What is the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI)?
The Air Quality Health Index or "AQHI" is a scale designed to help you understand what the air quality around you means to your health. 
It is a health protection tool that is designed to help you make decisions to protect your health by limiting short-term exposure to air pollution and adjusting your activity levels during increased levels of air pollution. It also provides advice on how you can improve the quality of the air you breathe.
This index pays particular attention to people who are sensitive to air pollution and provides them with advice on how to protect their health during air quality levels associated with low, moderate, high and very high health risks.
The AQHI communicates four primary things;
1.A number from 1 and 10+ indicating the quality of the air. The higher the number, the greater the health risk associated with the air quality. When the amount of air pollution is very high, the number will be reported as 10+.
2.A category that describes the level of health risk associated with the index reading (e.g. Low, Moderate, High, or Very High Health Risk).
3.Health messages customized to each category for both the general population and the ‘at risk’ population.
4.Current hourly AQHI readings and maximum forecasted values for today, tonight and tomorrow.
The AQHI is designed to give you this information in one place along with some suggestions on how you might adjust your activity levels depending on your individual health risk from air pollution. Follow this guide on how to use the AQHI or learn about the history of the AQHI.
How is the AQHI calculated?The AQHI is calculated based on the relative risks of a combination of common air pollutants which are known to harm human health. These pollutants include:
•Ozone (O3) at ground level,
•Particulate Matter (PM2.5/PM10) and
•Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2).
What is the scale for the new AQHI?The AQHI is measured on a scale ranging from 1-10+. The AQHI index values are also grouped into health risk categories as shown below. These categories help you to easily and quickly identify your level of risk.
•1-3 Low health risk
•4-6 Moderate health risk
•7-10 High health risk
•10 + Very high health risk
More information on the scale and the AQHI categories.
How can I find out about the air quality in my community?If you live in one of the AQHI pilot locations, visit Your Local AQHI Conditions Web page.
If you reside outside the AQHI pilot areas, please contact your local public health office, Ministry of Environment air monitoring branch, or local lung association chapter for available local resources on air quality.
The Air Quality Health Index
online prescription delivery damages environment?!
I start concering the damages on environment causing by using the online prescription delivery in my profession field.
I have a personal interest for the sustainability issues in my profession field about the prescription delivery system. Because it creates not only lots of garbages from the prescription packages but also dedicates the increase of car gas emission by delivery system.
As many people order the prescription by onlie, it comes to improve the chance of polluting air, too.
Then, what should we do?
Since it's impossible to stop the system which makes people convenient and brings more earnings to business, we have to make other options such as giving discount for direct pick-up or limiting online order per person for one week etc.
Earth Hour
Canada:
For one hour a section of the border between Canada and the US was visually and symbolically removed, as a jointly coordinated switch off saw the iconic Niagara Falls disappear in the night. Nearly the last attractions to turn off in both countries were also notable suspension bridges completed less than a year apart – San Francisco’s Golden Gate (1937) and Vancouver’s Lion Gate (1938) bridges.
Canada has a tradition of strong Earth Hour support, and 2010, with some cites and towns taking part is no exception. 
Now in its second year an Earth Hour concert and street party held in downtown Barrie, Ontario, appears to have become a custom. The event itself is in keeping with the theme of Earth Hour - to keep it fun, and to raise awareness about climate change - and is kept lively by international acts as well as local buskers, musicians and artists.
In nearby Toronto, the CN Tower, the world tallest free-standing structure, again dimmed its lights for Earth Hour, in yet another almighty display of landmark action on climate change that has circumnavigated the world.
Food Manufacturers That are Wasting Less
By Jessica Bates
January 18, 2010
Some companies are using renewable resources such as wind and solar power to manufacture food, and some are creating biodegradable packaging for their products.
