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This article is one in a series in which contributing authors discuss how the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are linked to everyday clinical issues; national public health emergencies; and other nursing issues, such as leadership, shared governance, and advocacy. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a 15-year plan of action to achieve the goals, was unanimously adopted by all UN member states in September 2015 and took effect on January 1, 2016. The Agenda consists of 17 SDGs addressing social, economic, and environmental determinants of health and 169 associated targets focused on five themes: people, planet, peace, prosperity, and partnership. The SDGs build on the work of the UN Millennium Development Goals, which were in effect from 2000 to 2015. The current article highlights SDG 11—making “cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.”

AbstractAdvances in engineering biology have expanded the list of renewable compounds that can be produced at scale via biological routes from plant biomass. In most cases, these chemical products have not been evaluated for effects on biological systems, defined in the present study as bioactivity, that may be relevant to their manufacture. For sustainable chemical and fuel production, the industry needs to transition from fossil to renewable carbon sources, resulting in unprecedented expansion in the production and environmental distribution of chemicals used in biomanufacturing. Further, although some chemicals have been assessed for mammalian toxicity, environmental and agricultural hazards are largely unknown. We assessed 6 compounds that are representative of the emerging biofuel and bioproduct manufacturing process for their effect on model plants (Arabidopsis thaliana, Sorghum bicolor) and show that several alter plant seedling physiology at submillimolar concentrations. However, these responses change in the presence of individual bacterial species from the A. thaliana root microbiome. We identified 2 individual microbes that change the effect of chemical treatment on root architecture and a pooled microbial community with different effects relative to its constituents individually. The present study indicates that screening industrial chemicals for bioactivity on model organisms in the presence of their microbiomes is important for biologically and ecologically relevant risk analyses. Environ Toxicol Chem 2019;38:1911–1922. © 2019 The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of SETAC.

Temperature is a strong driver of vector-borne disease transmission. Yet, for emerging arboviruses we lack fundamental knowledge on the relationship between transmission and temperature. Current models rely on the untested assumption that Zika virus responds similarly to dengue virus, potentially limiting our ability to accurately predict the spread of Zika. We conducted experiments to estimate the thermal performance of Zika virus (ZIKV) in field-derived Aedes aegypti across eight constant temperatures. We observed strong, unimodal effects of temperature on vector competence, extrinsic incubation period and mosquito survival. We used thermal responses of these traits to update an existing temperature-dependent model to infer temperature effects on ZIKV transmission. ZIKV transmission was optimized at 29°C, and had a thermal range of 22.7°C–34.7°C. Thus, as temperatures move towards the predicted thermal optimum (29°C) owing to climate change, urbanization or seasonality, Zika could expand north and into longer seasons. By contrast, areas that are near the thermal optimum were predicted to experience a decrease in overall environmental suitability. We also demonstrate that the predicted thermal minimum for Zika transmission is 5°C warmer than that of dengue, and current global estimates on the environmental suitability for Zika are greatly over-predicting its possible range.

Lignin is a heterogeneous aromatic biopolymer that accounts for nearly 30% of the organic carbon on Earth and is one of the few renewable sources of aromatic chemicals. As the most recalcitrant of the three components of lignocellulosic biomass (cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin), lignin has been treated as a waste product in the pulp and paper industry, where it is burned to supply energy and recover pulping chemicals in the operation of paper mills. Extraction of higher value from lignin is increasingly recognized as being crucial to the economic viability of integrated biorefineries. Depolymerization is an important starting point for many lignin valorization strategies, because it could generate valuable aromatic chemicals and/or provide a source of low-molecular-mass feedstocks suitable for downstream processing. Commercial precedents show that certain types of lignin (lignosulphonates) may be converted into vanillin and other marketable products, but new technologies are needed to enhance the lignin value chain. The complex, irregular structure of lignin complicates chemical conversion efforts, and known depolymerization methods typically afford ill-defined products in low yields (that is, less than 10-20wt%). Here we describe a method for the depolymerization of oxidized lignin under mild conditions in aqueous formic acid that results in more than 60wt% yield of low-molecular-mass aromatics. We present the discovery of this facile C-O cleavage method, its application to aspen lignin depolymerization, and mechanistic insights into the reaction. The broader implications of these results for lignin conversion and biomass refining are also considered.

