First, The New Yorker delivers a chilling report on valley fever. I came of age in Phoenix, which you might call ground zero for valley fever, so I heard a great deal about the disease growing up, but nothing to match what has happened in recent years in the American Southwest. Thanks in large part to climate change, the disease has become endemic to California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Texas. The Centers for Disease Control report a tenfold increase in reported cases just from 1998 to 2011. Tenfold. A “silent epidemic,” CDC officials say, which the fine New Yorker report adds is “far more destructive than had been previously recognized.”

Another striking fact: In 2012 valley fever was the second-most-reported disease in Arizona. Two-thirds of the country’s cases occur there. So well worth reading. Here’s the link:

https://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/20/140120fa_fact_goodyear

Then The New York Times–seems to be the day for reports from the Big Apple–has a story about rising sea levels. Now, this is not just another story on the subject, but one that’s chilling in its implications. For starters, it notes that the world’s oceans have risen a little more than eight inches from 1880 to 2009, with evidence suggesting that sea-level rise has been accelerating and is likely to rise even faster because of the massive amounts of greenhouse gases that we’re releasing into the atmosphere. So scientists say we could see a three-foot rise by the end of the century, and the Times notes that “some scientific evidence suggests even higher numbers, five feet and beyond in the worst case.”

The story in the Times goes on to report the reasons the East Coast may be hammered harder than other places, notably because land in that region is sinking.

Concerns about rising sea level are not nearly as remote as it might sound. Here’s how the Times piece puts some of those issues into perspective: “People considering whether to buy or rebuild at the storm-damaed Jersey Shore, for instance, could be looking at nearly a foot of sea-level rise by the time they would pay off a 30-year mortgage…That would make coastal flooding and further property damage considerably more likely than in the past.”

Here’s the link to The New York Times piece:

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/science/earth/grappling-with-sea-level-rise-sooner-not-later.html?hpw&rref=science