t take over a decade to figure this stuff out, as it has for dioxins.

Greenhouse Gaseous Thinking

Tim Carney, fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and contributing editor to Human Events, must have clicked on the wrong link when he started blogging on Thursday, because he was spewing this stuff over on The Huffington Post. According to Tim, environmentalists, such as Al Gore, are shills for big industry. They are advocating environmental policies that will help big businesses and their Washington lobbyists rake in billions.

I found some of the reasoning tortured. According to Tim, energy companies like carbon taxes because they’ll just pass the costs onto their customers. I thought that was the idea – higher costing electricity from coal could create markets for wind and solar technologies, and promote energy-efficient consumer products. Carbon taxes and carbon trading could turn into an opportunity for some companies to start raking it in – this is why Enron was so enthusiastic about carbon trading. But there are correct ways to use carbon taxes, if policy makers are interested in using them.

Besides, complaining that someone is going to make money because of a market change is so. . . uncapitalistic, and a bit out of character for someone who works for the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

According to Tim, Archer-Daniels-Midland is just lovin’ policies promoting ethanol production from corn. However, ethanol as a gas additive won’t do anything for the environment because:

In brief: ethanol evaporates more than gasoline, releasing more smog-causing hydrocarbons; also, the energy intensity of producing ethanol, plus the potential damage to soil from single-crop farms, pose environmental threats in themselves.

I don’t think he’s got that first part right – ethanol won’t do much to reduce ozone formation according to the National Academy of Sciences, but where’s the data showing that ozone would increase with ethanol use? So I have to read the freakin’ book, on the off chance the answer might be in there? (That’s what it’s all about, he’s got a book to sell.) As for the rest of it, where have I heard this before? However, as I’ve mentioned previously the problem isn’t with farming to produce ethanol, it’s with farming in general. Biofuels production is just the symptom.

Of course, teeing off on environmentalists over these problems is misguided:

These three environmental proposals are typical of Washington policy and the exemplify the Ripoff: Politicians push rules that they say are for our own good. But Washington lobbyists raked in $2.28 billion in 2005, with about $2 billion of that coming from business lobbyists--you can bet they don't invest that much for nothing. Because small business and the average American don't have that sort of access, the policies tend to enrich big business while driving up costs for consumers and taxpayers and choking off entrepreneurs.

So what else is new? But if Tim is really interested in getting something done about it, why not get behind campaign finance and voting reforms to help jackhammer the lobbyists and entrenched players out of Congress? Nah, it’s more fun to bash environmentalists using grey propaganda, instead. HuffPo’s spam filter must have been down that day.

Life Cycle Analysis of Biofuels Shows Mixed Results

I was wondering when someone would get around to looking at the lifecycle impacts associated with bio-based fuels. Thanks to Environmental Valuation, here is what is reportedly the first comprehensive analysis of the life cycles of soybean biodiesel and corn grain ethanol, conducted by University of Minnesota’s, College of Biological Sciences and College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment. The study will be published in the July 11 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Life cycle analysis (LCA) is a systematic evaluation of the environmental and resource consequences of a particular product, process, or activity from “cradle to grave.”
By analyzing entire life cycle of a product from extraction and processing of raw materials through final use and disposal, LCA can assess systematically the impact of each component process. There are three separate but interrelated components in a LCA: an inventory analysis, an impact analysis, and an improvement analysis.

The life cycle inventory uses inventory, monitoring and material flow data to quantify energy and raw materials requirements, air emissions, waterborne effluents, solid waste, and other environmental releases incurred throughout the life cycle of a product,
process, or activity.

The results from a life cycle inventory are then used in a life cycle impact assessment, which is the process of assessing the effects of the environmental findings identified in the inventory component. The LCIA ideally should address ecological and human health impacts, as well as social, cultural, and economic impacts.

Finally, the life cycle improvement analysis identifies opportunities to reduce or mitigate the environmental impact throughout the whole life cycle of a product, process, or activity. This analysis may evaluate improvements such as changes in product design, raw material substitution, industrial process improvements, or waste management methods.

The UMN study concluded that biodiesel has much less of an impact on the environment and a much higher net energy benefit than corn ethanol, but that neither can do much to meet U.S. energy demand. The analysis accounted for energy used for growing corn and soybeans and converting the crops into biofuels, including fertilizer and pesticide inputs. It examined greenhouse gas emissions, and nitrogen, phosphorus, and pesticide runoff impacts. Both biofuels yield more energy than is required for their production, with soybean biodiesel being better than corn ethanol.

