I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you spend much time outdoors, you’re probably going to get bitten by a tick. And that means you could contract Lyme disease.

Climate change is partly to blame. Warming global temperatures are helping boost tick populations in two ways: they’re giving ticks more time to complete their life cycle, and they’re making  it easier for these pests to survive in more northerly latitudes that used to be too cold for them.

But development and sprawl are factors, too.  As development shrinks forests and wetlands, deer, foxes, and other animals that carry ticks move into suburban and even urban neighborhoods. The ticks may rub off onto bushes or fall into the grass, where pets can easily pick them up, or you’ll get them when you’re gardening or having a barbecue.

More Lyme Disease

More ticks everywhere only means one thing: More Lyme disease.

According to researchers from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health in Toronto, Canada, Lyme disease incidence increased about 80% in the United States between 1993 and 2007.  And it’s still going strong.

The symptoms of this wretched affliction can be miserable: fever, headache, fatigue, and a skin rash that often creates a distinctive “bull’s eye” circle around the place where you were bitten.

If you don’t treat the disease, the infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system. And once it gets hold of you, it can last for years. Immediate treatment, usually with antibiotics, is absolutely critical.

Just as important, though, is to protect yourself against getting a tick bite in the first place.

How to Prevent a Tick Bite

1) Take precautions year-round, but especially April – September, when ticks are most active.

2) Stay on paths and avoid high grass. It’s easy for ticks to attach themselves to your clothes or skin if you’re walking through woods, a meadow, a forest, or even a tall lawn that hasn’t been mowed for a while. Stay on a clear path where you won’t brush up against foliage that could be bearing ticks. Walk in the center of trails.

3) When hiking through woods or tall grass, wear protective clothing. That includes long pants that fit close to your ankles, socks, boots or shoes that enclose your entire foot, long-sleeved shirts, and a hat.

4) Garden carefully. When gardening in your yard or mowing your lawn, wear long pants, socks, and shoes rather than shorts and sandals. Don a long-sleeve shirt and a hat, too. Remember, ticks can brush off deer and other wildlife and end up in the low branches of a tree, where they can drop onto you if you happen to be walking below.

5) Apply tick repellent insecticides sparingly. I prefer to wear protective clothes and spray the clothing than to spray my skin directly.

6) Look for ticks when you finish your hike or come in from outdoors. Brush off your clothes, shake out your hair, and examine your exposed skin and your scalp closely. A tick is very very tiny so take your time as you look yourself over. Parents should take extra care with their children, looking under the arms, in and around the ears, inside the belly button, behind the knees, between the legs, around the waist, and especially in their hair.

7) Examine your pets. Keep your cats and dogs up-to-date on their flea and tick regimen. Pets can get Lyme disease, too. They can also transport ticks into your home, where they could bite you. The best strategy is to keep ticks out of the house and off your body and that of your pet. Before you bring your pet inside, comb its fur with a fine comb to reveal any ticks that could be clinging to it. Otherwise, it’s easy for the pet to transfer the tick to you.

Meet My Tick Bite

Last May, after a weekend spent gardening in my backyard, I woke up to discover this big red welt on my lower abdomen.

As soon as I saw it, I thought “tick bite,” though I don’t remember seeing a tick, and there was no tick apparent.

I immediately went to the doctor, and his reaction was the same as mine. He took one look and decided to put me on antibiotics right away so I wouldn’t get Lyme disease. 

It took almost two weeks for the welt to go away. I finished the antibiotic treatment and have no Lyme disease symptoms. But this spring and summer, I’ll be much more careful about dressing to protect myself against getting bitten again.

The post Why You Are Probably Going to Get Bitten by a Tick This Summer (Unless You Follow My Advice) appeared first on Big Green Purse.

Why is the Green New Deal such a big deal? And what impact could it have on your life and the life and future of your family and community?

I’ve read the Deal from top to bottom and here’s what I’ve figured out:

What the Green New Deal aims to do is:

Eliminate the carbon emissions fueling climate change and
the resulting extreme weather events, economic disruption, and disease it causes.

…and 

Do it in the next 10 years.

