News from a Changing Planet -- This Week on Earth #36

The links between pollution and Alzheimer's, what happens when wind turbines come to coal country, the Doomsday Glacier, and more.

Just look at all that PM 2.5 would ya?! Credit Sergiy Serdyuk/Fotolia via Britannica

A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE: And fossil fuels aren't helping. (Washington Post)

A study published this week found that people who are exposed to higher concentrations of PM 2.5 (small particulate matter pollution from vehicle exhaust, wildfires, and industrial activity) are more likely to have signs of Alzheimer’s in their brains after death. It’s just the latest example of the connection between air pollution and cognitive decline.

The researchers found that those who were exposed to more PM 2.5 in the year before their death were more likely to have a kind of plaque in their brain that is a symptom of Alzheimer’s. They found that the pattern held true even for those without a genetic predisposition to the disease.

It was a small study — the brains of 224 volunteers from metropolitan Atlanta who had agreed to donate their brain to science — and many of the donors were college-educated White men. However, low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately exposed to high levels of this kind of pollution, which could mean even stronger associations in these groups.

Wind turbines on the ridgeline of a coal mining community in Keyser, West Virginia. Credit Haiyun Jiang for NPR

ON THE FRONT LINE OF THE CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITION: This time, in West Virginia, where wind farms are taking the place of coal mines. (NPR)

I appreciated this story on the transformation of a coal town in West Virginia to a wind-powered one, and the social and economic realities of what it’s like to live in a community in transition.