The study concluded that soybean biodiesel produces 41 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than diesel fuel whereas corn grain ethanol produces 12 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline. Soybeans have another environmental advantage over corn because they require much less nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides inputs, and correspondingly less groundwater and surface water impacts, on a unit basis.

The study caution that neither biofuel can come close to meeting the growing demand for alternatives to petroleum. Dedicating all current U.S. corn and soybean production to biofuels would meet only 12 percent of gasoline demand and 6 percent of diesel demand. Meanwhile, global population growth and increasingly affluent societies will increase demand for corn and soybeans for food.

This study could give impetus to agricultural policies that support biofuel production:

Until recent increases in petroleum prices, high production costs made biofuels unprofitable without subsidies. Biodiesel provides sufficient environmental advantages to merit subsidy. Transportation biofuels such as synfuel hydrocarbons or cellulosic ethanol, if produced from low-input biomass grown on agriculturally marginal land or from waste biomass, could provide much greater supplies and environmental benefits than food-based biofuels.

However, before we get too excited at the prospect of zipping around in soybean biodiesel-powered hybrids, we need to remember there is ample evidence that industrial agricultural methods, whether for growing food, fiber or now fuel, produce unsustainable impacts. Industrial agriculture depends on extensive inputs of water and fossil fuels, the latter for machinery, fertilizer and pesticides. The fossil fuels and, when obtained from groundwater, the water are nonrenewable resources. Surface runoff containing pesticides and fertilizers produce significant ecological impacts. Pesticides may be in part responsible for observed reproductive and development adverse effects in many species, particularly amphibians. Excessive nutrient inputs from fertilizer runoff into the Mississippi River is implicated in a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, caused by excessive algal blooms that produce hypoxia. The practice of monoculture threatens biodiversity and promotes continued pesticide as insects and plant diseases adapt to resistant crop species. Mechanical tillage, wasteful irrigation and fertilizer use promote soil erosion and loss of soil fertility. The boundary conditions of UMN’s life cycle analysis of biofuels may not have addressed these factors; if not, it might have understated the impacts associated with putting more acres under cultivation for biofuels production.

If we’ve got to have biofuels, we probably should encourage their production from low-input biomass or waste biomass (think of all of the manure produced by CAFOs). But I wonder if our farm policy, broken as it is, can accommodate such an innovation.

A Milestone

One nearly the second anniversary of blogging, I’ve achieved a milestone. I’ve been visited by my first troll.

Review of the EPA’s Dioxin Reassessment by the National Academy of Sciences

The NAS committee, which released its draft report today, begins by stating that dioxins are among the most toxic substances ever identified, but also the subject of intensive scientific research and frequently controversial environmental and health policies. According to the NAS’s report, EPA has been assessing the risks of dioxins for about twenty years. One questioner at today’s meeting asked why it had taken so long for the scientific review to arrive at essentially the same outcome as EPA’s Science Advisory Board in 1995, a question that NAS’s committee members did not have an answer for.

However, risk management for dioxins has proceeded ahead of the scientific assessment of the health risks. Dioxin emissions have been reduced approximately 90 percent from 1987 to 2005, according to the NAS’s report. While this hasn’t been correlated with the emissions reduction, other studies by EPA suggest that dioxin body burden may be decreasing over time.

While this is good news, what the committee didn’t address was whether the reductions are sufficient or not. That wasn’t part of their charge – EPA needs to address that as it revises the dioxin risk assessment. The NAS committee did conclude that EPA needed to contrast the linear non-threshold model for assessing cancer risks with a threshold model (the latter may show that dioxin pose less of a cancer risk than EPA presented in its reassessment), and that EPA needs to actually calculate a Reference Dose for dioxin in order to help risk managers understand what proportion of the population may be exposed over that level – EPA elected to not calculate an RfD in favor of a “margin-of-exposure” (comparison of site-specific exposure to background, a concept used because EPA thought the RfD would be too stringent). On this point, the committee thought EPA could do better.

The committee thought EPA should do more to characterize the uncertainties in the estimated risks associated with dioxin. While I’m in agreement with that, my experience has been that risk managers have little appreciation for detailed, quantitative presentations of uncertainties, and generally don’t pay attention to them anyway. Someone needs to give NAS a charge to develop training to help risk managers better understand risk assessments.

These are just initial reactions, based on the webcast and a quick scan of the report. There’s room for more posts on this later. It’s a 200 page report.

I Want His Job

Shorter Robert J. Samuelson: Global warming. We’re screwed. Gas up.