But what, specifically, does the Green New Deal call for? Here’s a rundown of the Deal and what it means for us and our kids.

First, what actually IS it? The Green New Deal is a resolution, not a proposed law. It does not suggest specific legislation. Instead, it sets an exciting goal that calls for the US to reach “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2029. In doing so, it acknowledges how current energy production affects every aspect of our lives, including employment, health, housing, and education.

Still need to know more about climate change? Don’t miss this post:

Top 10 Reasons to Take Climate Change Seriously!

Why Is It called a “New Deal”? The reference is to the New Deal President Franklin D. Roosevelt created in the 1930s to save the United States from the worst depression in its history. FDR’s New Deal not only put people back to work but established a host of federal agencies and programs to protect farmers, the unemployed, youth, and the elderly.

Several of those programs, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), as well as the Social Security System and the Securities and Exchange Commission, endure today and continue to benefit millions of Americans.

How would the Green New Deal benefit the environment? This past year, rampant forest fires and severe hurricanes destroyed millions of acres of forests. Climate change has made it possible for voracious pests like the pine bark beetle to extend their range northward, killing additional millions of acres of trees. Every year, oil spills pollute lakes, rivers and streams. Fracking for natural gas emits horrible air pollutants and contaminates the drinking water of hundreds of communities.

Phasing out the coal mining, fracking, and oil drilling whose emissions cause pollution and climate change would improve air and water quality. Reversing rising global temperatures could stop the spread of many pests and illnesses like Lyme disease, which have been on the rise as ticks extend their range into what were once cold climates.

How would the Green New Deal get us off dirty energy and onto cleaner energy sources? The Deal suggests a multi-step plan that begins with efficiency. It would upgrade all existing buildings to “achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability.”

New energy would be achieved by “Meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources”  like solar and wind. The GND also advocates investing in “clean, affordable, and accessible public transportation,” and expanding high-speed rail to reduce the need for polluting air travel. It would spur “massive growth in clean manufacturing” while “removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing and industry as much as is technologically feasible.” Helping farmers and ranchers eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions (i.e., the methane cows and pigs emit when they belch and fart) is on the list, too.

Would the Green New Deal benefit children’s health?  Yes! The Deal advocates an immediate transition away from burning the fossil fuels whose emissions are the primary source both of climate change and dirty air.

That would be good news for all kids, but especially for the millions who suffer from asthma and other respiratory illnesses. Less air pollution would also mean fewer “code red” or “code orange” air quality days, so kids could play outside more. In the long term, reducing the extreme weather events associated with climate change would protect children from threats associated with hurricanes, wildfires, and floods. It would also help stop the spread of infectious diseases, poison ivy, and the ticks that cause Lyme disease.

Who’s going to pay for it? The sponsors of the resolution, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA), view the Green New Deal as an investment, not an expenditure. “We will finance … the Green New Deal the same way we paid for the original New Deal, World War II, the bank bailouts, tax cuts for the rich, and decades of war–with public money appropriated by Congress.”

In all likelihood, individual programs would be paid for by some combination of re-allocated federal program budgets and private entrepreneurial investments, like those Elon Musk made to create the Tesla electric car and John Mackey made when he established the Whole Foods grocery chain.

Anything as ambitious and creative as the Green New Deal is bound to generate detractors and naysayers, and the Deal is no exception.

But with sixty-nine percent of Americans saying they are “somewhat worried” or “very worried” about climate change, according to a December survey by Yale University in Connecticut and George Mason University in Virginia, it would seem that a majority of Americans want government to do much more than they’re doing to rein in this catastrophe-in-the-making.

Of course, you don’t have to wait for Congress to act to do your own part to start saving energy and using  solar and wind.

Start by reading this post:

18 Smart Ways to Save Energy At Home

Then,

Check out the Sunrise Movement, a non-profit coalition that’s working to advance the Green New Deal across the country.

And stay tuned! I’ll have more specifics coming your way soon about how you can take advantage of the Green New Deal.

NOTE: A version of this post originally appeared on Moms Clean Air Force. Make sure you check them out!

The post 6 Reasons Why The Green New Deal Is Such a Big Deal appeared first on Big Green Purse.