Not all of us have the time or resources to grow a garden and produce our own food. Luckily, some companies are using renewable resources such as wind and solar power to manufacture food, and some are creating biodegradable packaging for their products. Solar power is becoming increasingly popular, with the demand rising about 20% per year for the past 20 years, according to Solar Buzz. Wind energy is another popular energy alternative, and according to the World Wind Energy Association, wind energy supplied 1.5% of the world’s power in 2008. Here are a few companies that are exhibiting green energy practices.
Mars, Inc.
Next time you get harassed for eating too many Dove bars, tell your critic that at least Mars, Inc. is putting one green foot forward. Mars, Inc., makers of treats like M&Ms, Skittles, Dove, Snickers, Twix, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers and Combos, claims to have the largest solar-powered food manufacturing plant in the country.
What Mars representatives are calling a “solar garden” was announced in November 2009, with more than 28,000 solar panels stretching across 18 acres of New Jersey land. At the peak of energy consumption, the solar garden will contribute 20% of the plant’s electricity and will reduce Mars’ carbon emissions by 1,000 metric tons. This emission reduction is equal to 190 automobiles’ emissions per year. Aren’t green M&Ms your favorite anyway?
Frito-Lay, Inc.
Sun Chips Food Manufacturers That are Wasting Less
SunChips now come in fully biodegradable packaging.
The Frito-Lay solar-powered plant in Modesto, CA, manufactures SunChips, and excitingly enough, SunChips bear a worthy name. According to Frito-Lay, the company’s solar collectors save the atmosphere from 1.7 million pounds of carbon dioxide a year. The plant produces more than 145,000 bags of SunChips per day. According to SunChips, later this year, consumers will be able to buy SunChips in compostable bags as well. The Modesto plant began using solar collectors in 2008, and since this city is sunny, the system has a bright future. Solar power is also used to steam the chips, avoiding the need for natural gas in the process.
New Belgium Brewing Company
This Colorado brewing company serves up green beer! Not the beer you drink on St. Patrick’s Day that gives you green teeth, but beer produced with clean wind energy. New Belgium has been using wind power for electricity since 1999. The company’s employees voted in favor of a 10-year commitment to wind power, and the decision was a good one.
Not only does New Belgium employ wind power, but the company also puts on Tour de Fat, a traveling beer and bike festival with a solar-powered stage for entertainment and beer in compostable cups made from corn. The tour supports all sorts of green initiatives, but doesn’t skimp on the recycling aspect, either: Huge tents on the festival grounds house recycling collectors and composting bins. And, at each stop on the tour, someone trades in their car for a bike after vowing to go car-free.
Kettle Foods, Inc.
While Kettle Foods is purchasing enough wind energy credits to offset its entire electricity usage in the U.S., the company also uses on-site wind energy from its Beloit, WI, factory. Consumers can see live data of wind energy produced on site. To date, the wind farm has produced more than 4,600 kilowatt hours of energy. Kettle Foods makes kettle chips, tortilla chips, organic chips, potato chips and nut butters.
Pet food goes green
If you’re looking for eco-friendly manufacturers for your pet food, you have a few options. Nestle Purina’s Denver-based plant has solar panels on its roof that provide 1% of energy for the plant. While this figure doesn’t seem so impressive on its own, the energy provided yearly is equal to 23 automobiles’ emissions. And, Mars makes its Cesar Canine Cuisine line in a LEED-certified Arkansas factory.
If you’re looking for other ideas, Urban Leash & Treat sells organic, sustainable pet supplies and doggie treats online. If you grow food in your back yard or if you are part of a co-op, you could even try making your own pet food.
Pharmacy Technician
Pharmacy Technician
Context
Pharmacy technicians work in pharmacies in retail chain stores, independent pharmacies, clinic and hospital pharmacies; and in related organizations such as pharmaceutical companies, health and life insurance companies, drug wholesalers and pharmacy supply companies.
Description
Pharmacy technicians provide clerical and technical support to pharmacists in hospitals or retail pharmacies.
In most retail pharmacies, technicians are often interrupted by orders, telephone calls, and staff and customer questions. The hours can be long and irregular, sometimes under stressful conditions. The work is challenging and requires accuracy—there is no room for error. Technicians spend most of the day on their feet and are required to lift and move objects weighing up to ten kilograms.