Some people have it really easy. I would crawl over carpet tacks every morning to get to work if I could get paid for doing so little.

Where to begin? Starting with Dr. Samuelson taking Al Gore to task:

Al Gore calls global warming an "inconvenient truth," as if merely recognizing it could put us on a path to a solution. That's an illusion. The real truth is that we don't know enough to relieve global warming, and -- barring major technological breakthroughs -- we can't do much about it.

First of all, I scarcely think Al Gore believes his job is done by simply making a movie. I think he realizes that making a movie is about the only way to get lots of people to even think about global warming. Virtually noone is going to bother reading the policy synthesis of the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report because there are too many big words and it doesn’t have any pictures (graphs don’t count).

Second, there’s a name for the “we don’t know enough. . . “ argument. It’s called “manufactured uncertainty", which is the process of casting doubt on our understanding of an environmental problem in order to delay or defer expensive action to correct it.

Third, as discussed below, the last person I would go to for enlightenment about technological breakthroughs is an economist.

Dr. Samuelson’s edification on greenhouse gas emission scenarios comes from a new report issued by the International Energy Agency. His assessment of the report includes:

The IEA report assumes that existing technologies are rapidly improved and deployed. Vehicle fuel efficiency increases by 40 percent. In electricity generation, the share for coal (the fuel with the most greenhouse gases) shrinks from about 40 percent to about 25 percent -- and much carbon dioxide is captured before going into the atmosphere. Little is captured today. Nuclear energy increases. So do "renewables" (wind, solar, biomass, geothermal); their share of global electricity output rises from 2 percent now to about 15 percent.

Some of these changes seem heroic. They would require tough government regulation, continued technological gains and public acceptance of higher fuel prices. Never mind. Having postulated a crash energy diet, the IEA simulates five scenarios with differing rates of technological change. In each, greenhouse emissions in 2050 are higher than today. The increases vary from 6 percent to 27 percent.

No, these changes are heroic, in the same manner as the construction of Hoover Dam, the Manhattan Project, and the Apollo Program. Dr. Samuelson would condemn us to mediocrity before we’ve even started the race.

Sadly, I won’t be reading IEA’s report any time soon, because the IEA nicks you around $100 for a copy. However, if the promotional web site is any indication, the authors are a bit more upbeat than Dr. Samuelson:

This innovative work demonstrates how energy technologies can make a difference in a series of global scenarios to 2050. It reviews in detail the status and prospects of key energy technologies in electricity generation, buildings, industry and transport. It assesses ways the world can enhance energy security and contain growth in CO2 emissions by using a portfolio of current and emerging technologies. Major strategic elements of a successful portfolio are energy efficiency, CO2 capture and storage, renewables and nuclear power.

However, he responds with:

Since 1800 there's been modest global warming. I'm unqualified to judge between those scientists (the majority) who blame man-made greenhouse gases and those (a small minority) who finger natural variations in the global weather system. But if the majority are correct, the IEA report indicates we're now powerless. We can't end annual greenhouse emissions, and once in the atmosphere, the gases seem to linger for decades. So concentration levels rise. They're the villains; they presumably trap the world's heat. They're already about 36 percent higher than in 1800. Even with its program, the IEA says another 45 percent rise may be unavoidable. How much warming this might create is uncertain; so are the consequences.

More manufactured uncertainty. The consequences may be uncertain, but the IPCC has taken a stab at describing them (see their policy summary). It’s a grim story. Back to Dr. Samuelson:

I draw two conclusions -- one political, one practical.

No government will adopt the draconian restrictions on economic growth and personal freedom (limits on electricity usage, driving and travel) that might curb global warming. Still, politicians want to show they're "doing something." The result is grandstanding. Consider the Kyoto Protocol. It allowed countries that joined to castigate those that didn't. But it hasn't reduced carbon dioxide emissions (up about 25 percent since 1990), and many signatories didn't adopt tough enough policies to hit their 2008-2012 targets. By some estimates, Europe may overshoot by 15 percent and Japan by 25 percent.

. . . and closes with:

The trouble with the global warming debate is that it has become a moral crusade when it's really an engineering problem. The inconvenient truth is that if we don't solve the engineering problem, we're helpless.