Biological soil crust (biocrust) is a composite of mosses, lichens, and bacteria that performs many important soil system functions, including increasing soil stability, protecting against wind erosion, reducing nutrient loss, and mediating carbon and nitrogen fixation cycles. These cold desert and steppe ecosystems are expected to experience directional changes in both climate and disturbance. These include increased temperatures, precipitation phase changes, and increased disturbance from anthropogenic land use. In this study, we assessed how climate and grazing disturbance may affect the abundance and diversity of bacteria in biocrusts in cold steppe ecosystems located in southwestern Idaho, USA. To our knowledge, our study is the first to document how biocrust bacterial composition and diversity change along a cold steppe climatic gradient. Analyses based on 16S small subunit ribosomal RNA gene sequences identified the phylum Actinobacteria as the major bacterial component within study site biocrusts (relative abundance = 36-51%). The abundance of the phyla Actinobacteria and Firmicutes was higher at elevations experiencing cooler, wetter climates, while the abundance of Cyanobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Chloroflexi decreased. The abundance of the phyla Cyanobacteria and Proteobacteria showed no significant evidence of decline in grazed areas. Taken together, results from this study indicate that bacterial communities from rolling biocrusts found in cold steppe ecosystems are affected by climate regime and differ substantially from other cold desert ecosystems, resulting in potential differences in nutrient cycling and ecosystem dynamics.

Background: Most health effects studies of ozone and temperature have been performed in urban areas, due to the available monitoring data. We used observed and interpolated data to examine temperature, ozone, and mortality in 91 urban and non-urban counties. Methods: Ozone measurements were extracted from the Environmental Protection Agency's Air Quality System. Meteorological data were supplied by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Observed data were spatially interpolated to county centroids. Daily internal-cause mortality counts were obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics (1988-1999). A two-stage Bayesian hierarchical model was used to estimate each county's increase in mortality risk from temperature and ozone. We examined county-level associations according to population density and compared urban (⩾1,000 persons/mile2) to non-urban (<1,000 persons/mile2) counties. Finally, we examined county-level characteristics that could explain variation in associations by county. Results: A 10 ppb increase in ozone was associated with a 0.45% increase in mortality (95% PI: 0.08, 0.83) in urban counties, while this same increase in ozone was associated with a 0.73% increase (95% PI: 0.19, 1.26) in non-urban counties. An increase in temperature from 70°F to 90°F (21.2°C 32.2°C) was associated with a 8.88% increase in mortality (95% PI: 7.38, 10.41) in urban counties and a 8.08% increase (95% PI: 6.16, 10.05) in nonurban counties. County characteristics, such as population density, percentage of families living in poverty, and percentage of elderly residents, partially explained the variation in county-level associations. Conclusions: While most prior studies of ozone and temperature have been performed in urban areas, the impacts in non-urban areas are significant, and, for ozone, potentially greater. The health risks of increasing temperature and air pollution brought on by climate change are not limited to urban areas.

AbstractCOVID-19 continues to exact a substantial toll on health. While mortality and morbidity associated with the pandemic are the most obvious impacts, social and economic disruptions are becoming apparent. There is reason to believe that the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed or reversed gains in clean household energy use in rural India. Here we describe phone surveys deployed repeatedly in Jharkhand and Bihar to describe pandemic-related changes in household socio-economic conditions and energy-use patterns. Over three-quarters of households reported hardships during the pandemic, including loss of employment and an inability to search for jobs. In turn, some of these households relied more on polluting fuels. Despite nearly all households preferring gas and electricity, we observed varied behaviours related to the cost of and access to these modern energy sources. We highlight the success of India’s three-free-cylinders scheme, with 90% of households aware of the programme and utilizing at least one free cylinder. These findings illustrate the utility of high-frequency energy-related questionnaires and suggest that interventions to improve clean fuel accessibility and affordability can increase the resilience of transitions to clean household energy.