Main duties
They measure, mix, package, label and deliver medication. They keep computerized lists of patient prescriptions and see to it that the right drugs have been prescribed. They also look after home health care products such as canes and hearing or vision aids.
Depending on their position, they can also manage third-party billing, answer the telephone, direct customers to items or to the pharmacist for a consultation, receive written prescriptions, clean and sterilize dispensing bottles and instruments, answer questions about non-drug products and operate a cash register.
Education
A high school diploma with courses in chemistry or biology is recommended. Most hospitals require the completion of a one-year pharmacy technician program at a community college.
Skills
● Excellent knowledge of math
● Proficiency in the use of computer tools
● Basic knowledge in chemistry or biology
Qualities
● Concentration and precision
● Good memory, clarity, reliability
● Manual dexterity
● Excellent oral and written communication skills
Salary
The average annual salary is $24,521, ranging from $13,046 to $36,981 at the lower and higher ends of the scale.
Career path
After a few years of experience, pharmacy technicians can aspire to supervisory or pharmacist positions.
Antibiotic Overuse---dangerous!!!
When we talk about sustainable futures in pharmacy field, we have to pay more attention on the antibiotic overuse. Because it is really dangerous for our future.
The following video shows the reasons why antibiotic overuse puts the risk on our future.
The Oneocean-special presentation
The answer is NO.
movie - Dear John
Special Forces Army Sergeant John Tyree (Channing Tatum) is home on a two-week leave from Germany. He meets Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried) after he dives into the ocean to retrieve Savannah's purse that had fallen off the pier. John is smitten by Savannah and falls in love at first sight. Savannah is a college student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is on spring break and is helping build a house for Habitat for Humanity. John joins in with Savannah to help build the house. Along the way a budding romance occurs, and Savannah falls deeply in love with John. As she is about to go back to college, she promises to write John overseas during the next 12-months until he returns to her after completing his enlistment. Their love is put to the test when John reenlists after the 9/11 attack. Douglas Young (the-movie-guy)
Canada's annual seal hunt off to slow start
MONTREAL – Canada's annual seal hunt was off to a slow start Sunday, with most fishing boats still moored in their harbors, as missing ice floes in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence kept their prey hundreds of miles to the north.
"I know one boat set sail tonight, at around 4:00 am in the morning," Magdalen Island seal hunters' association president Denis Longuepee told AFP.
"In past years, there were 10 to 40 boats weighing anchor" to go seal hunting, he added.
About a dozen hunters are aboard a ship trying to find a small harem of 1,000 seals spotted Saturday from a plane by Fisheries and Oceans Canada near Blanc-Sablon, in the northeastern corner of Quebec province, according to Radio Canada.
The mild winter this year has hampered the hunt for the Greenland seal. A lack of ice floes in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence has kept some 300,000 seals far to the north, off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, where there is coastal ice.
That's good news for seal hunters in Newfoundland and Labrador, said Longuepee.
Seal hunting brings in 20-30 per cent of the yearly revenue of 400-500 hunter-fishermen in Magdalen Islands. The rest of the year, they fish for lobster and clams.
Seal hunting is highly controversial for its perceived inhumane killing methods. The 27 European Union states in July 2009 adopted a ban on seal products, ruling the goods could not be marketed from 2010.
Around 6,000 Canadians take part in seal hunting each year along the Atlantic coast, and 25 per cent of their sales had come from exporting products to Europe.
Canada and Greenland account for more than 50 per cent of the 900,000 seals slain in the world each year. Other seal-hunting countries include Norway, Namibia, Iceland, Russia and the United States.
Why is overfishing a problem
Recently, I read an article from the overfishing.org, which named "Overfishing--A global disaster". i found it provides very basic information about overfishing, and also includes the updated data about global overfishing.