The response is that yes, governments will eventually adopt such draconian restrictions and more, just to maintain order. The challenge for the future is going to be maintaining some sense of freedom and liberty in a world buffeted by resource limitations and natural disasters. Some months back, James Lovelock echoed a similar sentiment, not so bloodlessly as Dr. Samuelson:

By failing to see that the Earth regulates its climate and composition, we have blundered into trying to do it ourselves, acting as if we were in charge. By doing this, we condemn ourselves to the worst form of slavery. If we chose to be the stewards of the Earth, then we are responsible for keeping the atmosphere, the ocean and the land surface right for life. A task we would soon find impossible - and something before we treated Gaia so badly, she had freely done for us.

There's a more hopeful message from the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, asserting that we have the tools to put things back onto a more sustainable course.

. . . the report makes clear that people must view Earth's ecosystems as one interlinked system, rather than as fragments. People must begin to actively manage those ecosystems in ways that ensure that they will receive the benefits those ecosystems provide - from blunting the surge from ocean storms and filtering water to feeding a hungry world. Indeed, with efforts now under way to develop worldwide observing systems to monitor the oceans, atmosphere, and land use, technology is moving into place to support such broad management efforts.

That’s also assuming that we act promptly. Note the difference from Dr. Lovelock’s perspective, which is that the task of being stewards of the Earth is one that is beyond our abilities. Of course, in the short-term, we may not have left ourselves with too many alternatives. Note the biologically-based messages both from Dr. Lovelock and the MEA. This is not solely an engineering problem. However, we’ve got a lot of work to do, and if it is going to require a moral crusade to get started, so be it.

Dr. Samuelson and those who think like him about this issue really need to get out of the way and let us get to it.

For the Want of Listening

Kevin Drum wants to know why his hearing is getting poorer, and what is the name for the condition. It’s called presbycusis, and it’s the hearing loss related to aging, particularly in the higher frequencies that make conversation intelligible. Not much you can do about it except conservation measures - stop listening to Pink Floyd with your I-Pod turned up to 95 decibels, stave off occupational noise-induced hearing loss by following your employer’s hearing conservation program, that if your employer has one (by the way, thank a liberal if your employer has one. . .) – and eventually, see an audiologist and get fitted with hearing aids.

Now we’ve cleared that up, it’s time to listen to something more critical. A public health disaster is brewing in the Gaza Strip. Israeli airstrikes, border closures and other military actions in response to Palestinian gun men kidnapping an Israeli soldier have resulted in electricity and water being cut off for 130,000 residents of Gaza, threatening them with starvation and epidemics. According to a UN press release a few days ago:

Some 130,000 people have been without water for the past few days and the agencies said their top priority is the restoration of the fuel supply for sanitation pumps in Gaza, with only a few days’ fuel left if supplies are not resumed.

They added that they were also worried over supplies of essential medicines and food, with some medicines already being rationed because of shortages.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said that, because of the random closure of border crossings between the Strip and Israel, it had been unable to get enough food into Gaza. The current supply of wheat flour would only be enough to cover the current caseload of 160,000 people for about 10 days.

WFP spokesman Simon Pluess told a news briefing in Geneva that the Agency was deeply concerned that the recent kidnapping of the Israeli soldier and the subsequent incursion into Gaza might exacerbate the existing humanitarian crisis, especially in view of the increased border closures.

The so-called “liberal” NY Times writes dispassionately that the residents of Gaza are “adapting” to the looming humanitarian crisis.

The looming humanitarian crisis is a sign of a lack of will, on the part of the nations of the world that supposedly represent the “adult supervision” (the Quartet) when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. However the inability to respond appropriately to these crises in general could also be a sign of governance and civil infrastructure coming unraveled globally. There seems to be a lot of expertise and guidance on handling health crises, from disaster response to restoration to capacity-building, if the WHO's web site, or even FEMA’s are any indication.

I wonder if we’re the problem here. We currently are so antagonistic to the UN that we’ve appointed its most strident critic as our UN Ambassador, who doesn’t seem to acknowledge the humanitarian crisis that’s coming. It’s consistent with the example of the Hurricane Katrina response, which showed that right now the wealthiest nation in the world isn’t terribly interested in governing well (as George Lakoff said recently, don’t make the mistake of thinking that they are simply stupid). That can’t be setting a good example for other nations.

It’s hard to say how much better a liberal administration will be in dealing with these kinds of problems in the future, should it be swept into power. Much will depend on whether or not government has been broken beyond repair by the Bush Administration.

I would suggest keeping an eye on tools such as WHO’s “Emergency Health Library Kit”. While it’s oriented towards public health problems related to wars, famines and disasters originating in Central and South America, Africa and Asia, the tragic day may come when we will find them useful right here in our own communities.