I decide to paste it in this blog. Therefore, many of my friends could have some basic ideas about overfishing and how serious it is today.
What is overfishing:
Overfishing can be defined in a number of ways. However, everything comes down to one simple point: Catching too much fish for the system to support leads to an overall degradation to the system. Overfishing is a non-sustainable use of the oceans.
Below are a few definitions in use by organisations and governments.
The practice of commercial and non-commercial fishing which depletes a fishery by catching so many adult fish that not enough remain to breed and replenish the population. Overfishing exceeds the carrying capacity of a fishery.
Catching too many fish; fishing so much that the fish cannot sustain their population. The fish get fewer and fewer, until finally there are none to catch.
Fishing with a sufficiently high intensity to reduce the breeding stock levels to such an extent that they will no longer suppport a sufficient quantity of fish for sport or commercial harvest.
What is causing overfishing
Worldwide, fishing fleets are two to three times as large as needed to take present day catches of fish and other marine species and as what our oceans can sustainably support. On a global scale we have enough fishing capacity to cover at least four Earth like planets.
On top of the overcapacity many fishing methods are unsustainable in their own way. These methods have a large impact on the basic functioning of our marine ecosystems. These unselective fishing practices and gear cause tremendous destruction on non target species. Bycatch / discards and bottom trawling destruction are two examples of this.
Why is overfishing a problem:
In the first chapter we discussed already that globally fishing fleets are at least two to three times as large as needed to take present day catches of fish and other marine species. To explain why overfishing is a problem we first have to get an idea on the scale of the problem. This is best done by looking at some figures published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The FAO scientists publish a two yearly report (SOFIA) on the state of the world's fisheries and aquaculture. The report is generally rather conservative regarding the acknowledging of problems but does show the main issues. In general it can be stated that the SOFIA report is a number of years behind time of the real situation.
52% of fish stocks are fully exploited
20% are moderately exploited
17% are overexploited
7% are depleted
1% is recovering from depletion
The above shows that over 25% of all the world's fish stocks are either overexploited or depleted. Another 52% is fully exploited, these are in imminent danger of overexploitation (maximum sustainable production level) and collapse. Thus a total of almost 80% of the world's fisheries are fully- to over-exploited, depleted, or in a state of collapse. Worldwide about 90% of the stocks of large predatory fish stocks are already gone. In the real world all this comes down to two serious problems.
We are losing species as well as entire ecosystems. As a result the overall ecological unity of our oceans are under stress and at risk of collapse.
We are in risk of losing a valuable food source many depend upon for social, economical or dietary reasons.
The single best example of the ecological and economical dangers of overfishing is found in Newfoundland, Canada. In 1992 the once thriving cod fishing industry came to a sudden and full stop when at the start of the fishing season no cod appeared. Overfishing allowed by decades of fisheries mismanagement was the main cause for this disaster that resulted in almost 40.000 people losing their livelihood and an ecosystem in complete state of decay. Now, fifteen years after the collapse, many fishermen are still waiting for the cod to return and communities still haven't recovered from the sudden removal of the regions single most important economical driver. The only people thriving in this region are the ones fishing for crab, a species once considered a nuisance by the Newfoundland fishermen.
What can I do to help:
The effects of overfishing are still reversible, that is, if we act now and act strongly.
When fish stocks decline and and fisheries become commercially unviable the damaged stock gets some rest and generally struggles along on a pathetic level compared to it's pre-fishing level, but doesn't go biologically extinct . A damaged system is struggling and shifting, but can still be active (e.g. filled with jellyfish instead of cod).
If we want to we can reverse most of the destruction. In some situations it might only take a decade, in other situations it might take many centuries. Yet in the end we can have productive and healthy oceans again as is shown in many examples around the world. We do however need to act on it now, before we cross the point of no return.
Every long-term successful and sustainable fishery, near-shore or high-seas, needs to be managed according to some basic ground rules:
Save catch limitsA constantly reassessed, scientifically determined, limit on the total number of fish caught and landed by a fishery. Politics and short time economical incentives should have no role in this.
Controls on bycatchThe use of techniques or management rules to prevent the unintentional killing and disposal of fish, crustaceans and other oceanic life not part of the target catch or landed.
Protection of pristine and important habitatsThe key parts in ecosystems need full protection from destructive fisheries; e.g. the spawning and nursing grounds of fish, delicate sea floor, unique unexplored habitats, and corals.
Monitoring and EnforcementA monitoring system to make sure fishermen do not land more than they are allowed to, do not fish in closed areas and cheat as less as possible. Strong monetary enforcement is needed to make it uneconomic to cheat.
We need to make sure management systems based on these rules are implemented everywhere.
In combination with the banning of the lavish -hidden- subsidies to commercially unviable fisheries.
So, what can I do to help
It's fair to say that individuals cannot solve this global problem all by ourselves, we need politicians to strengthen international law. What we can do is make a difference. Over a decade ago many people started buying dolphin-friendly tuna. Now the time has come to buy ocean friendly tuna. Here are some of the actions you yourself can undertake.
Be informedRead up a bit on the issues of overfishing, have a look at some articles on this site, see if you can find some information regarding your local situation. Keep in mind that while this is a global problem every local situation is different.
Know what you eatIf you eat fish make sure you know what you eat, and pick the ones with the lowest impact. Have a look at the Guide to Good Fish Guides for some tips.
Spread the wordI know, it's all rather obvious, but this is simply how it works. Let your voice be heard!
Friends - Mention to your friends why you refrain from eating certain fish, tell them about the problems we're faceing -pointing them to the Overfishing Basics at overfishing.org might be a good idea.
Elected officials - Write to your elected officials or political party and tell them you are concerned about overfishing and destructive fishing methods. Ask them what they think of the fisheries problem and what they are doing to manage our oceans in a sustainable manner.
Media - Your local newspaper almost certainly has a section dedicated for letters by readers or articles. If you are motivated it writing a letter to the editor is a good way of getting a wide audience.
If you prefer to visit the website, please go to:
http://overfishing.org/pages/what_is_overfishing.php
Cars, Air Pollution and Health
Update March 2010:
The decision to drive cars long distances to work was common among people in North America and Europe in the past 60 years. Cities grew larger. The development of suburbs often placed homes far from work places; massive road construction encouraged extravagant car use. In retrospect, it is clear that commuters made a mistake and they should stop commuting. Their mistake had health and economic consequences for them personally and for every other inhabitant of planet earth.
Driving a car is the most air polluting act an average citizen commits.
Air pollution is not a good idea for a variety of reasons, large and small. The right ideas for remediation of environmental degradations involve unselfish and compassionate behavior, a scarce commodity. The right ideas involve long-term planning, conservation and a deep commitment to preserving the natural world. Without a healthy natural environment, there will be few or no healthy humans. To understand air pollution you can consider a simple schematic that divides a big problem into components.
1. Local effects -e.g. poisoning humans breathing bad air.
2. Regional effects - fallout from airborne pathogens - infections, particles, chemicals.
3. Global effects - changing interactions between the atmosphere and sun, weather effects, effects on plants and oceans.
Developments in the media made "green" the slogan for action to limit the adverse effects of air pollution. The media often suggested that this is a relatively new consensus that there is an environmental crisis. They excused people who have ignored the effect of greenhouse gases on climates over the past 40 years. Some know what is really going on out there, but most people do not know or know but deny the obvious for selfish reasons.
Plastic bags harm environment
Here are some of the harmful effect of plastic bags:
- Plastic bags litter the landscape.
- Plastic bags kill animals
- Plastic bags are non-biodegradable.
- Petroleum is required to produce plastic bags.
- A tote bag can make a good substitute for holding the shopping. You can keep the bag with the cashier, and then put your purchases into it instead of the usual plastic bag.
- Recycling the plastic bags you already have is another good idea. These can come into use for various purposes, like holding your garbage, instead of purchasing new ones.
